Practice Makes Progress

I saw some words of wisdom a while back - on Twitter, of all places - from Jason Isbell:

I’m finding it hard to walk.

For the past five years, I’ve been learning songs “good enough to get by.” A lot of times these aren’t my favorite songs - they’re requests, or songs I know are popular and would probably go over well during a gig. So I’ve just been getting enough of the chord changes and melody to do a passable version around a campfire, or to deliver a request when someone shouts it out from across the bar.

This approach has worked fine, but I’ve found my playing has suffered overall. What’s more, I have lost touch with the patience required to go slow, to run a bar over, and over, and over until it’s right.

That patience isn’t just necessary for learning music - it’s essential to have patience when I’m doing my own songwriting. My first draft is never perfect - whose is? - and if I walk away or rush the song to an end, it shows.

So I am learning to walk, again, this time with all the obligations and distractions of middle age. And I can keep my focus on the patience, perhaps I can enjoy the journey.