Today, one of my student played the piece she wanted to play for long time. In the past, we practiced the scale she needed to know beforehand to play the piece, but it had been long time passed since she mentioned about the piece. Today, I gave her the transcription that I made for her and we finally started to learn the piece. With a big smile, she said, "I can't believe I'm playing this song now. I'd listened to it so much for long time, but never played.". I love watching my students having the sparkles in their eyes and they just can't wait to learn more. Yes, that's passion.
It is challenging to pickup the violin to practice when you are busy in general. How much time do you really have? If you're kids, you have school to attend, homework to do and playing with friends are also important. If you're adult, you have bills to pay, laundry to do, endless things to take care of. On top of that, on your free time, you have so many other pleasurable things available with one click. Especially, nowadays, YouTube, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook or any other social media, online shopping, HBO Go, etc... And they would easily take away all of your free time that you were originally planning to practice the violin.
I think the key to successfully keep playing the violin is a lot to do with one's mental discipline.
But when we say "mental discipline", somehow it feels torturous. It doesn't sound fun. But it doesn't have to be.
The first step is to keep the positive attitude towards violin. Yes, you have to have passion.
As a teacher, I cannot give students passion. I can be passionate myself and that can be inspiring to students, but students have to have their own passion.
To own this passion is actually an important part of practice. You have to have a positive feeling and have almost like a burning desire when you think about violin playing. And if you don't have the feeling right now, you can still have it, but have to make an effort and "practice" for it.
How?
We all have the music we love.
It doesn't have to be the music played on the violin. Anything you like.
Think about the music you love.
Feel the music.
Sing it with passion. (If you don't want to sing, you can do it in your head.)
Imagine yourself playing that on the violin.
And now, play it on the violin.
If you don't know how to play it yet, decide that you will someday and,
Stick with the desire.
If you can, find the easier version of it for now.
Nowadays, it's very easy to find sheet music for anything.
And while you work on the easy version, you work on the technique that you need to own to play the music.
But don't forget about the music you love during the process.
Generate the good feeling and keep the feeling.
Here is my story...
As a kid, I had a bad attitude towards violin, hated practicing. My mother was yelling at me (she was my teacher), I was not playing well and I was thinking myself as a failure of being disciplined and not talented enough and it was emotionally painful. And I was playing the music I was given and didn't really love at that time. I had a passive attitude. And I didn't even try to play the music I loved that moment. It didn't occur to my mind to do it because I was dealing with stressful feeling and also, I didn't know if it was an option. Simply, unmotivated and uninspired. I was not playing as much and almost quit.
And one day, I decided to play jazz on it. I discovered jazz a few years before and fell in love. And all of sudden, I had so much excitement and inspiration and playing the violin more than ever. It took no efforts to pick up the violin. And the inspiration never went away. I am happier than ever. I found the music I truly love.
If you haven't, you have to find the music you really love.
It can be a song, a simple melody or a fragment of a riff that you heard from a movie that's stuck in your mind.
You can play any music on violin. And it is you who can decide to do it and make a move. Be active. Be passionate. Make practicing the violin as pleasurable as possible. You don't have to play the music you don't really like. Play the music you love.
To me, that is the key to success.
