Reasons to avoid practicing

[Sue Rieter]

Another reason to stop practicing.
Go to another country, stay in quarantine in a cabin in a wooded garden, spend most of your day pruning and loping tree branches and the rest of the day eating home cooking.
And in the evenings you eat home cooking.

And you didn’t bring a mandolin with you anyway; a decision made under the false premise that a ukulele tuned in fifths would be ‘just fine’.

If you did have a mandolin with you, I would think this environment would be ideal for inspiring your playing/practicing.

[journeybear]

Or ... Spend nearly a month in hospital, prepping for, undergoing, and recovering from open heart surgery, during which time energy levels are a wee bit low - interest, too - for practicing. Oh, the lengths to which some will go to avoid practicing!

On the other hand, there's a particular song I wrote a few years back, a sort of Latin-calypso number, which I've been brushing up on. The nurses seem to love it.

[John Bertotti]

I do not make reasons not to practice but a lot of times it works out that my work just draws me away and I get home late and sleep then leave early.

[Honey-Boy]

I have to practice my other instruments, a different language, workout or spend time with my friends. The worst yet, evening shifts and long working hours make me almost unable to practice.

But the best reason to not practice mandolin (or anything else) is to play video games instead.

[Charles E.]

I'll practish jush after I finish this beer....burp....hic.

[Dan Adams]

I used to practice when we gigged. It’s been a few years since we performed, and consequently, I stopped practicing. Interesting how quickly you forget tunes, leads, chord patterns. I’m trying to get back to learning new tunes, practicing picking patterns…. But, I have to re-learn everything else. An interesting cycle.

[journeybear]

It occurred to me while slowly gaining consciousness this morning, before coffee ... Phil Ochs' song "Outside of a Small Circle of Friends" contains a great compendium of excuses. Each verse sets up a situation in which some action is called for in order to do the right thing, yet the narrator's voice presents several excuses or rationalizations for not doing anything. It's a clever but caustic assessment of social indifference. Some of these excuses could be applicable:

it looks like it's gonna rain;
much too high;
busy reading;
the heat is much too hot;
it wouldn't interest anybody outside of a small circle of friends

[dhergert]

I have to think up a suitably snarky reply to this thread.

Seriously, I jam for about 90 minutes online every day and I actually practice new and old techniques while jamming.

Practice is allowed to be fun.

[T.D.Nydn]

My neighborhood chipped in and hired me not to …

[journeybear]

Practice is allowed to be fun.

Well, yes, and so is this thread. I'm pretty sure JeffD started this thread tongue firmly planted in cheek, and most have followed suit.

I'll get serious, though, but just for a minute. Of course we all enjoy playing our wee wonderful music makers, and many even enjoy practicing, well aware this helps foster improvement and thus more enjoyment, in what is hopefully an ascending spiral. Even so, sometimes practice can seem a bit of a chore, despite this overarching impetus in the service of improvement. And humor can help keep one grounded while striving onward and upward. What I've found from time to time is not so much that practice itself is fun, but the effects of practice can be fun. For instance, sometimes the ease or speed of playing something or other may make me smile and I can attribute this to having put in some time to get there. And feeling like I'm getting better, even this far down the road, is fun, indeed. I mean, I've been playing now for some 53 years. I figure, if I keep at it, I might get good ... someday ...

We now return you to your previously scheduled programming, already in progress ...

[Bill McCall]

My wife has a banjo, I don’t want to provoke her.

[soliver]

Love this thread.

Still need to shave that cat.

[robhanesworth]

I'm too busy reading forums.

[oldhawkeye]

The dog ate my sheet music.

[journeybear]

I'm too busy reading forums.

Exactly! I would practice some, right now, but first I have to post on a forum or two or ten how I feel about that and wonder what to do about it and read up on how others are dealing with it and search for someone's post that describes my experience in a way I wish I could have expressed it, because it's just the way I feel and think and imagine it to be. In other words, exactly!

