I cut way back on practicing and playing last week because of pain in my right thumb. Arthritis? Tendonitis? Something else? Who knows? I'm seeing my doctor in a few weeks. In the meantime, rest and CBD cream seem to have helped.
Now I'm having trouble getting back to my ordinary practicing schedule. In just a few days the routine and habit of practicing every day have gotten away from me; I've lost my momentum.
What habit and routine and momentum do, and all the other things I talk about do, is make practicing easier. Not easy, just easier. And not the music. The music you practice may be easy or not so easy, as may be. I'm not saying, “Only practice easy stuff.” I'm saying, ”Make the process of practicing easier.”
Practicing every day, having a routine, making it a habit – these are process-type tings that I talk about all the time, and they're all extremely valuable. Among many other things, they make it easier to just sit down and get going. Sometimes that's the biggest hurdle. Once you get started, they also help keep you going.
I talk at the time about enjoying your practicing, taking charge of your practicing, learning about practicing, having goals, making practicing fit your life, savoring the good parts and forgetting the not-so-good parts... why? Again, among other good things, they make the whole thing easier.
The magic of practicing is in the process. It's in doing things more or less every day, in more or less the same way, for months in a row. It’s not in how you approach scales. It's not in an individual practicing session. It's in a month of individual sessions that you have put together in order to get better at what you want to do. The process is the glue that connects those sessions, and it’s built of all these things that make practicing easier.
Wanting to practice or thinking about practicing or planning to practice or practicing once it a while – none of these things brings progress as a player. The progress comes out of the process. But not only progress. The routine, the habits and the momentum that make the whole thing work also come out of the process. So does the enjoyment and the effectiveness. You start with whatever you may have, and you develop the tools you need by keeping at it and paying attention.
So: how am I going to get my momentum back, now that I’m more-or-less healed? I practice. I do it anyway. (That’s one of the universal solvents of practicing: Do It Anyway. Another one: Get Small and Go Slow.) I build the momentum back up by doing all the other things: scheduling, planning, enjoying, savoring, connecting.
Too often we hear from people who don't like practicing. Even professional musicians will talk about how much they don't like it. That's just wrong. You have to embrace it. Make it more enjoyable and more effective, and it will be easier to do. If it's easier, you'll do it more, and it will get you where you want to go. Practice better and you'll play better.