Piano Practice: A Discussion By Jermaine Griggs
I received an email from Jermaine Griggs where he discussed time devoted to practicing the piano. Jermaine developed the Hear and Play gospel piano courses where people learn to play gospel piano by ear.
He said that, so many people “talk” about wanting to become better piano players. They “talk” about their aspirations, goals, and dreams. Even though they “talk” about what they want to do, what they want to become, and what they can achieve … but they don’t “walk” the “walk”.
In his 10 years of teaching piano online, Jermaine said that he had come across so many “talkers”.
They talk about not having enough time to devote to their piano practice. When he asks them how much TV they watch each day or what are their favorite television shows they are able to list a whole bunch.
Jermaine says, that’s backwards. They’re watching their favorite actors and actresses live their dreams but falling further and further away from their own dreams.
(And this isn’t just musicians… according to Nielsen Research, the whole world’s got this problem. Their research shows that the average person watches 4.58 hours of television a day.)
Jermaine said that his struck him. Four and a half hours EVERY DAY watching television?
Just add that up … that’s 32 hours a week, 128 hours a month, and 1,538 hours a year (or 64 whole days if you watched TV non-stop … or put it this way, 192 eight-hour work days). That is over half a year in work hours wasted.
So those folks that give excuse after excuse are full of it. The time is there. No one takes full advantage of their time every day. Worse, we waste it.
Jermaine said that he spends about an hour a night watching TV and he don’t consider himself a big TV watcher.
He constantly reminds himself to simply turn off the television and the time he needs will manifest itself right there! Simple. When he changes focus, he always finds the time.
Jermaine gave the quote by Wayne Dyer which says it best: “When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.”
He applauds people who join training clubs. They are acknowledging that they have the time to put into things that matter instead of wasting time on things that don’t matter.
If *your* dream is to play the piano, then don’t let anyone else (the actors we’re watching 64 days a year on TV) get in the way of YOUR dream that you could be LIVING in real-life.
If you really want to learn to play the piano, or improve your piano playing, then set aside time on a regular basis to practice.
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