Hope Springs Eternal

I play the violin. If you're reading this, there's a good chance that I've been playing the violin longer than you've been breathing. Somehow, in all that time, I haven't really figured out how to learn a piece, memorize it, then perform it without a lot of angst. After a particularly bad musical moment, I took on this title as my musical mantra: "I'm going to play again." I no longer allow myself to think the words, "I'm never going to play again." I have replaced it with those simple words. Nothing external has changed; I'm still working with the same fingers, eyes, and brain that have produced the musical experiences of my life--and some have been amazing--but, I'm working towards consistency. I want to take the crap shoot out of music--that foreboding element that looms, threatening to ruin a performance no matter how long I've practiced or how prepared I feel. And the only way to do that is to keep performing. I'm going to let those five little words transform the way I feel about performance. And, this blog will track my progress.