Thoughts On Performing, Focus, Zen, and Hayoun Leaving

Last night I played a great gig with Circles at the Annex Live, with Parc-X Trio opening for us.  This morning I had some thoughts about what might be the best way to direct one's mind while playing the sort of music Circles plays - music that is sometimes tricky technically, but is also very improvisational.  On the one hand, you are looking to be creative and play something new, but on the other hand, it isn't totally free - there are certain guidelines and things you need to get right. So there are two challenges. (Or at least two challenges, anyway!) So where do you direct your attention? How do you use your mind so that you can accept inspiration and hopefully make the music better in a subjective sense (e.g. more expressive, interesting, inspiring, etc.) while still keeping it of a high quality in an objective sense (e.g. playing the right notes, playing with good rhythm, playing in tune, etc.).


There are lots of things you could think about in trying to make a piece of music more expressive.  Sometimes I think about something which is emotionally evocative to me that I think connects with the feeling of the music somehow. For example, if it is a love song, I could think about someone I love and how I feel about them. Or, for example last night was the last gig Circles will play with our piano player Hayoun Lee before he moves to Korea, so I was thinking about that sometimes. But that sort of thinking is kind of dangerous - it is easy (for me anyway) to get off on some train of thought, and before you know it, I've missed a shot or a chord or something. On the other hand, it can be helpful - it can give a little inspiring boost of emotional intensity.  I think it is best if kept very abstract, for example, just calling a person or situation to mind, without thinking about any specific issues or ideas that relate.


Another thing you can think about is planning ahead in the song. Like at one point last night when we were playing the song Little Candles Hayoun was on his third chorus, and I had expected him to take only two (although I was glad he took an extra one because it was sounding great) so I was thinking "I really doubt he will take a fourth chorus, so that means the melody is almost certainly coming up after this chorus, and in rehearsal he built his solo up a lot at the end which sounded great going into the melody, so I'm going to try to build this even more and see if we can do something similar this time, but even better." This type of thinking is necessary to a certain extent, but again, it is easy for me to think too much, and then it takes me away from the music, and I'm liable to make a mistake.


I think the best way to focus your mind, especially with this kind of music, but it would probably apply to other types of music as well, is to listen to yourself and the other musicians. Focusing on listening solves many problems. First of all, only by listening carefully can you play in tune and with good rhythm. Secondly, it becomes like a meditation, and it clears the mind. You aren't thinking about ideas, so you don't get lost in a train of thought. You stay focused. Thirdly, you experience what your fellow musicians are playing, and instead of just having your own ideas about what should happen next, you can pick up on theirs. You become a team.  Also you get energy and inspiration from them. Whoever seems most inspired at any given moment, you can listen to what they are playing and draw from that. Then later on at some other point, maybe you will lend them some of your energy. Fourth, by listening, you focus on the present moment, rather then creating expectations about what will happen next. Of course, unless you are playing totally "free" music, you always have some plan or expectation of what will happen next - e.g., we're going to follow this chord progression, this form, etc. - but if you sort of leave thinking about that up to the periphery of your mind, and focus on the present moment, then you have the possibility of being very spontaneous. It can seem like magic. For example, the band suddenly becomes quiet, or loud, or you realize that in one beat, the drums are going to decide to drop out, so you drop out with them. Of course this type of "magic" comes not only from being very focused in the moment but also from playing together a lot, so that you develop a group intuition.


I see this all as relating sort of to my meditation practice (I've done Zen meditation with varying degrees of regularity over the past fourteen years).  I know other jazz musicians have been inspired by Zen, for example Bill Evans and bass players Scott LaFaro and Gary Peacock, both idols of mine. I've noticed that on the rare and precious occasions when through meditation I manage to achieve a fairly clear mind, everything I experience becomes beauty.  Sights, sounds, tastes - even the most "mundane" - everything is wonderfully beautiful. I've come to suspect that the experience of what we call "beauty" is a byproduct of all perception, but usually our perception is somewhat dull, and the lessened beauty-experience is covered up by our distracted and cluttered mind. When the mind becomes clear, perception is enhanced because more mental resources can be directed to it, and the clutter is removed, so you notice the beauty-experience, which is more powerful. I'm reminded of the quote by Henry David Thoreau: "You cannot perceive beauty, but with a serene mind."  Just as I've found that a clear mind precipitates beauty, I've also found it goes the other way - that strong aesthetic experiences create a clear mind. I'm sure many people have experienced this - we see or hear a beautiful work of art, and we're awestruck, and our mind just empties of its own accord.

On an even deeper level, I think that you have to trust that even without thinking about meaning, it is there. In the present moment, everything that makes me who I am is there. So if I'm playing a ballad or a love song, I don't have to deliberately decide "okay, I'm going to think about my girlfriend now" for my relationship and my experiences with my girlfriend to inspire my playing. Those neuro-connections are there no matter what I do. If I try to deliberately express something, perhaps that is less honest then if I just focus on the moment and "allow" something to be expressed - even if I never really know what it is. It all happens on a level below (or beyond?) conscious thought. If you have this kind of trust, either as a performer or a listener, the music takes on a depth of meaning beyond what you can put into words, or even understand with your thinking mind.

I think those two things - the possibility of real spontaneity, especially as a group, and the trust that everything that I've ever thought or felt is present in each moment somehow - is what is most exciting for me about this approach of focusing on listening combined with performing improvisational music. If I'm open and receptive, amazing and unexpected things could happen! And I don't mean just musically, but emotionally and spiritually as well. That makes me excited, and before long I'm drawn into a creative flow. Also, the whole "beauty-experience" is very inspiring for me.

