Gauntlet thrown

This month, I am embarking on a practice blog challenge.  Every day this month (not counting yesterday cuz, come on, that Super Bowl was not gonna hate-watch itself), I'm going to post a short blog entry related to that day's horn practice.  I am calling it Focused February because I'd like to do just that: re-focus on what practicing means to me.  I don't know if this will be of any interest to anyone besides myself, but hey I'm a Millennial, I do believe I'm entitled a modicum of cyber-narcissism.  I don't even Tweet, so I'm granting myself this one month.

Day 1

Today was my first real day of practice in over a week.  What that means is I'm out of shape, having only played concerts in school auditoriums at ungodly early hours for the past week and a half.  Getting back into actual practice shape sucks a lot because I make excuses for myself so easily.  Oh of course I can't play that phrase with flawless direction, I'm out of shape!  I can't tongue cleanly in the middle register, I'm out of shape!  I can't use good posture, I'm out of shape!  Tonight I was reminded of something my teacher in grad school told me: Life is Suffering.

Perhaps he heard it from, I dunno, Buddha.  He was an awfully nice man (my teacher, not Buddha, though probably both...), so that was a surprising sentiment coming from him.  But what he told me, in the context of my whining during a lesson, was that this philosophy means that those times when your chops don't feel right are still times.  Those are not outliers, those moments are just as true as the times when I sound amazing in the practice room.  So don't give up on learning in those moments.  And tonight, I didn't give up.  I didn't sound good, but I learned something- my middle C is slightly higher than where I think it is.  I know, mind-blowing, right??