Though to be fair, to all those hereabouts and passing through, this is indeed a fine, fine community filled with a great many thoughtful, well-meaning, and talented musically-minded folks capable of and willing to offer all manners of assistance in solving whatever problems people encounter along the trail of their travels, trials, and tribulations. Never lose sight of that. But also, feel free to have a good laugh with perhaps a knowing shake of the head when the time is right. Don't take yourself and your troubles too seriously. Bigger problems exist.

[Jess L.]

why aren't you practicing?

Because there's a finite number of notes in the universe, and once they're all used up, all music would cease forever.

Thus it would be unconscionable for anyone to willfully contribute to the depletion of universal notes just for their own selfish practice time.

Things are bad enough already with the sinister note-hoarders who cruelly capture unplayed notes to store away for nefarious future uses. Those of us who care about music don't need to make matters worse by practicing too much and further using up the supply of available notes.

[Eric Platt]

It rained around here recently. Have to go outside and watch the grass grow. Everyone knows it won't happen if you don't watch.

[journeybear]

Because there's a finite number of notes in the universe, and once they're all used up, all music would cease forever.

Thus it would be unconscionable for anyone to willfully contribute to the depletion of universal notes just for their own selfish practice time.

Things are bad enough already with the sinister note-hoarders who cruelly capture unplayed notes to store away for nefarious future uses. Those of us who care about music don't need to make matters worse by practicing too much and further using up the supply of available notes.

This is an exquisitely elaborate bit of overthought folderol if there ever was one!

[Jess L.]

This is an exquisitely elaborate bit of overthought folderol if there ever was one!

Lol although it resulted from neither overthinking nor even regular thinking, as I woke up from one of my frequent old-age naps at my computer and the idea just popped into my head, fully formed, details and all. Two minutes later it was typed up. Seems to be just the way my mind (such as it is) works. I blame it on too much early exposure to sci-fi, as well as actual science - one of my close kinfolk worked in R&D of missile defense systems etc, where 'overthinking' and considering many "what ifs" gives one's project a better chance of avoiding catastrophic failures in areas where there is little margin for error. Seems that some of that overthinking mindset has become ingrained.

Anyway, back to the topic...

I do currently have an *actual* reason to avoid practicing mandolin - my current mandolin has several tuning pegs that literally require pliers to turn the blasted things. The factory drilled the tuner post holes noticeably misaligned, and some of the posts bind up throughout most of their rotation. I'll eventually cobble together some sort of crude fix for it (I don't have woodworking tools anymore so I'm not going to get too carried away with refurbishing the silly thing), but meanwhile every time I think about playing it I remember the pliers requirement and usually postpone playing.

[journeybear]

My assessment of your motivation and/or technique may have been a bit off the mark, but my appreciation of the artistic achievement is spot on, IMO. You took a notion and ran with it, incorporating correlated factors into your final presentation. I do this myself, from time to time, when so inspired, so I recognize the effort. Also, as an unreformed former editor, I've retained an eye for noticing a writer's attempts to succeed in realizing potential, putting thoughts into just the right words. Flights of fancy such as this are enjoyable in and of themselves, especially when they result from a dry wit, expressed with tongue in cheek. Perhaps such witticisms are too subtle for their own good, and fly over the head of most readers. I enjoyed this, though, and since people rarely if ever receive adequate praise, thought I'd mention it.

[Jess L.]

Thanks Journeybear!

[JeffD]

I don't practice as much since video games. No I don't play them but i like to watch them.


Got to keep up with the repairs around this house, and there always seems to be something that needs repair. I don't know how folks get any practicing in at all.


I am avoiding practicing because I have too much homework to do, which I am avoiding by watching you tubes.


I ordered dinner from Grubhub so I would have more time to avoiding practicing.

[JeffD]

I can't practice till after my girlfriend texts me, because it will interrupt the flow. So I am waiting for her to text me. Been a while now.

[journeybear]

I ordered dinner from Grubhub so I would have more time to avoiding practicing.

I thought Grubhub was designed to free up time by eliminating food prep and cooking time.

But what do I know. Never gone there ...

[JeffD]

I thought Grubhub was designed to free up time by eliminating food prep and cooking time.
...

I can see how folks would think that.