Rhythm Is The Path

There are numerous points on the path to learning anything that is worth learning, where the progress stalls.

We keep doing the things that were working before, but for some reason they stop working. The progress we were making slows to a painful crawl, and sometimes seems to diminish altogether.

As the progress slows, we can become frustrated.

This is understandable, because at a certain point we expect that what was working should continue to work.

Skill building doesn’t happen that way though. It isn’t always the case that what worked for you before is going to work now. In fact, that is almost never the case.

What we can do to work through this is to develop an adaptive process. Let the practice adapt to what was already learned and internalized, and move forward.

It feels good to stay where we are comfortable, but when you first picked up your instrument, did it feel comfortable to play?

When you were making great progress through the first steps of your beginner days, you were internalizing the simple lessons that the instrument has to offer. They move more quickly when you are excited about them, and the path is clear.

At least it is more clear than it later becomes.

You arrive at a fork in the road where there are a countless number of possible ways you can go. Some of those paths will meet back up in the future, but there isn’t a clear map to tell you which ones.
There are people standing at each path yelling about why that is the way you need to go.

This is where dividing the essential from the superficial becomes crucial.

There are a few paths that all other paths feed into, and move out from. These are the essentials, the fundamentals, the necessaries and imperatives.

A focus on these paths will allow a branching out into all other possible areas, and will inform the journey down those paths with the all important foundational knowledge that is necessary to succeed on any of the side paths.

Let me warn you that the foundational paths are not as sexy, flashy, seemingly impressive or grand as the side paths, but the truth is that there is no shortcut to the sexy, flashy and impressive.

If you focus on the side paths, you’ll achieve none of those things. Stay on the primary path that all others grow out of and merge with, and you will be able to achieve all of those things.

Rhythm is the mother of all music. Without it there is no harmony, or melody, or life. From the rhythm of your heart, to the rhythm of the planets. Vibration is rhythm. Vibration is movement and life.

Rhythm is the path. Keep both feet on the path of rhythm and every other side path will be available.