I'm currently listening a recording of a star in the making.
Lilah Senibaldi gave her junior flute recital at the University of Tennessee-Martin last night.
Remember that name. She is going to be a star.
Look, I'm not going to name drop....but I know stars. I can just tell. She's going to be one.
I've known Lilah for a few years now and saw her having one of the problems that I still struggle with at times. We both want to be GREAT musicians. We both want to be great....RIGHT NOW. Lilah was having problems the summer after her freshman year. You see, she was already 19 and not in a major symphony(yes, really). In her eyes, she wasn't at a Paula Robison or Julius Baker level so she was just a hack.
Like me she thought the path to greatness was the equivalent of a 100 yard touchdown pass in football. If it didn't happen all at once and in a very short time it wasn't going to happen at all.
This isn't logical nor is it realistic but then, musicians rarely use logic or spend much time in reality. It is part of our DNA, I think, to have unrealistic dreams and set unreachable goals.
If you're an educator please PLEASE do nothing to squash that. Instead, offer this advice:
Look at runners: Marathon runners train for years to shave a few minutes off their time. Middle distance runners do the same in seconds. For a Carl Lewis or Ussain Bolt, trimming 2 hundredths of a second in two years is a darned miracle.
That's an interesting perspective, isn't it?
The point here is to never stop chasing greatness but do so with small victories. Are you a hundredth of a percent better at your craft today than yesterday? Is the passage which was just stopping you in your tracks yesterday a little better today?
This is PROGRESS.
If, every day you improve a little...even an infinitesimally small amount...how will that add up?
Achieve big dreams with small moves, my friends.
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