I keep thinking about this post! I’ve been trying to get back into playing violin on and off, and it does a good job of describing why I’ve found that so hard. I stopped early on in your fourth stage, and my ear is way ahead of my ability to play anything it actually wants to listen to.
I guess once I join an orchestra I’ll enjoy that enough to get some momentum, but solo playing is pretty unrewarding right now.
Big +1 to playing with others, especially others around the same level or slightly better or worse. Motivation is one thing, but it’s also just… healthier. One’s musical ‘practice’ can’t be totally inward-looking, that’s when perfectionism starts to bite. Orchestra forces you to compromise and actually learn and perform music, gets you out of the practice room, and generally turbocharges your learning by exposing you to a more varied set of demands on your playing and musicality. Super hard mode is forming a string quartet with others, since your playing is super exposed and it forces you to stay in time and balance your sound with others.
I keep thinking about this post! I’ve been trying to get back into playing violin on and off, and it does a good job of describing why I’ve found that so hard. I stopped early on in your fourth stage, and my ear is way ahead of my ability to play anything it actually wants to listen to.
I guess once I join an orchestra I’ll enjoy that enough to get some momentum, but solo playing is pretty unrewarding right now.
Big +1 to playing with others, especially others around the same level or slightly better or worse.
Motivation is one thing, but it’s also just… healthier. One’s musical ‘practice’ can’t be totally inward-looking, that’s when perfectionism starts to bite. Orchestra forces you to compromise and actually learn and perform music, gets you out of the practice room, and generally turbocharges your learning by exposing you to a more varied set of demands on your playing and musicality.
Super hard mode is forming a string quartet with others, since your playing is super exposed and it forces you to stay in time and balance your sound with others.