I am experiencing some similarities between my music and my art. When I first started going to adult education lessons I would find myself getting frustrated in the summer holidays and decide I was going to jack it all in. Well I’m going through a fed up and frustrated phase at the moment, frustration that I don’t move forward faster, that I struggle with the co ordination of my hands (piano) and I can’t consistently produce a lovely sound on the cello (now and again, yes, over and over again, no).
The answer of course is the same as it was with art, time to dig in. I’m experimenting with increasing my music practice to 1.5 hours a day. 1 hour for the piano, 30 mins for the cello.
Another thing I experienced with art is that when I first started going to classes, I felt I had lots of great potential waiting to be uncovered. The more I worked at it, the more hours I put in, the reality was that I had strengths and weaknesses. Those strengths and weaknesses differed from others. I worked alongside some amazing draughtsmen (people). I had one friend Brian who drew like an angel, but then he struggled with working in a more fluid, creative direction. I was the other way round, I started art classes to improve my drawing skills. I definitely honed them but they never went got near Brian’s level. Overall my art studies led me to a greater understanding of what my art potential was. A multitude of creative skills in a variety of eclectic directions. I will always struggle with the actual practical skills of art making and have to work with the rather childlike level of what I get down to. It was a major realisation when I accepted “I am not a painter”, after years of painting! But I had learnt so much from making paintings, even if some of that was negatives (I should never attempt making my own canvases!)
So back to the music, I am at the early stages here. I am capable of making beautiful sounds (my piano tone is good apparently, tone in music being something different to art tone) but I struggle with co ordinating my hands to do different things, something I will have to work hard on. I don’t think I will ever be into sophisticated classical music, just as I was interested to look at classical paintings but ultimately was truly moved by Auerbach, Toulouse-Lautrec and Hokusai.
It is early days, I have musical potential but I can already see that the concert pianist door is closed!
