How To Get From Where You Are...

                                  To Where You Want To Go

     In our last issue we discussed some of the areas of music that we all need to develop to make the maximum use of the talent given us.

     But there's another quality seldom discussed, and yet this one quality determines, more than any other quality, whether or not you will develop your potential to it's maximum.

     That quality is...

Attitude!

     Back when our music school was in operation we stressed attitude above all other qualities, because I saw so clearly student after student who had the ability, yet for one reason or another never lived up to their potential. And I saw other students with mediocre talent (like me!) who achieved much more than one might have expected out of them.

    I remember one good-natured boy who was not nearly as aggressive or outgoing as many of my students, yet had this inner belief that he could accomplish most any goal he set for himself. He not only excelled in his music -- eventually leading worship on his portable keyboard in a fairly large church, but also becoming a helicopter pilot, a college graduate, and is now a cop in Medford -- my home town.

     There are many elements to getting where you want to go in piano playing, among them:

Music theory

Technique

Sight-reading

Chord Knowledge

Keyboard Arranging

Improvisation

Repertoire

...but at the top of the list is...

Attitude!

Most people never achieve their dreams because they limit themselves through their negative attitudes, such as:

I can't do that...

This is too hard...

I don't feel like it...

I don't like so and so...

Etc., etc., etc.

     Here are some of my favorite quotes on attitude. I hope you will take them to heart and apply them to your piano playing as well as to the rest of your life:

Everyone you meet knows something you don't know. Be willing to learn from them.
--Unknown

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.
--Bible, Proverbs 23:7

For with God all things are possible.
--Bible, Mark 10:27

Forget about all the reasons why something may not work. You only need to find one good reason why it will.
--Dr. Robert Anthony

The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur.
-- Vince Lombardi

He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't.
--Orison Swett Marden

They can... because they think they can.
--Virgil

If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it.
--Jonathan Winters

If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right.
--Mary Kay Ash

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.
--Helen Keller

Imagination... its limits are only those of the mind itself.
--Rod Serling

Others can stop you temporarily -- you are the only one who can do it permanently.
--Zig Ziglar