Success on the Oboe - Making Dreams a Reality
Written by Professor Kristy Meretta, Oboe
An Introspective for Oboists Many students grow so accustomed to "taking" oboe lessons that they do not realize that the secret of real learning lies not in the taking but in the "giving" to these lessons. If you are a typical student of the 90's, you are setting records for being over-committed and under-rehearsed. In the words of Pogo the comic-strip character, "We have met the enemy.....and it is us".
Since most of you are too young to remember the comic strip "Pogo", allow me to recall a conversation between Pogo and his friend the duck, who was in a kiddie car heading south for the winter. The conversation went something like this:
POGO: "Why don't you just fly?"
DUCK: "I'm afraid of heights."
POGO: "Then why don't you swim?"
DUCK: "I usually get seasick."
POGO: "Well, when you decided to be a duck, it seems to me you picked the wrong business."
When you decided to study the oboe, this business of practice came along with it. Please notice that the word "business" is quite different from "busyness". Certainly all students are "busy". While it is good that your hours are occupied and that your lives are full, one might well stop the action long enough to ask: just how serious are your intentions?
With so many scheduled activities on your calendar, is it harder and harder to "find the time" to practice as much or as regularly as you would like? Is it sometimes true that oboe practicing becomes the sacrificial lamb of your busy schedule? We all know what happens when practice ceases to be a daily habit. In place of progress, frustration and guilt move in.
I remember a speaker who described two ways to get to the top of an oak tree: You can find a tree and climb it, or you can sit on an acorn and wait for it to grow. Can you imagine what would happen if you were to take the more active approach? With it comes the benefit of "momentum" to help carry you forward; without it, inertia holds you back. Every time a day goes by without practice, we don't hold still, we actually lose ground.
There is a simple 2-part solution to this problem of oboe practice:
MAKE A DAILY APPOINTMENT WITH THE OBOE...AND THEN KEEP IT!
Of course, the difficult part of this solution is keeping your appointment. Too often what we "do" is not what we "intended to do". When it comes to what is important in our lives, our actions speak much louder than our words.
Forget the 100 times you have proclaimed that you will practice (and then did not). Get serious and raise your level of intention to action. WRITE YOUR OBOE APPOINTMENT DOWN ON YOUR CALENDAR, just as you would any other scheduled activity. Plan your practicing at the time that works out best for you every day.
The passwords are "time-management" and "commitment". With these two, you can rediscover the joy and satisfaction of making the oboe a high-priority item in your life. When you "give" as much as you "take" from your oboe lessons, your dreams become reality.
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