I was listening to my daughter practice the piano this morning. I was hearing the same 8 notes over and over and over again. To some, hearing the same few notes being repeated, repeatedly J might be very annoying. To me it was “music to my ears,” for two reasons.
One, because I knew my daughter had arrived at the knowledge of a very valuable lesson – that repetition is the key to mastery! And two, I knew that with that knowledge, her goal of playing a beautiful piano piece would soon arrive. With her focused attention and repeated practice her success would be inevitable!
How easy it is to want something, give it a try and then if it doesn’t work out that first time, give up and want to blame something or someone, including ourselves. When the truth of the matter is that giving consistent, applied effort will result in success. But we most likely will need to try more than once or twice or even three times.
Napolean Hill, in his book, “Think and Grow Rich,” speaks of having a definiteness of purpose. Know your reason and why. Without that knowledge we tend to start drifting after one or two failures. Not even 1 in 1000 will continue after 3 failures, he says. If you don’t have a plan, you drift. That’s like the beginner pianist who just wants to play through the piece and skims through the hard passages without ever gaining mastery.
I’ve seen it time and time again in my children’s years of piano lessons, and in life itself, that when one arrives at knowing the “why,” and consistently repeats and practices the steps to achieve that goal, that’s when the real growth and music begin.
