I just can’t

Some days, I just can’t.

I can’t focus. I can’t be productive. I can’t motivate myself. I can’t stare at the computer a minute longer. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!

Days like that are frustrating, but there’s always the hope that tomorrow will be a better day. I’ll handle more of the items on my agenda. I’ll final accomplish that looming task. I’ll be ready to get the job done.

It’s a real problem when one of those days turns into three of four consecutive days of “I can’t!” What’s a body to do? I know that there are things that need my attention. I know that avoiding them will not make things better. Every attempt to push through just results in barely making a dent in anything. That’s when I just want to pull the covers over my head and pretend I have no responsibilities and no need to get out of bed.

I’m in the midst of several consecutive days of the “I can’t” syndrome. The situation is made worse because I have no energy and I’m not feeling 100%. I’m hoping that a weekend trip to see my family will help kick me back in gear. But there are things that I absolutely have to get done before I head to the airport on Friday morning. The tasks are daunting and I’m struggling to even begin to think about it. Because I feel overwhelmed at the moment, I can’t fathom accomplishing anything by just taking “one bite of the elephant at a time.”

Yeah….I’m struggling with some major “I can’t” issues at the moment. Hopefully a restful night will put me in a better mood tomorrow and give me a more positive outlook to get back in the driver’s seat and turn the “I can’t” attitude around.

Overwhelmed

Feeling overwhelmed is a reality. What’s causing me to feel this way? The constant need to use technology that seems either insufficient, ineffective, or unavailable. The confinement of spending much of the day behind a mask. Poor lighting. The need to learn so much music rapidly in the face of an eventual shutdown, but not having adequate time to devote at my instrument because of all of the other demands. The constant addition of new projects. The constant level of stress and tension that is always present. It’s a lot to handle and I’m not entirely sure that I’m doing a good job of it at the moment.

Despite my best efforts to maintain a to-do list, it always feels as though something vital is slipping through the cracks. I am attempting to leave everything behind at the end of the work day and allow myself to unwind at home, but there is always a nagging thought that there is something else I need to do. Now that the home office has become an extension of the work office through virtual reality, it is much more challenging to escape the demands of the day. The scary part is that I’m just finishing the first full week of the semester and at this rate, I’m rather worried if I will survive.

But I know I have to survive. Every day is not bad. I just have to keep reminding myself of that. Today is tough. I don’t want to face the office, but I know that there are things that need to be done. Fortunately, I spent a couple of hours this morning at home to get some uninterrupted grading done and to allow myself a few minutes to just breathe. Until things begin to feel more stable — whenever that may actually be — I will keep processing things here, leaning on trusted friends, and accepting the fact that I am only one person and can only do so much. That’s all that anyone can really ever ask of me.

Vacation is Over!

Hello, my friends! After what feels like a very long break, I am returning to the blogosphere once again. I feel as though I have inspiration to write again after taking some much needed time to just be with myself and my parents. Sometimes, disappearing and retreating is just what a self-professed introvert needs.

I loaded up the car in mid-May and headed to my childhood home in Crawfordsville, Arkansas. I took over the dining room table with my computer and other materials and continued writing almost every day into early June. I quickly realized that I needed some time for myself. I needed to deal with the passing of a high school friend that was just a year older than me due to complications with COVID-19. I needed to mourn all that I felt I had lost and was learning to cope with in isolation. Quite simply, I needed to allow myself some time to heal emotionally. That’s not always the easiest thing to admit to yourself. It can be even more challenging when you know that your environment is largely limited to four walls.

I continued to teach a few piano lessons virtually, but did very little personal practicing. I just needed to step away from the instrument for a bit and listen to the sounds of my own breathing and spend as much time as I could with my mother. (I do not have a problem admitting that I have always been a Momma’s boy and always will be.) I would play occasionally to feel as though my hands could still move along the keyboard, but I settled in my mind that anything that needed my attention could wait until August. If the performance suffers because of it, so be it. I needed to choose to take care of my own health….and that’s not a decision I regret at all.

I returned to Plainview on Saturday afternoon and got everything unloaded into my apartment to begin another semester of work at Wayland in the coming week. There are a lot of exciting things on the horizon that I am looking forward to sharing with you. There is a bit of apprehension in the air of how the continuing pandemic will impact my work, emotions, family, friends, and students. The uncertainty can be crippling at times. I am finding myself in a better place to face things now than I was in May.

