practicing...

In studio class yesterday, it was brought to our attention that our grad-student, Arianna from Yale has been talking to our Professor, Pansy. She thinks Pansy is cutting us too much slack. And after much grumbling, she was like "Really, it's not that difficult. We're all trying to improve something; our bow-arm, our articulation, coordination... Anything is possible to achieve. If you don't want it bad enough, you'll get it in four years or more. If you really want it and FOCUS on it as you practice, rather than just trying to get notes, then you'll get it in a couple of weeks." And you know what? She's right! *Ding!* I've realized (once again...) that I keep limiting myself. There's no way my fingers can stretch that far for an octave... There's no possible way I can play something that fast. But anything is possible. I just have have to be inspired rather than afraid of failure, and keep working on it with the mind set that "I will accomplish this."