The key points if you want to keep your brain in check when you’re working on something really difficult. You’ll never know your true potential if you’re not fully present for the task at hand.

There is a tremendous amount to be learned from musicians, but as creatives we would do well to remember that any discipline can teach us the way toward trusting and growing our artistic instincts and coming closer to a true expression of what is in our minds and hearts.

Where our instinct is to be avoidant, the answer is not blind repetition or hope but detail. We find the detail through the process of solving as opposed to doing. Doing feeds the sense that something can still go wrong, that judgements will still be made by the audience we’re imagining. Solving, however, trains us in repeatable thoughts and actions - neural pathways we can strengthen and trust that are independent of how we feel.

Do you think about your shoulders often? Musicians probably think about them more than the average person, but I would guess that we all think about them more than people did even two decades ago before the prevalence of personal computers and smart phones.

No matter whether you like to play outside or not, the reality is that we want to sound our very best no matter the circumstances. With the outdoor odds stacked against us, playing our best just requires a little more preparation and planning.

Our perception of the life we can live is what creates our lives, and a willingness to prioritize what feels valuable and satisfying to us is both practical and necessary; an earnest type of genius that ushers us onto the main stage of our own life.

What are you observing when you practice?

Understanding our skills of observation can be the key to unlocking confidence and musicianship.

Thoughtful Refresh Series: Check In 2. How it’s going, what I’m noticing, where I started…

If you follow along with me on Instagram or The B-List newsletter, you know that my big personal project for the summer is working on my routines.

What do our breathing patterns, posture, low back, and leg muscles have in common? A relationship with our hips. Whether we can feel the connection or not, our hips are a major determining factor in our ability to breathe efficiently and to navigate low back pain or discomfort.

Thoughtful Refresh Series: Check In 1. How it’s going, what I’m noticing, where I started…

If you follow along with me on Instagram or The B-List newsletter, you know that my big personal project for the summer is working on my routines.

But there is an even bigger part of our lives as performers that the iceberg can represent, and that includes our approach to daily life outside of making music. Routines of all types, planning ahead, reflecting on what’s behind us…tending.

Routine may be an external resource, but it has everything to do with how we build skills, whether we’re trying to establish a practice routine for our instrument, a habit of mindfulness, or a physical practice of exercise or stretching.

Developing movement practices that genuinely help overhaul our mental clarity doesn’t require an elaborate routine, and often is more sustainable in small doses easily applied throughout each day. Through the implementation of small, helpful habits and observation we can connect the body and mind and create the calm and clarity we desire in our lives both on stage and off.

When we get lost in something that catches our eye or attention and we allow that thing to take over our view, it grows in size as we recede. We become small, but not in an insignificant way.

Is music a practical major? Absolutely not. Is it a way to open doors to better versions of myself? Absolutely. Majoring in music isn’t our problem, and odds are that all of us will have a portfolio career to some degree. The problem is that we’re still framing this as novel or even as a second prize to a more ideal scenario that doesn’t exist anymore.

Our culture has a do-it-all-all-the-time mentality, and musicians embrace the high octane version. The great challenge of managing doing remains that we spend so many years doing so much to the point where we begin to choose and exercise discernment around our time we can end up feeling so guilty it’s paralyzing. It helps to think of moderation and to clearly label what value and necessity activities hold.

If we all continue climbing for the one peak our training presented as Mt. Everest we risk remaining blind to the beauty of the entire range and susceptible to the dangers and pitfalls brought on by too many hikers using one path.

Best Books of 2023

The way being busy makes us feel and what we need to do to cope with high-demand periods of work will change as we get older and more experienced. Intentional planning can create success and prevent burnout.

Four books on process for creatives with work to do.