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Music's Greatest Lesson?
The Value of "Every Day Effort"
There are many studies extolling the virtues of music.
It helps develop a child's brain,
it improves hand-eye coordination,
it forestalls Alzheimer's;
but I think the greatest benefit of music is that it fosters an "every day effort" mindset.In this day of montages in movies and a desire for instant fame and fortune, nothing is more important than developing the true key to success;
every day effort
I'm not a world class flute, piano, or guitar player. In fact I'm rather ordinary, but I play every day.
At 8:00 a.m., I turn off my cell, pop on my headphones and play. I don't have any other criteria than that. I don't worry about how long I play, what I play, what instrument I play, and generally, have no goal in mind.
Some days it's horrible.
Some days I don't play for very long.
Some days I end up fiddling with electronic gadgets and do very little actual playing.
Occasionally, I have a great day, but more times than not, it's just an unremarkable day.Unfortunately this "every day effort" mindset runs counter to the "lottery" thinking that pervades our society. So many people give up on music because they are not instantly great like this montage in August Rush
Thanks to movies and TV, we get used to the idea that long and tedious tasks can be accomplished by magic. Because this is unrealistic, as we try and learn something we invariably lose our way.
At some point you ask yourself,
* "Is there any point to this?"
* "I'm getting nowhere, should I give up?"
* "This is hard. Is it this hard for everybody?"
and worst of all
* "Isn't there a quicker way?"
Cue the dramatic music and enter the purveyors of the quick and magic solutions.
We've all seen these hucksters:
- "Make millions with no investment, time, or effort."
- "Buy a house with no money down, even if you don't have a job."
- "Lose weight in days with this pill."
- "Learn the computer in one seminar."
- "Find your perfect mate by calling this toll free number."
- "Learn a musical instrument in an hour.
After watching Rocky run up a few stairs to some inspirational music, then skip a bit of rope, only to become world boxing champion a few scenes later, these quick and easy solutions don't seem so far-fetched.
We all know, logically, that if we want to be the world boxing champion we have to train every day, for years, but we've been so inundated with the message that everything is instant and easy, that we've lost the ability to work slowly towards our goal.Learning music is great for re-establishing the concept,
"The slow and steady, wins the race."
Here are some tips that have helped me develop an
"every day effort" mindset:
- Set a regular time. At first you may need to move the time around to accommodate work, family, your favourite TV show, food; whatever, but once you have a time that works, stick with it.
- Have everything ready to go, or at least handy. Nothing stops you faster than having to re-arrange furniture or drive somewhere.
- Don't watch the clock. In fact, don't have a clock anywhere near you. Work until you finish or become so wretchedly uncomfortable that you have to stop.
- Don't fret if "today" is wasted. You will always have bad days. Things will go wrong; don't sweat it. Even if you only lasted for 10 minutes, that's fine.
- Goals are good but don't become a slave to them. If you start of with a particular goal and get side-tracked, that's fine; that's how we discover new things.
- Enjoy it as much as you can, or at least take satisfaction in knowing that you put in some effort
This is the incredibly
valuable lesson of music:
A little effort every day
and you can move mountains.
Covid-19 Masks
My big sister and I are making masks. We both love sewing, and one of the bright aspects of this horrible pandemic is a fun new sewing project. I think her masks are better than mine because she puts a bendy metal nose part in hers, but I don’t. I tried putting in tin foil, and it works, but my glasses still fog up, so I decided to skip that.
I’m more into exciting fabric combinations because, as everyone knows, it’s essential to look your best during a crisis.
Here in Canada, there is a lot of discussion as to the efficacy of masks, but since I’m looking after my elderly parents, I will take any steps I can to keep them and myself safe. I also carry a few extra masks in my purse and give them out to random people. My sister is making mass numbers to give to hospitals or shelters. I guess she is more altruistic than me.
I use this pattern:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inJQexwK8Yg
2 - 9” X 7” cotton pieces
1 - 4.5” X 7” filter material (I use quilting batting)
2 - 7.5” elastic or ribbon (I found 7” a bit small if you are using ribbon)
Keep safe everyone.
VIDEO GAMES
Angry Birds Chronos Cross Tetris
PENNY'S COMPOSITIONS
All of My Day Dreams Annoyance Dreamland Everything's Gone but the Tears First Day of School Grasshopper Blues I Want a Dog It's Winter Never Goin' Home Reflections
OTHER MUSIC
O Canada Happy Birthday The Star-Spangled Banner
Google Canvas
Google Canvas is a super nifty, light app for android. You can start with a new drawing, or use an existing image and alter it.
The drawing tools are pretty standard, and I mostly use the marker and eraser.
The layers selector is to the left of the three dots at the top right, and you can add layers and move layers as required. The background layer can’t be moved, but if you click on the eye icon, you can make that layer transparent.
I use my HP Chromebook 14” x360, and Google Canvas is very smooth and responsive. However, it doesn’t work as well on my mobile phone.
You can access your drawings via the web, but that seems to have issues, so I usually just run it as an app on my Chromebook. https://canvas.apps.chrome/
A few tricks
- Sometimes a lag begins to creep in as you are drawing. If that happens, close the app and restart, that fixes this issue.
- I use the default colours because if you do have to close the program, it can be challenging to find strange colours.
- In the Home area (click on the little house), three dots appear at the bottom of your drawing, and this is where you save and duplicate your work. I use the duplicate function a lot because if you make a mistake, you can easily pick up where you left off especially, as the autosave is destructive.
