More helpful journal quotes

Another student who shall remain nameless wrote a fantastic journal entry for this week. Two thought-provoking sections:

It’s interesting to try and slow down enough to just take a breath and feel ready before singing. I always feel like I’m on a time crunch to do things, study all the things I need to, attend meetings, and just do whatever needs to be done. So, when warming up and especially when my adrenaline begins to kick, it’s easy for me to just rush through warm ups and run throughs to just get them done. So I challenged myself to go painfully slowly through the song to ensure that there was no way to rush. This seemed to help me not only watch my breath control but also forced me to take a deep breath and relax a little bit. I noticed that as I took longer with the song and began to force myself to calm down, I stopped checking my phone for the time and thinking about the billion other things I had to do that day.

Excellent observation. Not only is practicing slowly useful from a musical perspective, it's also calming for the mind. It's also interesting to note that when we are mindfully absorbed in our work, there is no compulsion to distract oneself. And isn't that great? Shouldn't we all love our work that much?

I also will go ahead and admit that I didn’t do as much work as I feel I should have because of studying for other tests. I allowed myself to sing the song mindlessly while working on other things and I do think that began to have a bad effect on the piece because I allowed myself, not to mess up the notes or rhythms, but to not pay attention to what was coming out of my mouth and not letting it be the best. I did go back with later actual practice and focus, but it took a little extra effort to undo the habits I had formed even after a single day. For example, because I was trying to stay quieter and sing to myself, my jaw was locked back up again. Again, hopefully thing will all be undone and better before tomorrow. I just felt the need to include both the good and bad parts of practice because that way you have the full picture and not just the good.

I love that she included this. It is very useful to know what works and what doesn't during the days I don't see you. It's also particularly important that this singer realized that NOT practicing mindfully actually causes some backslide, and backslide means more work to get where you were. Now you know! This applies to everyone, not just her. Learn from her experience.

This singer also wrote another paragraph I'm not including, but that should give everyone an idea of what a real journal is in my view. A short paragraph of three or four sentences does not constitute a journal. Real reflection is required. Now you know what is expected!