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Things I've Learned Over the Years
Page begun on July 6, 2024
Attend to the obvious problem no matter how big or small. Otherwise it may attend to you.
Rivers reflect the pretty flowers on the opposite bank, but the river of knowledge is shallow at the top and deep at the bottom. Don't be fooled by the first-glance pretty flowers.
The cheap shot is the sign of someone who has run out of ideas. Therefore they insert quips and insults to make everyone laugh at you.
Nature doesn't bless the undecisive.
Trust your intuition. Your dog does and he's always right.
Try to learn something new every day, even if it's just learning how to relax better. Otherwise your day is missing a page from your book of life.
Neither drugs nor alcohol ever improved anyone's life. It did, however, destroy countless lives. Avoid all of it like the plague.
Always have a goal in mind when practicing. Play slowly until it becomes boring to you. Then it will become easy to play at any speed.
Learn to play using knowledge of music rather than rote memory of a tune. Many great pianists can play the heck out of pieces they've memorized but they can't play Happy Birthday.
If you're playing a tune for the millionth time, play it with the same excitement you had on the first time.
The audience knows when you're "coasting." Put as much as you can into everything you play. Same with everything you do.
Don't try to play to perfection for nothing is ever perfect. Always, however, try to play better than you did the day before.
Never try to be better than someone else. Try to be the best you can. Compete only against yourself and leave the vanity to the also-rans.
Listen to criticism. If it's jealousy based laugh at it. If it's something that someone noticed during a performance, consider it well. Your career depends on the listening public.
Spend time with friends. You won't remember all the roads you've taken, but you will remember the people and places where you got out of the car. Get out of the car.
"Live well, do good." This is written on my front door. Take care of business in order to have enough left over to take care of someone else.
Never try to show anyone how good you are. Show them how good the music can be.
Always stand up for the truth, even if it costs you somewhere. Do not perpetrate myths or allow others to inflict false histories.
He who never makes a choice always follows. He who never takes a chance never improves. He who never changes never lives.
Never miss a chance to make someone's day.
"Shun the one who strives for lesser. Never give excuse to failure." (from the opera The Legend of Sleepy Hollow).
"If someone else can do it, so can you." (Best advice I ever had: 10 years old from my dad, David Milne.)
Never let someone else do your thinking for you.
It does no good to be money rich and family poor.
Water and people seek their own levels.
There's no such thing as boring music, but there is such a thing as boring piano players.
Learn to make the music sing.
Fear comes from not knowing the outcome. Confidence comes from knowing. Be prepared.
Don't copy other piano players. Maybe you can be better than them.
David Milne and Boots
As long as everyone has equal rights no one can be in charge. We have equal rights under the law, but not in the chess game of life.
Whatever you do, do it better today than yesterday.
Many have genius brains. Few use them.
It's easy to dislike what you don't understand. Read, research, and learn before opening your mouth.
Either follow your own heart or you will surely follow someone else's.
The truth has no compromise. Be true to your own convictions, but listen if you are questioned. If you were wrong, admit it and revise your thinking.
There are PhDs and PhDuhs in the master class of life. Listen and choose wisely.
If someone eats all four rolls on the dinner table and leaves none for the others, that is greed. If he eats four rolls and there's still many left, he simply wanted four rolls. There's a difference between greed and desire. Learn to recognize it.
When you lose the game of chess your pieces are sitting on squares where you placed them. Same is true in life. Consider your moves in life because you're up against good players.
"It does not pay to be stupid." (sign on chess club wall.)
"Think or stink." (Advice and motto from old friend Ray Johnson many years ago)
When making important decisions, wait three days to decide.
Don't be influenced by the "cool" crowd. They are only concerned with how they appear to others.
Don't "appear." Just do.
True psychopaths are not easy to see. They blend in. Then one day there they are, right in your face. I know because I've seen and unfortunately experienced this.
Nothing is more dangerous than idealism without experience.
Many laws can be replaced with this one: "do right or suffer the wrath of the people."
Tubby, or not tubby. Fat is the question.
Laws only work for law abiding people.
No confrontation is over until the other side doesn't want anything to do with you anymore. This is true in everything from barroom brawls to international wars.
Negotiations only work for law abiding people. Nations have been lost by trusting negotiations.
Jealousy fuels the fool.
No one has control over where they came from. Everyone has control over where they go.
You can't do more to help someone than they want for themselves.
A smiling thief is still a thief.
The true racist is the one who calls others "racist."
Bumper stickers are rhetoric. Don't chant someone else's rhetoric.
If you don't skate where the ice is thin then you'll never understand either success or failure.
Encouraging a child gives him a shot at the goal posts. Discouraging him might leave everlasting scars.
Make your life what you want it to be. Live life as it should be.
Always think first class. You'll raise both yourself and those around you.
Be well, be good, be generous.
Memorizing charts, such as complex multiplication tables, robs you of the chance to understand why 2 x 2 = 4. I learned this in the 7th grade when told to memorize the chart. I saw much easier ways to quickly multiply large numbers in my head using logic than trying to recall what was written in a chart containing 81 crisscrossed boxes. I've used that method ever since.
To be continued...
A Strange Realization
In the 1970s and 80s I played at least two gigs a day. The one I'm thinking of right now was at the Ramada Inn in Southfield, Michigan. I played a cocktail hour from 5 - 8:00, five days a week.
The type of music I played would be called "background" music. People came in after office hours and relaxed with each other. They would talk about the days events and so forth, so to be playing high-powered ragtime would be obnoxious. The piano player always has to remember that his job is to enhance the environment and not distract from it. (A concert performance is different of course. People come there to hear the piano player.) The hotel always put out a huge spread of complimentary hors d'oeuvres for everyone.
The type of stuff I played was Dr. Zhivago music, Mona Lisa, slow blues, and anything lacking a toe-tapping beat. I actually like these styles so that's not the point of this post. What I'm getting at is this:
Some days I though my playing was just terrible. No matter how simple the song or melody, it just didn't sound right to me, but strangely the customers were saying I sounded great. I began to study myself and discovered something mind blowing: I had just as many "good days" as I did "bad." Hmm.
Over a period of about the next six months I discovered that the ease of playing the piano for me ranged along a scale of 1 - 30 every month. For every day I thought I was terrible, there was a corresponding day when it was the easiest thing possible for me. Gradually I noticed all the in-between days filling in, and whether I was "right on" or feeling "so-so," the customers were always enjoying it. The problem was my own perception of myself and my playing, and I eventually noticed it had been there all along, for all those years.
With this knowledge I was able to track myself. On "day 1" (bummer day) I wouldn't attempt the high level pieces but would instead play things that came close to the top. (continued)>
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