High-Jump Your Hurdles to Improve Your Piano Playing!

​The 2016 Summer Olympics start in one week. Talk about some hurdles...

One of the most exciting events in each of the Summer Olympics is the high jump.

These athletes literally run and jump up over bars that are up to 8 feet high, with no help, and catapult themselves head first over the bar onto a mat that catches them on the other side...without touching the bar with any part of their body. 

One of the most noted athletes who was also the first African American British high jumper was named Jack London. In the 1928 Summer Olympics, Jack London was awarded a silver and bronze medal for the high jump, being the first African American to accomplish such a feat in Britain.

After he retired from athletics, he went on to become a pianist! In fact, when he married years later, he listed his occupation as pianist, instead of athlete. 

An Olympic medal winner turns pianist. 

We so often think about how music helps us in other areas of our lives; such as problem solving, organizational skills, analytical skills, etc., I wonder how much we think about how those same other areas of our lives affect our music and help us grow as musicians. 

Surely, Jack London knew a thing or two about hurdles and how to overcome them. In fact, he had to learn how to sail over his "hurdle" without even touching it.

That is a lovely image in the sense that it shows us that we don't have to engage as much with our challenges as we think we do, and maybe the goal is to soar over them, instead of hitting the top of them as we try to navigate over them. 

What areas of your life have presented you with hurdles that you've overcome?

• Have you had to face health challenges that required optimism and determination to overcome?
• Have you experienced grief from losing someone that you love?
• Ever had a pressing deadline for work or a school project, that you had to meet or else?
• When did you have to make a decision to do something that scared you a lot?

In any of these types of situations and many others, we learn skills that we don't realize we do. Such as:

• Perseverance
• Commitment
• Courage
• Self-discipline

And from this...comes confidence, growth, joy, and success. 

What Hurdles are You Jumping Over in Your Piano Playing?

The hurdles are there, we may not always see them as such, though.

They are there, to show you how high you can jump. :)

Some of them might be:

• Not enough time to practice
• Scared to leap from playing by music to playing by ear
• Don't have the right equipment: keyboard, music, teacher, etc
• Stage fright or performance anxiety
• Trying to play music that is too difficult 
• Taking tempos that you aren't ready for yet
• Unrealistic expectations about how well you should be playing
• A "dry spell" when you just don't "feel like playing"

Do any of these sound familiar? They are common in all areas of our lives, not just in our piano playing.

The smaller details are different in relation to the specific area of our life we are concentrating on; but in the big picture, the emotions and the energy are the same. 

Look at the big picture when you are working on sailing over these hurdles, no matter what area of your life you find them in. 

• Recognize what the specific hurdle is and how is it effecting your piano playing.
• Now, look at other areas in your life that you have faced a similar hurdle in, and how notice how you overcame it. 
• Apply those same techniques that you used successfully to your piano playing goals. 

The beautiful thing is, is that you can do the same thing with your piano playing.

The hurdles that you overcome in your practicing and performing will teach you how to overcome them in any area of your life. They really...are teachers. 

Stay Tuned to LessonsOnTheWeb to learn much more and achieve your own dreams of playing the piano!