- Move layers by click and hold the layer until a blue line appears under the layer, then you can drag it.
- I save the finished drawing to an SD card, rather than using the cloud because sometimes there are some issues with my desktop accessing Google Canvas
- I use a Dimples Excel Precision Stylus rather than my finger. Once you get used to the drawing with a little disc on the end of the stylus, it’s perfect and is an absolute joy for drawing.
On Amazon
- There is no palm rejection, so a drawing glove helps, but it’s not much of an issue for me.
There are not a lot of functions, like scale, editing, and copy/paste, but if you want to have a nice responsive sketch pad, the Google Canvas is AWESOME!
Snakes in the Pool
My Mom has Alzheimer’s and is in the middle stage. Probably a 5 or so, but it changes day-to-day. The thing is,
PWA’s (Person with Altzheimers)
lose their logic and rely entirely on emotion. That is why it’s pointless to argue with a PWA. Even if your reasons are perfectly clear, but your tone and emotions are those of frustration, all the PWA will hear is that frustration.It’s all about me
I am the quintessential INFJ. I am extremely logical and love to plan for the future, meanwhile being extremely sensitive to the emotions of others. This probably makes me pretty good with PWA’s, but it really takes a toll and runs my ‘batteries’ down within a few hours.
My Dad is the primary caregiver, and I worry about him, especially since he’s had a couple of strokes because of the stress. He kind of tunes out, so I guess that’s how he deals with the situation, but as I said, it’s all about me.There seems to be a lot of crying with PWA’s.
My kitchen renovations finished up a few days ago, and I had an extra microwave. So, my plan was to have Mom and Dad come over in the car, see my renovations, have a cup of tea and take the microwave home to their place. When I got to their place, though, Dad was sulking, and Mom was in the bedroom crying because she thought Dad was plotting something.
PAW’s really believe they are fine.
They think the rest of the world is crazy and they are perfectly normal. For a PWA It’s perfectly reasonable to go out in the winter in your sock feet to walk hundreds of kilometres to your Mom and Dad house, even though they have been dead for 20 years. The fact that you don’t even know the direction is no problem. Off you go.
Sadly, you can’t explain how irrational that is, because PWA’s have zero logic and understanding of reality.Back to my original plan. “Hey,” I said to Mom, “I would love it if you came over to my house to see my new kitchen!” with all the enthusiasm I could muster. The tears dried up and off we went. It turned into a good day.
Snakes in the Pool
This is probably the most excellent tip for anyone dealing with a PWA, and it came from my sister’s family many years ago.
My Niece was afraid to go into the swimming pool because she was afraid there were snakes in the water. I don’t know why she thought that, but she believed it with absolute conviction.
My sister tried explaining, logically, why there were no snakes in the pool, but no matter what logic my sister used, her daughter wasn’t going to get into THAT water.
Then my nephew said he had a magic towel, and if he waved it over the pool, all the snakes would disappear, FOREVER. He made up quite a wonderful and positive story about the magic contained in that towel before waving it over the pool and poof, just like that, all the snakes were gone.
His sister jumped in the pool, and they had a terrific time frolicking in the pool and not a single snake was ever seen again.
INFJ Burndown
My Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ.
Here is a link if you would like to take the test [https://www.16personalities.com/personality-types].
As an INFJ, I suffer mightily from the urge to burn down all my work.
Phew! It feels good to get that off my chest.
Frank James, one of my favourite INFJ YouTubers, has an excellent video on the INFJ Burndown
INFJ’s love to share, perhaps even over share, only to think better of it at a later date.
Reasons:
- Being a perfectionist
- Being too sensitive to negative comments
- Feeling the message is unclear
- Simply changing one’s mind
Whatever the reason, I find this “Burn it all down” tendency a real problem for me, especially when I am working on a long term project.
If you are trying to build a house and begin every day by burning down yesterday’s work, you have a problem.
Right now, I’m trying a new strategy here on Flutegirl.ca. I am posting something new every day, or as often as possible. My post could be a song, a helpful hack, some techie information, or just something interesting going on in my life.
The new addition is “above the fold,” and the previous work drops down the page.
I am going to resist the urge to delete things.
Though this is incredibly difficult for me, I think it will be interesting to see the changes in my drawings, writings and music.
Join me on my journey by checking out flutegirl.ca every day.
Netflix and Prime
Random Black ScreenI have my Chromebook connected via HDMI cable to a big monitor. I use this mostly to watch YouTube, Netflix, and Prime. YouTube seems just fine, but both Netflix and Prime randomly turn the screen black for a moment, then it comes back on.
The random black screen makes watching Netflix or Prime nigh-on-impossible.
At first, I thought if I mirrored the Chromebook screen, instead of extending, while leaving the Chromebook screen on, that would work. Nope.
Then I thought it was my monitor and if I turned off the auto-scan that would fix the problem. Nope.
I watched a few videos on this problem, and they all said if you had something other than 60hz on your monitor settings, that would cause the problem. Unfortunately, my Chromebook didn’t let me change that, and besides, by default, both my Chromebook and monitor are 60hz.
Solution:
I finally found that you have to set your screen size to the same size as your monitor (or TV). I guess it blacks out when it’s trying to adjust between the two, so if it’s sending the same resolution to the monitor, this problem is averted.
For a Chromebook, you can go to:
Settings>Device>Displays>Display Size
I have mine set at 80% - or 1920 X 1080 (native),
and that has fixed the problem.
penny@pennywill.com
