Our modern time promises a lot.
We hear about life hacks and quick fixes all the time.
And about things that bring us a wonderful new world full of awe and convenience.

“Be connected to everybody through technology, 24/7 – all the time!”
And people feel more lonely than ever.

“Order everything online!”
And people get fat because they don’t move any more.

“Eat lot’s of … (special pill) and get healthy!”
And people today suffer from more than 80.000 illnesses.

Is it a good idea to teach the next generation that they only need to push buttons, sit on a couch all day long, get everything they want – and all free of shipping costs from giant discounter companies employing robots?>>

When I look back how I felt about teaching first, I can see how silly I was.
I started giving lessons and the next thing that happend was that I wondered how much patience I had to develop.

For some reason, I expected the task of educating to be easy. Kind of: I show you how, you get it the first time around, I call you talented and me a great teacher.

Reality looks different.
It goes like this: The first lesson is fantastic. After that, it starts getting hard to even open the bassoon case.

We both feel overwhelmed. The student because their schedule is already overly packed and because it’s so damn hard to learn.
Me, because before even teaching one little thing, I have to pump up huge amounts of motivation. Like the animation guy in an all-inclusive vacation club.
Psychology tactics sometimes come first, music comes second. Or third. Or forth.>>

They say: “Don’t make waves, accept things as they are, you can’t change other people or the system.”

And yes, partly that’s true. We indeed NEVER ever can change anyone, except maybe our puppy to get housetrained… Wanting to changing the system also seems an idea that just pops up, after you smoked magic mushrooms. Or if your name is Don Quichote.

But what about not making waves and accepting things as they are?
Is it really a good plan to follow what everyone else is doing?

 

Recently I heard a funny conversation. It has been said that making concerts with “no pressure” would be a great approach. And yes, on the surface that might sound very welcoming, inclusive and human.>>

If you read this, you are probably one of those people we did all this for. 113 titles in print, in stores on 4 continents and played by bassoonists of all ages, sizes and hairstyles. For 10 years we worked our buns off to bring the best bassoon books and the best educational music material possible to you.

We treasure you dearly and in all those years I never said thank you to you publicly on the blog. You are making all of this possible. I am more than honored to serve you and my team and I are committed to do this for as long as good bassoon sheet music is needed.

>>

Self-confident people step out into the world, are willing to take risks and are eager to experience life fully.

Usually, what is holding us back is
– doubt, if we may do everything right,
– worry, that we look right in the eyes of others (what will they think of me??) and
– the fear of getting into a bad situation that can not be fixed later on.

I can define all of that so clearly, because these guys are some personal buddies of mine ;o) I have known them – doubt, worry and fear – for a long time.
And they still like to sneak around sometimes.

To still do my thing and to not get distracted, I have some strategies I want to share with you on how to handle those very human conditions with strength and clarity.>>

There is this strange difference between learning something and being educated in something.

Learning comes from doing, from applying, from actually moving the body – or at least the brain.
Getting education is something different. It means being exposed to theories.

In education usually doing something is not involved. The highest participation is memorizing and then repeating correctly.
What a sad process! Every mobile phone can do this. No humans required.>>

No one is good at everything. We all have areas where we are small and sucky.
Even if we are an expert, even if we reached an overall mastery level.
Still, there are things, we aren’t as good at.

What do we do about that?
There are several strategies, people cope with their weak points.

 

1.) They pretend they have no weak points.
This is very common. People try to hide the fact that they do have weaknesses.
They create a fake image of perfection and try to show to the world, they are masters in EVERYTHING.>>

Here is the truth: We all LOVE to postpone. We all have done it a million times. And still, it’s not a wise choice to save our duties for later.

We know, we have to do it. We know, there is no way to get around it.
We know we have a lot of resistance.
We know it would be much cozier to sit on the couch, munch popcorn, waste some more time. And do it later – AGAIN.>>

There is this paradox: we strive for perfection but we only get there through failing.
In other words, we will never get even close to where we want to be because we tend to shy away from the necessary stairsteps in the right direction.

When we teach others that mistakes are bad, we obstruct their progress.
The person who avoids to be wrong will never learn anything.

Someone sent me an article about proper leadership. This article was designed for CEOs in expensive suits I guess. But at the end, leadership is what we all need if we want to lead someone, whether a child, a student, a marriage, a friendship, a company or a good life.>>

Sometimes I wonder what funny creatures we humans are. We have all these contradicting tendencies that live side by side in us. Sometimes one of them comes out and wins. At other times everything in us is pulling in different directions so we are not moving at all.

As musicians, we are always trying to be better than we were the day before. Music is an ideal. We know, we will never ever be able to reach this impeccable perfection, this big absolute. But we put our heart and soul into being the best possible version of ourselves.

This makes us great critics. We are actively investigating and looking for all the mistakes and flaws we make. We try to proactively improve everything connected to our art in every way. We are musical improvement detectives at work!>>