Part of the plan to better deal with my emotions is to blog on all of my various sites more regularly. Notice….that’s the plan. We all know that plans don’t always work out, but it at least gives us a plan of somewhere to start. All of my posts appear with links in my Twitter feed, so you can follow everything there.  If you are just interested in what’s going on in my personal world, make sure that you subscribe to Livin’ Life. The plan is to upload new content on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with some bonus posts appearing on the weekends. (For those that have asked, the weekly “Hits and Misses” will begin to reappear as well. I’m glad to hear that you have missed them.)  My other blogs are of a more specialized nature. Collaborations will have new posts on Tuesdays focused on my work as a performer and musician with special attention given to the role of the piano in the chamber ensemble. On Thursdays, a new blog will begin to appear – The Piano Teachers’ Bookshelf. I think the name tells you everything about it. It will feature reviews of supplemental pieces for elementary, intermediate, and early advanced piano students that can be used in your own teaching studios. Performance videos of the featured pieces will also be included. For those interested in what I am reading or stitching at the moment, make sure that you check out Reading for Me and Procrastinated XStitch Projects. Lastly, there is another site that I have not shared with many people.  Word of God, Speak is a place where I share my thoughts from Bible study that I want to remember, reflect on, or expound. There is no set routine here….but the spark of a new post took root this morning. Hope that you will see something there later this week.

I know it is a massive plan and that I will inevitably miss days. My hope is that having a goal will mean that I will hit the mark more often than missing it. I invite you to come along for the ride.

Is Your Life What You Imagined?

When I first read today’s blog prompt early this morning, I found myself a bit anxious thinking about answering the question. It is never a comfortable thing to have to face that plans did not work out quite as we had hoped or planned. As the day went on, however, I found that things have turned out mostly as I had imagined.

From my earliest years, I knew that I wanted to be a teacher. Originally, I imagined that I would teach math. I recall playing with my stuffed animals and imaginary friends as I would teach them fundamentals of addition, multiplication, and division. (For some reason, I never wanted to teach subtraction.) When I began to face advanced math courses in high school, my plans quickly changed and the topic of interest changed. There was a brief interest in teaching history and then it went to English literature. It was around that time that a guidance counselor first birthed the idea in my brain that I might pursue teaching music at the collegiate level.

When I began studying music at Pepperdine, I enjoyed all of the classes and saw the obvious career path of teaching piano. But then I was introduced to Sara Banta and I knew that I wanted a job like hers. Sara was on staff — not a member of the faculty yet — and taught a few piano lessons. What she spent most of her time doing was simply playing piano. Her studio was a revolving door of singers and instrumentalists rehearsing with her. Sara also provided accompaniment for opera and musical productions. That’s when the dream was born — I wanted to be a staff accompanist at a university.

Time would pass and I would learn that I actually wanted to pursue work as a collaborative pianist — basically a highly trained pianist specializing in chamber work who receives more respect than the term “accompanist” suggests — and I was on my way. I enjoyed learning all of the repertoire that kept life so exciting. I also liked the social aspect of the work. The hours alone in a practice room were not to my liking at all!

What didn’t turn out as I imagined? I never expected to be living in west Texas without the Geriatrics nearby. If I was going to leave them behind, I expected to be working in Southern California again. I never thought I would be teaching class piano. It was never a class that interested me at all. Now that I have gotten to take on a program and make it mine, my view of the course sequence has changed and the thought of giving it up is appalling to me. But for all of the things that didn’t turn out as I had imagined, I am very happy in my life right now. I’m blessed with colleagues that I adore and friends that keep me grounded. Things are actually quite good in my life…..and I know that I am incredibly blessed.

What Will I Be When I Grow Up?

At some point, every child will ask themselves what they want to be when they grow up. Many are fascinated with the idea of becoming a policeman or a fireman. Some even dream of being a doctor so they can help people. It can be very entertaining to compare our childhood plans with the reality of our adult professions.

I never imagined that my life’s work would be in the field of music. I have played classical piano since I was a child, but never wanted to pursue the concert stage. Honestly, I didn’t realize that my job could be something that I enjoy so much. Even though things didn’t turn out as my 8-year-old self imagined, there are a lot of similarities between those earliest hopes and the professional I have become.

When I was a child, I thought I would be….

