Sunday, September 28, 2008

Practice, practice, practice...(are we there yet?)

Excerpt from today's "Our Daily Bread", with emphasis added.

Leonardo da Vinci spent 10 years drawing ears, elbows, hands, and other parts of the body in many different aspects. Then one day he set aside the exercises and painted what he saw. Likewise, athletes and musicians never become great without regular practice.

Practice and training is VERY, VERY different from the actual performance, or actual thing. One thing we must realise is that for a very good or even exceptional performance to be materialised, there has to be thorough and intense preparation and training involved.

Likewise, to become excellent at something, one needs to devote and be willing to sacrifice long hours in training. There are no shortcuts - an initial burst of enthusiasm to pursue something is, bluntly put, not good enough. What's necessary and crucial is actually steadfast and faithful practice - despite emotion, circumstances or others.

There are many times when I see some musician perform or do a cover on Youtube and I'm so amazed and inspired by it, I grab my guitar and search for the tabs and try it. Then reality hits - it is not as easy as it appears to be.

Yes, practice, practice, practice...it's the long-term consistency that counts.

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