What You Focus On… – Quick Practice Tip

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[The song played at the beginning of the Quick Tip is a tune called Cuckoo’s Nest. Hear it on my newly-released album, Armadillo on a Hot Tin Roof AND learn it for yourself on this fiddle tune lesson.]

Hi! I’m Vi Wickam and this is your Quick Tip of the Week!

What you focus on is what you become aware of.

So, at it’s simplest level, I use this as a teaching tool with my students. When we’re playing a song, I ask them to focus on something for this time that they’re playing the song.

For example, let’s play this song again, and this time, really focus on the rhythm. Focus on the rhythm, and if you play a couple notes out of tune, or you make a mistake- that’s fine.

But keep the song flowing. Keep the song moving forward, and don’t stop. Focus on rhythm this time.

Or I would say, alright- that was great, and now let’s play it again and focus on intonation and we’re going to focus on really playing in tune. We might even slow the whole song down, so that we can focus on intonation and play it in tune.

So that’s within your practicing world- how you can apply this focus brings awareness, focus is what causes things to happen because you can’t fix it until you’re aware of it.

And unless you focus on it, you can’t be really aware of it.

This also, just like everything we do in music, applies to the rest of your life. If you focus on the good things that are going on around you, you’re going to become aware of the good things around you.

And consequently, you will be enjoying those good things! If you focus on what brings you down- if you focus on the downers, you’ll become a downer, because that is what you notice.

Whether you’re applying this in your music practice, or you’re applying it in the rest of your life… What you focus on comes into your awareness. What you focus on is what you create and it’s what you get better at.

Have a great week! I’ll see you next time!