I am getting better at messing up!
My piano-ing has improved massively in the past year–more than I
ever thought possible, even with my painfully endless hours of practice. When I
say I’m getting better at messing up, I mean I am getting better at overcoming
the many mistakes I make real-time while playing the piano. My instinct when I
fumble notes is to pause, stare at the music, figure out what went wrong, and
then play it over again till it’s right. That instinct makes me a relentlessly
excellent practicer, but it does not translate well over into “the real world”
of accompanying the kids’ singing time at church. If the pianist pauses or
hesitates, the kids still keep on singing and the song leaves me in the dust!
Then I get flustered and it gets even harder to catch up.
Over my past ten-ish months as the kids’ primary pianist at church,
I have gotten better at leaving fumbled or sour notes behind and trucking along
with the rest of the song. Sometimes I still totally flub and stop mid-song,
desperately trying to follow along with the singers to jump back into the
middle of the music at the right moment (in a way it reminds me of jumping into
quickly swinging double dutch jump ropes). A plethora of practicing over time has
made me much more capable of moving on from those mess-ups without too much
clanging and banging. My public piano mistakes don’t paralyze me nearly as much
as they used to. In other words, I am slowly mastering the art of failing
gracefully.
“Wait, you’re not failing! Your piano playing sounds great on
Sundays!” say my kind loyal counterparts.
Hear me out. Just as I have moments of playing perfectly, I also
have moments of failing perfectly. In spite of the permanent connotation of
“failure” and “perfection,” we mortals can achieve neither one permanently in
this life. With my piano playing, neither the perfection nor the failure ever
lasts for too long. In fact, averaged all together, the ups and downs equal out
to make me a very adequate pianist.
However, it is intriguing that the more I practice, the better I get
at both succeeding and failing. There is a lesson or three in there. Obviously,
my confidence improves the more I practice, so failing is not quite as
devastating. But there’s more to it than that. We are not here on earth only to
experience endless success! The coin has two sides. We are MEANT to fail in
between successes. Failure leads to growth, improvement, experience, and
eventually wisdom. Not only can we recover from our failures, we can also
become stronger because of them. That is what life is all about: trial and
error, success and failure, learning and growing. Progressing onward and
upward!
When I practice piano, I strive for perfection, to learn all of
those notes and be able to play them anytime, anywhere. But one of the
unexpected effects/blessings of practicing till my eyeballs cross has been a
heightened ability to shake off public mistakes–failing gracefully and
accepting the bangs right along with the chords as the whole
Shaina-piano-package. Me playing: “lovely notes, l-o-v-e-l-y-n-o-t-e-s, lovely
*BANG* lovely notes, l-o-v-e-l-y BANGGG…” Without stopping or losing momentum,
I shake it off, own it, and just keep playing through the bangs. Own all of it!
That awkward mid-song BANG is just as much mine as the flawless intro. Fail
gracefully. Succeed gracefully. Success plus failure equals the real Shaina.
So what is the art of failing gracefully? Own all of it: the good
and the bad, the resonance and the dissonance. And keep on trying.
Basking in the soft mellow
afterglow around 10pm on the summer solstice.
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