It's already a month into 2023! Anybody else still writing 2022? I caught myself writing 2024 on an assignment sheet this week. What's up with that?! Speaking of weird... Denver tied the 38 year old record for the coldest January and we had 13 inches of snow which ties the record from 1989. Personally, I can take the cold and the snow as long as we have sunshine. I came from the midwest where it's dreary 6 months of the year and the snow is mostly gray and brown because it doesn't melt right away. So if you've been in Denver for a while, I hope you can still stop and appreciate the sunny winter wonderland even when we have a record cold month. It's all about wearing the right gear. That said...let's talk about Spring.

Experts (loose term) are predicting that Punxsutawney Phil will see his shadow tomorrow at 6am Eastern Time and therefore, we will enjoy six more weeks of winter. My problem with this is that the sun doesn't officially rise until 7:28am in Punxsuntawney, Pennsylvania. (I googled it.) Who are these people assigning official times to something as serious as Groundhog Day? No one is seeing their shadow at 6am!

What else is going on in February? Valentine's Day. It's on a Tuesday. I believe we should shift most holidays so they fall on a Friday or Saturday. Then we should have the official day off of work on the following Monday. We do it for Memorial Day, Labor Day and Thanksgiving and it works well. We can stop calling it July 4th and call it Independence Day and watch fireworks on July 7th instead. Anybody want to start a petition?

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How do I go down these rabbit holes? This a perfect example of how NOT to practice the piano. Stay with me here... there is something called deliberate practice and then there's just practice. Deliberate practice involves having a plan, staying focused and following through. Just "practicing" involves playing something you already know (because that feels good) and then limping through sections not yet mastered and skimming over parts that are difficult and getting frustrated and going back to playing something already mastered and then looking at the clock and deciding you need a snack. An example of deliberate practice is: The E flat major scale 3 times in each hand going up and down. E flat triad and inversions 3 times in each hand. I-IV-V7 in E flat and all the keys that you know. Moving on to playing 2-4 measures at least 10 times in a song that you are trying to commit to muscle memory. Play a game with yourself to see how many times you can play the passage in a row without a mistake. Then take a break and let that information soak into your brain. That is deliberate practice and it's important if you want to see progress.

If I had been deliberate when writing this, I would have had an outline of what topics I wanted to cover with elegant segues. Instead, I started talking about how time flies, then brown snow which morphed into Phil and then the inconvenience of Tuesday holidays. This also brings up a good point. It is important to also experiment, be creative and play your instrument for your own enjoyment. Deliberate intentions won't take you down any rabbit holes but there's a lot to be said for the things you find there.