Cross-Training
Occasionally, when one is working towards a specific goal (especially, as in my grad-school applications, a long term goal), it is pretty easy to get burnt out. Sometimes several hours a day in a practice room is the quickest way to lose your excitement with regard to music in general. When I was in college, I didn’t have the luxury of taking time off, I just had to plow through and hope that I wasn’t too jaded at the end. Now that I have a bit more flexibility in my schedule, I have time for cross-training (ie, other kinds of artistic endeavors that make me a better human, which not only give my mind a break, but which also serve to rekindle my musical motivations). Many times this means seeing a group I love live, but many other times it just means propping open a book while I play my rudiments (even on a break, I have to keep my hands busy). My experience has proven that the excitement always returns, and usually fairly quickly, setting me up for a long period of fervent productivity. But this cycle can be useful in the short-term as well. If there’s something getting in the way of your musical goals, take a short break and sort it out as quickly as possible. Practicing with your mind elsewhere is a waste of time anyway. Just make sure your cross-training doesn’t include the latest episode of…well…anything.
Here are a couple of things that have been working for me lately:
(Sometimes just a change in genre works)
And of course, my two good friends:
