11/14/24 What Doesn’t Kill Us…

Every once in a while, we all have to pick up something that’s a little heavier than we’d like, whether it’s a suitcase or a heavy piece of equipment or whatever.

And, whether we realize it or not, we are confronted with a significant philosophical choice.

We can either see this as a glass half empty, a literal pain in the neck (or ass) that will likely cause us potential harm.

Or we can see it as a glass half full, an unexpected bit of extra training we might have skipped at the gym: a chance to keep our core muscles and quads in shape.

Life gives you lemons all the time. The only difference between letting those lemons make you bitter, and turning them into lemonade, is how much effort you add.

Yes, it takes a little more effort—the will to work out instead of throw out your back. But it’s really just a few seconds. If I tighten my core, I will strengthen it as I lift this heavy object, making me a stronger human. If I don’t, I will strain my back.

Most of us choose the first way, if we think about it at all before we lift something heavy, because while it’s a little more effort, it avoids pain. But we usually grumble about it.

And while it may be intuitive to put in the extra effort when it comes to saving your back, it may not be quite as intuitive with our music. 

We can dance around a difficult passage and keep faking our way through it, until it becomes a permanent habit and becomes the way we accept our playing as the best we can do on the piece.

Or we can knuckle down, tighten our core, and decide to lift that heavy passage properly—by working out a good fingering and bowing and attacking the problem, untying the knot and figuring out what the cause of the technical issues may be, and relearning the passage properly.

And in the process, we will become a stronger player.

We all complain about the trials and tribulations, the obstacles in our path, the weights we have to move, the hard passages we have to learn. But, honestly, we should be grateful.

Adversity either defeats us or makes us stronger. Without it we become weaker and less able to face other obstacles.

It’s just the universe keeping us healthy. So, embrace those difficult passages every day to stay in your best musical shape.