• ….an elementary school teacher. I have always loved to learn new things. It was impossible to have too many books! I also learned from an early age that I liked explaining things to others and that I was pretty good at making things simple to understand. It took a long time before I would completely let go of this life plan. When things were becoming extremely challenging in my doctoral program, I actually entered a teacher education program and almost left the music industry behind. I continue to enjoy teaching children in the church and the piano studio. I can’t entirely decide if it is the innocence of the child that I identify with or the fact that we have similar mentalities!
• …..or a college math professor. I loved working with numbers and math was always a favorite subject. My performance in those classes became more challenging as I entered my first high school class with a group of students that were simply not interested in learning. Unmotivated students resulted in a teacher who decided it was easier to simplify material than challenge the masses. In my present life, the age of the students I work with lines up with this childhood dream, but the subject matter is much more entertaining!
• …..or a writer. There was always something alluring about putting words on the page and being involved in the creation of books that I love so much. I suppose that this interest became the source of the blog that you are currently reading. I never developed the skills to weave an interesting fictional yarn and I intend to get impatient with research, so I left behind the idea of becoming an author. Now, my online writing keeps me entertained and helps me practice putting words together in an interesting (I hope) and informative manner.

Now that I’ve shared what I wanted to be when I grew up (although some would argue that I’m still attempting to grow up!), I would love to hear what you had dreamed about as a child. Feel free to share your stories in the comments below.

Back to Reality…..

It’s time to face the fact that summer vacation can’t last forever. The mornings of sleeping in are slowly coming to an end. The lazy days of relaxing on the couch while mindlessly watching television are a thing of the past. Now my thoughts are turned to organizing classes, reviewing literature, writing articles, and advising students. Students will begin arriving on campus next week for band camp; classes begin on the 24th.

It seems as though there is so much work to do to get ready for the fall. I find myself constantly adding new items to my to-do list because I can’t afford to miss a step. If it were just the responsibilities of teaching classes, I think I would be okay. Currently, it’s the items associated with my personal life and health that are demanding my attention. Everything is getting done…..slowly, but surely. I’ve just had to give myself permission to let things take a little more time to do than I normally anticipate as I continue to regain my energy and strength.

I suppose I’ve stalled long enough! It’s time that I get “back to reality” and mark a few more things off my ever-growing list.

Paperwork is the Pits!

I absolutely love making music. I love getting to work with young students and presenting performances to showcase their hard work and talent. I love the fact that I get paid to make music daily. However, I hate filling out paperwork in order to get paid.

Let me give you a little background before I launch into this rant. I have been contracted to accompany a few instrumental students from Plainview High School for an upcoming competition this weekend. I did some similar work for another area high school a few weeks back as well. For that school, I simply had to provide my social security number and my fee; a check was cut and sent right away. That’s the situation that I am used to when working as a contracted professional in high schools in Arkansas, Tennessee, California, and now — Texas.

But wait! Plainview is going to need additional information. I spent a significant chunk of my lunch hour filling out a part-time job application — did I mention that this job will involve a total of 8 hours of work by the time the contest is over? — that was PAGES UPON PAGES in length. Come on! Do I really need to decline health insurance? How many times must I declare that I am a U.S. citizen? I understand that much of this is mandated by the federal government, but I find myself wondering if my short-term involvement actually requires all of this. Based on the comments of the employees that were trying to get all of the paperwork together, they were not entirely sure that it was necessary…..but their supervisors demanded it be done, so here we are. My work with the school district will most likely be done before this mass of paperwork is actually processed! This is insane! No wonder people shy away from getting involved with public school districts for short-term commitments.

Now that I’ve ranted about the lunacy of the situation, I’ll accept the fact that I’ve lost those precious minutes of my life, chalk it up as another example of inane bureaucratic crap, and prepare to take a voided check back to the business office so I can actually get paid the money that I’m working to earn.

What Do You Do?

Since starting my job this fall, I’ve repeatedly heard two questions.

• How do you like living in Texas?
• What exactly do you do?

I feel pretty confident that I have answered the first question. So let me give you — especially my extended family and friends who know very little about musical training — some insight into my work.

 

My official title is Assistant Professor of Piano at Wayland Baptist University. As you might guess, I spend the majority of my day sitting on a piano bench, but I switch hats throughout the day.

 

My primary teaching responsibility is the class piano sequence. Every student who studies music — regardless of their principle instrument — needs to develop basic keyboard skills. That’s where my class comes in. Every non-pianist in the music program takes a 4-semester sequence that meets twice each week to build their piano skills. Much of our time is spent learning scales and chord progressions as we explore late elementary and early intermediate piano repertoire. After students complete the 4th semester of class piano, they take a benchmark exam to demonstrate their level of proficiency. The exam addresses solo performance as well as skills such as sight reading, transposition, and score reading. For many of our students, the proficiency exam is a major hurdle before they begin the upper division coursework in the field.

 

In addition to class piano, I currently teach applied piano lessons to one freshman woman. She is a early intermediate student who is not afraid of a challenge. We’ve had a lot of fun this semester, made some significant progress, and have already begun to plan our repertoire choices for the spring. I’m hoping to have the opportunity to do more private teaching as the piano program at WBU grows.

