Let's Talk About Commitment

When I tell people what I’m trying to do I always pay attention to their reaction, I get a lot of surprised looks, some wow that’s cool looks, sometimes an intrigued look but mainly especially from those who play an instrument the reaction is one of scepticism.  I’ve even had that from my teachers at one time or another and it’s a perfectly fair & justified one.  Yes Tom is a multi instrumentalist (he plays way more instruments than I ever will) but he didn't learn them all at once and he didn't do it in a few years like I'm trying.  He worked hard over a long period of time and gained a lot of experience so it makes sense to question my thinking.  Zak has put years & years of hard work into learning guitar and is still going, I can understand why he would be concerned about me spreading my energies over so many.  But 'I've got it covered' (there's four words that could come back and bite me on the arse!) haha!

The journey I’m on isn’t just unusual it’s daft, why?  Because I don’t want to be a guitarist who can lay down a few drum beats or a pianist who can strum out some chords.  I want to play all the instruments – not at professional level that wouldn’t be possible but certainly at a highly competent level (and you heard my drumming I've got a lot to do to get there!).    And let's face it I may be young at heart but I'm no spring chicken!  I have very good reasons for making these choices but that I'll talk about in later posts.

What makes me qualified then to give this a go?

I was talking to my husband yesterday about this and I think what gives me an advantage or at least a fighting chance is that I love each instrument individually, I want to achieve different things with each and when I’m playing each I get lost in it, when I’m playing - that’s the instrument I love right then and there (yes even the bass much to my surprise!). I respect that each has it's own set of exercises that I will need to do, each one requires heaps of practice and dedication.  I need to train my mind and body to think in entirely separate ways for each.  It's a BIG job and I not only respect that I embrace it (told you I was nuts!).  Nuts, determined and most importantly I think passionate.

Personally my goals are as follows, I want to get to an early advanced level on drums, piano and bass. However ... on guitar I’m aiming for the stars, it will take the rest of my life and I will absolutely fall well short of where I want to be but I'm going for it anyway!  I do NOT expect to get to advanced level on all of them within the next 4.5yrs, that's a goal for my first song this journey will be a lifetime – I’m no fool, I know where I want to go and I respect what I’ll need to do – the ridiculous level of commitment I’ll need to show every single day. 

The reason behind today's post?  I wanted to make this clear because  over time there will be people who will stumble across this blog and think I’m being a total dingbat (they may be right!) and there may be those who think it’s cool and think oh yeah I’ll do that too (they are definitely wrong). 

I fool around but I am extremely dedicated to this and committed to the hard work, to the great length of time this will demand which at my age is a fair chunk of my life!  See why I practice so hard ..!!  And of course why I embrace it so much, I'm giving up so much for this it can't be about an 'end goal' it has to be about the journey.