Shaun Groves
School work is done. The kitchen is clean. Clothes are hung up. And now the hardest part of Wednesday comes.
She fans her fingers over the worn keys of her great great aunt’s piano and looks down, ignoring the lines and dots on the page. And she plays beautifully.
She ends with an arpeggio of her own creation, lifts her hand from the keys and points to the sky like a rock star. “Very nice,” I say, “now let’s practice.”
Penelope hates practice. She’d rather perform.
And when I ask why she tells the truth. “It doesn’t sound good.”
“If it doesn’t sound bad, you’re not really practicing,” I tell her.
She scrunches up her face – disgruntled. But she begins again, because I tell her too and I’m bigger than her. “Eyes on the page this time.”
Slowly. One measure, then the next, then the two together…
She finds diversions along the way – questions about what chocolate is made of and when we’re going to see grandparents at Christmas – anything not to practice.
“Keep going,” I say. “You’re getting better and better.” She slowly picks out the next measure, her fingers missing and then finding their way and then missing again before finally forming the right chord together.
I’m showered and dressed. Pressing emails have all been answered. The exterminator has been scheduled. The lineup for my fantasy football team is picked. And now the hardest part of Thursday comes.
I fan my Christmas set list and pages of music out on the carpet and tune the old Gibson.
I play a familiar song – something I wrote a decade ago.
Because I hate practice.
I sigh to an empty room – disgruntled. Then I strum and sing verse one of the first carol on the list. Then the second verse. My fingers miss, find, and miss again before finally forming the right chord together.
I write out the lyrics. Again. And again. Until I’m sure the Old English is engraved on my brain. But when I try to sing from memory the memory fades. I write again. Again. Again. Again…
I want to be doing anything but practicing. So I take a picture of practice and send it to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
“Keep going,” I tell myself. “You’re getting better and better.”
But I sound terrible. And it hurts – fingers and pride. To focus on the weaknesses until they become strong. To keep going. To keep believing the stumbling makes better music in the end.
If we don’t sound bad sometimes, we’re not really practicing.
Back to it… The Christmas tour kicks off tomorrow and I still don’t remember all the words to “Angels We Have Heard On High.”
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. -James 1:2-4
Jessica says:
You had a lovely like button going for awhile and now it seems to have disappeared. How am I supposed to let you know that I like this?
Jessica says:
Also – I’ve still got it.
*blows imaginary smoke from imaginary comment gun*
Katie Axelson says:
Confession: I’m read this (and writing this comment) after rereading an old piece I wrote because it’s pretty and the one I’m supposed to be writing right now isn’t.
Melissa Jones says:
So what I’m hearing is that I should put the computer down, walk past the Kindle, and “practice” the laundry again.
Sigh….
I never liked practicing either. My piano teachers hated it because I could sightread just enough better each week that they couldn’t say I wasn’t improving, but they _knew_ I wasn’t practicing because if I had been, I’d be awesome and instead I was just pretty good.
Matthew (FzxGkJssFrk) says:
Loved this. So true, and I’m teaching my eight-year-old daughter’s little fingers to play right now.
Brad says:
*sigh* Painful truth. Vocal practice, rewriting songs (or writing new ones), learning new arrangements for our songs on guitar because it makes the song better when the old way of playing it was easier. Oh, and learning to edit songs for our recordings and demos when I’m deathly afraid of messing something up. Doesn’t it sound good enough? All stuff I *want* to do, yet I find myself deathly afraid of it. There are times that I’ve wanted to abandon my songs and just do covers of songs that are already accepted as “good” and I can sing and play them well. Much easier than learning to write great songs. I didn’t actually anticipate being back in school when we started making music. So much to learn.
krisyoursis says:
yep, you and Miss P must be have a bit of “otter” in you, too! 🙂 We did the personality profile thingamajigger at church last night and discovered our son is 100% OTTER…which is why teaching him to read “in 100 easy lessons” has NOT been easy, and has taken about two years! He loathes practice…but he’s oh, SO creative! Homeschooling otter children is SO great for a mama’s prayer life and character development!