Superman on Facing the Impossible Guitar Tunes

Tuesday Quotes are short explorations of music, life, and the daily endeavor of practicing classical guitar. Find more here. Enjoy!

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible. Then they seem improbable. And then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”

Christopher Reeve

Capricho Arabe, Asturias-Leyenda, La Catedral, Bach’s Chaconne….

These massive pieces of music can seem a million miles away. Given our current level, they may even appear impossible.

But there was time when even J. S. Bach was a lousy player. He had to start at the beginning like the rest of us.

The only difference between the best players in the world and a day-one beginner is time.

The research is in, and study after study has shown that time is the greatest indicator of skill-level.

But not all time counts equal. Time spent polishing what’s already shiny doesn’t count for much. Time spent challenging limits and honing abilities brings us steadily forward.

This second sort of time – focused, deliberate practice – takes willpower.

When we sit down to play, we can choose the easy path or the hard one. We can strum along to the tune we’ve played a thousand times before, or we can slowly work toward learning a new tune.

We can noodle around distractedly or we can do exercises with our best attention.

We can choose comfort and zero risk of failure, or we can choose to live on the constant edge of failure. We can challenge ourselves, fail, learn from the feedback, then go back for more.

Practicing well is to practice with intention, purpose, and awareness. When we (as Superman said) “summon the will” to spend our guitar-time in this way, we get better.

Along the way, we may have our doubts. We may not always feel like we’re making headway.

But eventually, we find ourselves picking up the tunes that used to seem impossible. With time and attention, it’s inevitable.