When you wish upon a star...

Hi! It's been ages.

So I heard someone say this earlier today: 'Spending all that time wishing I was different was preventing me from getting to what I was actually meant to be.'

WOW! What a thought! How often in music do we sit for ages listening to others and wish that we could play the way they do?

The listening and admiration are not problems - in fact they are part of every musician's process - but what usually happens is that we listen, wish, and then either get discouraged because of the gaping divide between their music and ours, or we simply forget about it and go on with our daily lives unchanged.

I think the central problem is that 'wishing' requires no action... No 'output' after the 'input'. Wishing allows one to take it all in and then walk away. The attitude that we need to adopt is one of WANTING. You see, a wish has a dream-like quality that puts it in the realm of the impossible, where all a want requires is a way of getting the object of our desire - and we all love getting stuff! This leads to a process of observation, followed by inspiration, followed by ACTION. So I observe something that I want, this inspires me, and the inspiration causes me to ACT to get it - to get one baby-step further across the great divide that separates me from what I want or where I want to be.

The process may be long and require effort, but isn't it worthwhile to know that instead of dreaming something you are actually moving toward it?

I think so!

So when you wish upon a star... it DOES make a difference who you are... because any dream your heart desires has to be ACTED-UPON if you really want to make it happen, and only certain people (usually the minority) actually do that.

PS... this is not just a music issue, it's a LIFE issue, and who you are in music is who you are in life.

Take care
Andrew