A quest

This is a blog about someone trying to get better every single day at one single thing.  And that is playing the French horn.  It's not the most important thing in the world, I realize.  And yet it is the most important thing in the world to me, a strange predicament that I find myself in. 

I'm starting this blog to explore what it means to be a student and teacher of an art that holds little popular value in society's view.  Not that classical music isn't valuable.  It's essential and human and rewarding and inherently important...but connecting that to my three daily hours in a windowless practice room is the tricky part.  That's the rub.  And for those non-musicians (i.e. the "real people" I have heard rumor of), it may seem fairly straightforward...you practice, you improve, you eventually become a master and share your mastery with others.  But the more advanced a musician I become, the more I think practicing is not exclusively about the outcome, it's about the time spent.  It's about the toil and the frustration and those elusive moments of illumination.  And it's about developing an awareness of mind and body that can be relied upon in any stressful situation.

In short, it's about paying attention, what the poet Mary Oliver calls our "endless and proper work."  Every day for however many hours my brain will permit, I problem-solve-- problems that sometimes only I know exist with solutions that rely entirely on my creativity, intellect, and muscle memory.  It's exhilarating when you look at it that way, though the everyday experience is often anything but.  Practicing in its purest form is a combination of detachment, passion, courage, and not a little faith that it's all going to be worth it at some future point.  It is a transcendence of the limitations we impose on ourselves and a way to connect to our truest potential.  I suppose, though by no means am I a Zen Buddhist, it is like the koan: a glimpse of insight that only occurs when one can let go of past experiences and logical thinking.

In this blog, I'll attempt to detail this process of practicing, performing, and contemplating classical music until I find enlightenment.  Or employment.  Whichever comes first.