Music

Music has been made for millenia and has the power to inspire us or to make us feel emotions. Whilst I have limited skill in creating music I do enjoy it and can find some kind of beauty in this creative work. Music takes incredible skill to be able to do well. Almost everyone at some point in their lives will have tried to play an instrument before  realising the amount of work it takes to do anything well. And I think that is what we often forget when we hear music. We hear the perfection of a musician who has spent hundreds of hours perfecting their craft and then many more on learning to play their piece well. What we rarely hear is the first attempt that a musician makes to play the piece. We’ve missed hundreds of missed notes or incorrect fingering over the years it has taken for them to reach their level of skill to be able to create the amazing work we now have the benefit of hearing.

If you are just starting out and maybe you feel a little bit discouraged but nothing happens overnight (or if it does, it’s the exception rather than the rule). Everyone starts somewhere and with practise they can get better. Usually we will only see the finished product, the view from the top if the mountain or the musical masterpiece not the drafts which litter the floor, the steep, rocky slopes or the dozens of failed attempts of playing that piece. So appreciate the skills that you see, people have worked incredibly hard to achieve them but don’t be too disheartened, instead keep working  and perhaps one day you’ll be doing what you always wanted to do.