It’s the start of another season of making music.  Bashing through notes and rhythms to get to the good stuff.  The actual music – the full picture, the story telling, really full resonant sound that connects to the soul. 

At the start of learning new music, we can begin timidly, wanting to avoid getting things wrong.  But here’s the thing.  Sometimes being timid with our mistakes, hoping they aren’t noticed, expecting only perfection can make learning slower to find what we need to work on and can actually hurt our instrument(s).  Practicing the mistakes over and over again actually makes mistakes harder to undo.

One of my favorite things a musical director can ask for is for the individuals in a group to make their mistakes confidently!  Then we can celebrate how tricky something can be right away.  We can explore why it’s giving us trouble.  And we can learn how to play what’s asked of us better in a shorter amount of time.  

As we begin again – let us do confidently and hold each other gently as we find our way together boldly into what will be.