Music Motivation® Blog
Musical Memories Monday, 12 January 2009 00:00 |  Written by Music Motivation® |  
Memories are interesting entities. In and of themselves they exist, in part, as a trailing reminder or constant companion of our personal ties to people, places, experiences, images, sounds, ideas, and dreams.Musical memories tend to embody how each of these is influenced by and connected to music. Music is very powerful because it connects to the brain, the heart, and the spirit. It connects to the brain on many levels because it has the power to create and destroy neurons in the brain. It connects to the heart because our heart rate can accelerate, decelerate, or become irregular according to the rhythm of the music. The spirit, however, connects to music on a deeper level because our spirits are continually touched by the power of music on our memories. We may hear a song that moves us and remember the first time we heard that music. The words may carry a particular importance to us personally because they remind us of friends, family, and personal experiences.I remember one particular musical memory that stands out to me. As a teenager, I remember being on a trip with my family. My father was driving and my mother was in the passenger seat. A song came on the radio and my father’s eyes began to get teary. The song was “Leader of the Band” by Dan Fogelberg. The lyrics of the song touched my father and he began to openly cry. My father, I assume, thought all of us children were asleep. As he drove he held my mother’s hand and they listened to the lyrics of the song. These are the lyrics of the song:An only child alone and wild, a cabinet maker’s son
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Music Goals for the New YearSunday, 04 January 2009 00:00 | Written by Music Motivation® |
At this time of year we often reflect on the previous year, evaluate and examine our personal accomplishments, productivity, progression, or, unfortunately, we often notice our ambitious attempts, postponed promises, inactivity, and personal digression.Every year we commit to change, improve, learn more, accomplish more, earn/save more money, be better husbands, wives, parents, children, siblings, friends, neighbors, etc., through annual, semi-annual, monthly, weekly, and daily goals. The to do list goes on and on with our own personal promises and hopeful expectations of what we might do as the new year begins, and, if we don’t have a step by step plan, goals are meaningless.Life comes at us quickly. Often, if we aren’t prepared or ready for it, life will pass by us and leave us behind. Those of us who have found ourselves stuck in a rut and wanting something more must ask who we are and discover what we personally need and want out of life. If we don’t know who we are, what we personally need, or want from life, we will never obtain it.When students ask me how to improve their piano playing, I ask them what they specifically want to accomplish. I ask them to tell me what their personal goal is as it pertains to playing the piano. Why do they want to play the piano in the first place? What do they hope to accomplish by studying music? What do they personally want to be able to do once they have developed the skill of playing an instrument? Are they planning on using this skill/talent as a career? Are they hoping to use their musical ability to become rich and famous? What is their objective with music?Many students, at first, look at me and wonder why I ask them so many questions. To them, they think there should be a clear cut answer to how they can improve their piano playing. Maybe they are hoping for a one-liner that can magically change everything. Many students tell me they don’t really think about what they want to do because it doesn’t matter. “Why”, they ask me, “would I want to worry about what I do with the piano in the future? I would rather focus on playing right now and let everything take care of itself.” The only problem with that line of reasoning is nothing will take care of itself if left to itself. When the students respond with this kind of response I tell them in order to understand what they must do on a day to day basis right now, they must have a clearly defined idea of what they hope to and are going to accomplish. Once they know where they are going and what they want to do, they can break down the goal into managable “mini” goals.Setting goals, no matter how big or small, will make us or break us. The saying, “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail”, is very true. We may change the phrase a little by saying, “Those who plan to succeed, succeed because they have a plan”.Written by Jerald M. Simon |
Jerald M. Simon
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"Starting Over" by Jerald M. Simon