 

The rest of my week is filled with a lot of playing in rehearsals and lessons of all types. I currently work with eleven vocalists as well as the students enrolled in class voice. As the semester begins to wind down, instrumentalists are beginning to seek me out for accompaniments for their jury exams. At this point, I have received music from five of them. Monday and Wednesday afternoons find me spending 90 minutes with the men and women of Wayland Singers — the department’s non-auditioned choir. This week brings the end of the university’s opera offering; we’re mounting a production of The Mikado. Those who have known me the longest will be surprised to hear that my time in opera workshop is some of my favorite times of the week.

 

Then there’s all the work that comes outside of the classroom and rehearsal studio. Thankfully, I was not assigned to any standing committees during my first semester of work. That has allowed me some time to do some recruiting (phone calls and emails take more time than you would ever expect). I’m working on a new course that will be offered in the spring. I could go on and on about student recitals, NATS competitions, LMTA meetings, master classes, and student rehearsals….but I think you get the picture. I’ve found myself very busy and very fulfilled.

 

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Impressions of West Texas

Last week, I made my way to Plainview, Texas for a job interview. Plainview is a small town in the Texas panhandle, between Amarillo and Lubbock. Although I have driven through the area before, I haven’t spent much time there. I don’t necessarily know what I expected to find when I visited, but here were my first impressions of the region.

• The sun is always shining! Apparently after I left, a major storm rolled through the area. While I was in town though, I was struck by how late the sun set. From what I understand, this area is on the western border of the Central Time Zone. That means that the sky was still bright as dusk approached around 8:30pm! I quickly appreciated the importance of black-out drapes in my hotel room.
• Things are very flat in Texas. I don’t think there was a single hill in sight. It wasn’t a desert either…..although everyone I met commented on how lucky I was to come after the rains had made things look so green. In a lot of ways, the topography reminded me of home.
• History is important to the community. I thought it was charming to observe how the old town co-existed next to the modern. The historic downtown was actively being developed. It was nice to see businesses succeeding in this part of town.
• Texans are really friendly and welcoming. I’ve spent lots of time in the Houston area throughout my life, but I was really impressed with the general spirit of the people I encountered in Plainview. People were warm and it seemed as though an attitude of “live and let live” was practiced by the majority of the citizens.
• City and country can co-exist. Plainview is not a bustling metropolis by any means. It’s not just a spot-on-the-map either. The city had a nice, relaxed feel that you would find in small town America while still offering some of the conveniences of the city. And to make life even better, it’s comforting to know that both Lubbock (population 239,000) and Amarillo (population 196,000) are relatively short drives away.

It looks as though I’ll have some exploring to do as I begin the next chapter of my life as a resident of Plainview, Texas! There’s a lot of work to be done in the next month preparing for my move, but I’m certain I’ll have plenty of stories to tell as I continue Livin’ Life.

What motivates you?

Each day, we need motivation. Whether we are trying to accomplish a task we’ve put off too long or to make improvements in our career, we simply have to have a desire to do the job. Some people are motivated simply by seeing the need. It seems to me that many “creatives” need an extra push from time to time to do a task because our minds are constantly creating new projects that steal our focus. In an effort to learn more about myself, I decided to take a step back and look at the things that seem to motivate me to do some tough assignments.

1. New opportunities. At first, I thought this was a detriment to my personal motivation. An opportunity arises to explore new areas or ideas. Strangely, the excitement of something new and creative encourages me to put in the required effort to close a project that has been lingering as well. 
2. Positive results. Nothing gets me ready to work and willing to try something new like seeing that the process works! I will spend more time at the piano bench if I notice a definite improvement in the passage I’m working on. I can sort through stacks of mail (or laundry or books) as long as I can see that I’m making a dent in the mountain. When a student begins to display understanding of a concept that he’s struggled with for some time, I’m suddenly encouraged to continue developing new ideas because I’ve had success.
3. Affirmation. Tell me that you have noticed my work and that you appreciate it and I’ll accomplish more than either of us anticipated. Affirmation doesn’t just have to come from a person in a supervisory role either. A colleague can offer encouragement as well as a student and even an outside observer. 
4. Knowing that my efforts are making an impact on someone else. This is probably the most valuable motivating factor for me. If I see a student or colleague benefiting from my efforts, I’ll keep pushing. When a parent tells me what a difference I am making in the life of their student, I’m ready to move Heaven and Earth to continue the success. 

Those are some of my motivating factors. What things motivate you to action more than anything else? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.