Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered NO MORE! - Accepting Mistakes in Music (and life) to make Real Music
My Friday Night Video tonight is one of my favorite Jazz Standards - Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered.
I learned this early days in Jazz School. It was because I could relate to feeling put under some kind of love spell (a bad one) and loosing self respect in pursuit of a man that was no good for me. See video for the lyrics…
I used the 2nd verse as empowerment for myself. And to focus my mind on forgiving those foolish mistakes I made in my 20's. It's such a good one to sing along to/ learn to play if you are finding yourself in a similar situation.
Speaking of mistakes - I'm often telling my students how mistakes are part of music. And in this recording, I make a BIG bobble. After many years out playing live, I typically can pivot from a wrong note with out loosing the beat. And in many cases, with out the audience even noticing.
But in this moment, I lost my train of thought completely. I froze just long enough that I was forced to stop all together and just laugh. It happens.
So I thought I'd post it this week to break the illusion of many takes and heavily, edited music out there today. True is there's a lot of frustrating moments in music for serious musicians and this was one of them.
But you just have to keep it light, and keep it going. Getting hung up on mistakes, judging yourself, being too hard on yourself will not only knock you out of the flow of good music; but it can keep your playing small and risk free.
You'll never be able to reach your fullest potential if you are spending any energy trying to avoid or keep track of mistakes. Accepting them unconditionally helps you to transcend and create beauty from the imperfection.
To bring it full circle, Music as a Metaphor means that what’s true in music practice is true for the game of life as well. We are going to make mistakes, but forgiving ourselves helps us stay in the flow of all the joy and excitement that life offers us - moment by precious moment.
We can pivot to greatness as long as we don't spend energy regretting or trying to avoid mistakes.
I teach this because I'm still learning this. It's easier said than done. My music practice is teaches me TONS about this and many other character maturations.
Many of my students these days really struggle with the frustration and disappointments of their musical mistakes. It keeps them from recognizing all they are doing right.
Music is HARD!
So don't get too hard on yourself. And don’t waste any of your energy on what doesn’t move it forward.
For anyone who is spending ANY time on your instrument (when current society will pull you 18 different directions that are easier and more instantly gratifying) - well you are doing way more right than wrong.
Micro to Macro, we can't avoid making mistakes in life. We can't expect to be perfect. And it's a waste of time to try.
But we can transcend our mistakes.
And in my opinion, this is what makes us uniquely human. This is the beauty and joy of the human experience. Pouring this experience sincerely into music is what makes music great. Not perfect technique.
None of us are perfect, so why would our music by? That's not a true reflection of who we are... and music at it's most basic level should be an authentic reflection of the human soul - not just cold, perfect technic.
So get out there and make those mistakes!!! And learn to love yourself thru it all.
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Lyndol Descant - Musician, Music Teacher, Artist and Spiritual Aspirant providing weekly content to uplift, heal and inspire.
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