Klarinet Archive - Posting 000438.txt from 1996/02

From: B HUDSON <XDPW41A@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: No time for practice
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 09:34:24 -0500

>Hi everybody!
> Ok. I just got back from a lesson and I just don't have any time
>for practice. I want to have a well balanced life and all. I just don't
>think I have time to practice!! Can somebody help?
>
> Bethany
>*********************
>* Don Crim *
>* Townsend, MA USA *
>* *
>* row@-----.net *
>*********************
>
>Bethany,

Bethany, as an aging beginner who generally obsesses about any new
activity, getting the practice in isn't the problem (getting it up over two
hours a day with the fledgling embouchure is). However, having fathered
two sons-- one about to graduate from UT (Texas), and the other a 15 year
old pianist/cellist (who practices a total of roughly an hour and a half on
the two instruments daily) let me say that whatever that "well rounded
life" is that your seeking as a teenager, the images and memories are very
likely to evaporate like so much fog as you grow older. However, if you
learn to play that instrument well, probably any instrument, it won't
desert you. It'll give a greater appreciating of what you hear, and it'll
keep you from stagnating in front of the TV or becoming a lawn obsessive as
an adult. For me, unlike museums or even reading great books, to play the
great music gives one a moment of participation with the great contributors
of what is the very best of being human. But it just doesn't work without
a certain degree of competence, and it just might be that that great
pay-off requires more of an investment than the typical "well rounded" life
of today's teenager. (If nothing else thank you lucky stars you don't live
in my house-- practice is mandatory--PERIOD (and I almost always listen)).

Bruce Hudson, xdpw41a@-----.com

Raleigh, NC