Today, in my erhu lesson*, I had some trouble. I kept messing up with where my fingers should be, but if I got the fingering correct I would be on the wrong string.
Why? Why was I just not getting it this week? Last week was great! This week? Oh, I wanted to throw the thing!
I'll tell you why I had trouble this week. Every time I had trouble my mind was on something else. Sometimes I was just thinking about technique: "pull. push. pull. am i off? should I be pushing or puling now?" Sometimes I was thinking about the song: "oh, I like this song. it sounds really good on the erhu." Sometimes I was thinking about my own inadequacy, "my teacher makes it sound so pretty, when I play the same song it sounds so ugly." And, once it was on what I am writing about right now: "amanda, if you think about anything, if your mind is filled with thoughts, then you can't play right at all. stop it. now focus."
There are very few times in my life where I have had to have the discipline to have a completely thought-free thinker. My thinker loves to think. It is hard to make it think of nothing--to just let my brain tell my hands what to do without thinking about it.
But, habits are just this: things we do without thinking about them.
And, while I want to stop thinking while I play my erhu, I want to start thinking about my habits--to decide which ones to keep and which ones to declutter from my life. And to decide which ones I want to add to make my life more simple and focused.
* The erhu (pictured above) is a two-stringed traditional Chinese instrument. I have been learning to play it for about 8 months now.
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