Happy Tuesday Everyone!

Well, I prefer to put these out on Sundays, but hit a couple of snags this last two weeks.  Both myself and my sound engineer who I work with on some of the content I post to my YouTube channel every weeks had significant equipment malfunctions last week that basically took us out of the game of being able to produce anything for about 5 days....luckily, we were both able to sort everything out and get back online better than ever, but it certainly threw my content production schedule out of whack, which caused me to miss a blog last week, and be a couple days later than usual this week.

But you know, it's gotten me thinking about something important that I thought was relevant for all of you.  Most of my students are adults either reconnecting with the piano after a long absence, trying to learn an entirely new way of approaching piano than they ever have before, or learning it as a brand new skill.  I love working with adults too, but we have this tendency as grownups to get really frustrated by the natural processes of learning new things.  It's hard to accept going through the steps of being clumsy, clueless, and confused with anything when you're at a point in your life where you have become so accomplished at so many other things....whereas kids, with their limited life experience tend to take it much more in stride as long as they are truly interested in what they are learning....they haven't yet become so polished at much of anything yet that they now have the expectation that it should be fast and easy to pick something up you've never done before and do it at a high level....they naturally tend to settle into the flow of the learning experience.

As such, sometimes we struggle to deal with it when circumstances arise that complicate our intentions or our plans, and we let it tank our spirits to keep with the process of learning and practicing because we can't achieve perfection...in the practicing process or in the result.  I'm no different...I've been playing piano so long now that I don't struggle too much with anything I'm trying to work on with it, but I never tried to teach anyone how to do anything on piano until 13 years ago....I never made videos of myself talking to an empty room until 13 years ago....I never tried to create, run, or scale a business until 13 years ago.  And might I say my friends, I was NOT a quick learner on any of it, and I'm far from where I'd like to be in any of those categories today!  LOL

There's so much I still don't know about marketing, time management, product delivery options, technology, how to incorporate new tools into my scheme, accounting, etc.  And when I try to learn about any of it, some things sound really great and logical but prove more difficult to implement than expected, and a lot of other things sound huge and overwhelming and impossible.  And frankly, sometimes it just leaves me temporarily paralyzed....not knowing what to work on, what to try to improve, tired, and just wanting to walk away from it.  Does this ever happen to you with your journey on piano?  It's a pretty natural thing.

So, what I wanted to say about all of that is, the most important skill you can pick up to make this piano journey work (and any learning journey on any topic) is to give yourself some grace.  Life won't always cooperate and give you the time you try to set aside for practicing....sometimes the concepts just won't make sense for some reason and you'll walk away from 30 minutes of practice frustrated feeling like you accomplished nothing....this sort of thing happens.  Learning a new skill is like washing the pan you cooked a turkey in for dinner....it's covered in grease, fat, skin, etc....just a mess....and you start scrubbing it with soap and water and for quite a while it appears to get WORSE!  But, if you trust that soap, water, and friction eventually will win the race, you just keep at it and it hits that tipping point where it is clearly getting better and before you know it....it's clean.  

Cut yourself some slack for the days that don't go your way and remind yourself that even on one of those days, you did some scrubbing....you'll hit those tipping points of clarity and comprehension many times, but there's a greasy pan to scrub before you get there every time, and life around you won't always cooperate with you to maintain the perfect schedule of practice for a perfectly linear experience of growth.  But man oh man....is it ever worth it to experiences those tipping points!  Just try not to drive yourself crazy with unfair and unrealistic expectations about the process or the speed of your perceived progress in between those delicious moments.  😎🎹🎶🎤

Have a great week gang....enjoy the freebies! ;-)

This week's free content is below:

#SoloTuesday
"Pressure"
(Billy Joel)

Or if the video doesn't display here, simply click THIS LINK to view it on YouTube!

#FreeLessonFriday
Piano System Hacks:
The Simple Improv Genius of Elton John: Volume 1

Or if the video doesn't display here, simply click THIS LINK to view it on YouTube!

Bonus #SoloTuesday
"The Highwayman"
(The Highwaymen / Jimmy Webb)

Or if the video doesn't display here, simply click THIS LINK to view it on YouTube!

#SundayFunDay
Live Stream Concert with Piano Man Steve
6 - 30 - 24

Or if the video doesn't display here, simply click THIS LINK to view it on YouTube!

Have a great week everyone....and remember, if you're not having fun when you're making music....you're doing it wrong! :-)

Piano Man Steve