100 days of practice wrap up
The last 4 days of these 100 days were spent in London with friends, sitting in various green spaces, drinking beer, eating grapes or meal deals, on the floor of my friend Jack Moyer’s bedroom giggling, or, briefly, in Guildhall doing some practice. I caught up with my friends, all musicians training in classical music, and compared our experiences of studying in the UK so far. Some conclusions I reached were that I made SUCH a good choice studying in Glasgow - no shade to London - I just am glad I listened to the part of me that knew my mental health would suffer too much in a city like London for it to be worth it. That is not to say London isn’t worth it - it’s just not worth it for me. My friend Jack Moyer and I especially talked a lot about our plans for the future, the sort of musicians we want to be, and how we’re gonna make it happen. One of my favourite quotes from the trip, which I will be holding on to, was when my friend Toby (a professional trumpet player) said “don’t get me wrong, I like to play the trumpet from time to time”. I like the implication that, yeah, we like to play our instruments, but we’re also more than that. I’m carrying that energy into term 3. it’s not all that deep, really.
To round off these 100 days, I read back through my posts to reflect on this experiment. Overall, I can say that this was SO worth it, and I would actually really recommend this process. Mostly it has seriously improved my confidence - reading back through I can see that I handled the challenges of music school last term very well, and that I know what I’m doing. Also, every week I thought what I was writing was complete nonsense, but reading back through I could make sense of the tides, ebbs and flows, and changes of the seasons with clarity. I saw that I know how to practice, that I know how to look after myself, that I know who I am and who I want to be, and that I know how to keep learning how to do all of these things.
Some notes from reading back through
Less is more. Setting a small goal, a short time limit, doing the bare minimum, often maximises results.
‘Practice’ encompasses so many things for me - just existing informs my art, so is often therefore practice. Practice feeling, practice thinking, practice observing, practice listening, practice expressing. As this project evolved, I limited myself less and less to only talking about viola related things, because it’s all so intertwined.
I am incredibly self aware. I’m proud of myself. The days that didn’t feel good, where I was stressed about not doing enough etc were days where I made big steps in building resilience and confidence
Music is fun when I let it be. I’d like to keep prioritising connecting with people and doing music for fun.
Trust the process. 100 days is a long enough time to reflect back on your growth and development with sufficient perspective. I improved, and grew substantially in this time.
My sanity and health ALWAYS comes first, and this DOES work. Good mental health practices also lead to good results.
Do it again but better has become my life motto. It’s become my normal state when practicing, performing, rehearsing to think “how can I do this better”. Sounds basic but it’s pushed me SO much and I think I can attribute most of my improvement to this attitude. I guess to balance this, sometimes I ask myself, what doesn’t need to be better all the time? AKA, aspects of myself can just be as they are.
All the times I was stressed turned out completely fine. All of them. Always.
I know how to practice well, and I shouldn’t underestimate this skill.
I worked as hard as I could last term, and that is so satisfying to know. I’m getting the most I possibly can out of my Master’s
One of my favourite parts of reading through my posts again was in week 3 when I said “this week taught me that I can work really hard, and that I can spend 12 hours at uni when I need to”, followed by week 4 which was titled burn out, and I said that I didn’t think I was working hard enough to be feeling burnt out. This is something my friend Jak and I used to laugh about - looking back you can ALWAYS see why you got sick, burnt out, stressed, etc. It always makes sense. The lesson here is: trust yourself, Lauren.
Finally, what really struck me was that I didn’t learn any of this alone. My friends and family and colleagues and peers, teachers, mentors, even people who share their thoughts on Instagram, they have all contributed to everything I know now. I could attribute so many of these lessons to the people who surround me. I’m so grateful to be connected to other people.