But sometimes things don't feel inspiring. If things aren't "happening", then I think it is best to just focus on listening and do your job, which for me as a bass player means keep the form, play the roots, play with good rhythm, play in tune, etc. If you clear your mind and focus on listening, maybe you will tap into the sources of inspiration mentioned above - maybe not.  At any rate, you need to do your job.  Because that's the other side of the whole experience - even though it is so amazing and profound, at the same time it is very ordinary and mundane. Perhaps this is expressed by this Chinese poem:

Rozan famous for its misty mountains;
Sekko for its water.
When I could not see them,
never was I free from the pain of longing!

I went and I returned.
It was nothing special:
Rozan famous for its misty mountains;
Sekko for its water.

Or by a famous Zen saying: “Before enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water.” Or, to quote a more contemporary, western voice:

There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time - it's easy.

I once asked Hayoun what he thought about while he played, and he told me that he sort of meditated on the sound of the ensemble. Maybe that is when I first started thinking about these ideas. I've always been very inspired by Hayoun's approach to playing music because it seems to me that he's always been very dedicated to making music from a space of being present and open to possibilities, and I think that makes the whole experience of his art richly meaningful and exciting. That's my impression anyway - Hayoun is a man of many thoughts and few words (unlike me, as this blog post evidences!).  Hayoun certainly plays unexpected things sometimes, which keeps me on my toes. Check out his blog to gain some insight into his thinking. I'm certainly going to miss him when he moves to Korea in a few days. I'll look forward to the next time we play together - whenever and wherever the universe decides that will be!

P.S. I'd love to hear what other artists or art lovers thought about this subject. Post a comment!

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Interview with Composer Dave Wall

Dave Wall is an Edmonton based composer/performer.  He did the jazz guitar program at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton, got an undergrad in composition, which led to a composer-in- residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, which led to a Masters in composition at UBC. He is currently a composition PhD student at the University of Alberta.  He has written for documentary films, dancers, theatre types, various classical ensembles from solo trombone to full orchestra, rock bands and jazz musicians. He has received numerous commissions and awards, and made several recordings. See his full bio here.

Here are some examples of his music:

In Medias Res (string quartet)
Compensation (saxophone quartet)

As part of my "Composers' Process Project", where I am interviewing a variety of composers about exactly how they do what they do, I recently spoke with him at The Blue Plate Diner in Edmonton.



Matt Roberts: What mistakes do inexperienced composers make?

Dave Wall: Writing too much. Not respecting the use of repetition. Too much material all at once, and not allowing stuff to breathe, and the lack of clarity that that leads to.

MR: Do you think you've grown as a composer, and how?

DW: I've worked on overcoming the problem I described in the first question.

Also, I acquired as many ideas and approaches as I could find and used them all.  When I was 17 my plan was to learn to play every single style of music there is, so I could write music and have all of that to draw from.

When I first started I was writing really simple stuff.   Then I found out about Schoenberg, and I fell in love with Elliott Carter. So I started writing stuff that's really complex.  I tried really hard not to repeat anything.  Then I started working back to making in simpler and simpler, but having it seem really complex.  And now I'm moving back to somewhere in the middle, so it is complex and not that easy to play, but it doesn't sound uninviting. When you finish listening to a piece of music you should be able to replay the whole thing in your head in a spit second and get an image of it.  If you don't write to that, it's not going to happen.  People will leave the hall not knowing what just happened - and not wanting to come back!

MR: What are the most important factors that contributed to your development as a composer?

DW: Not quitting. That's about it!

MR: Well, for example, did learning about 12-tone techniques really affect you, or a certain teacher, or a certain composition?

DW: Going to UBC. I got exposed to a lot of things.  Before that the most out thing I'd heard was Ornette Coleman.  At UBC, it was Brian Ferneyhough, Elliott Carter, Edgard Varèse... people doing stuff that was really interesting.  I thought "Oh, this means I can do anything I want..." So I tried to do everything.  But I forgot that I had to have some formal principles.  There was one piece where I kept pushing myself and pushing myself.  It was a vocal piece - SATB - and I was working with different vocal sounds.  I listed all the things that could possibly be done with voice, and I tried to do them all.

MR: What do you consider the most important principle(s) of good composition?

DW: Clarity... and clarity... and clarity!

MR: That's sort of what I said when I interviewed myself, except I said "elegance".  When a piece of music has some central idea, and every part of it seems to relate to that central idea, then it becomes elegant, and I think that is a good composition.

DW: Exactly. Clarity for me encompasses elegance.  Also, I think a sense of voice - a sense that you're trying to say something that hasn't been said. Which isn't really possible. But all I try to think about is clarity, and everything else follows.

MR: The way I feel about this idea of developing my own voice is: I'll just write, and it can't not be my own voice.

DW: Oh sure it can.  It can, if you're thinking about anything else.  If you're thinking "I hope so-and-so likes this." or "It sucked last time I did that."  You have to think while you compose, but in a sense, you don't.  I think a lot less than I used to while I compose.  If you spend 15 years, spending weeks with every piece, planning what you are going to do, and then doing it, after a while you develop technique.  At some point you just go "okay", and you write it all down, and then you tweak it, erasing stuff.  And you wind up with something that's pretty honest - although it isn't always that good!  I've tried to get to with composing where most people are at with performing - you don't think about it, you just do it.  It is obvious that with performing, if you over-think it, it isn't going to work.  If you're thinking about where you're placing your fingers, you're doomed.  Or if you're thinking "Well I went from D to Eb four bars ago, maybe I should do that again." you could be in trouble.

MR: What do you consider to be the greatest challenge of composition?

DW: To never be boring. To keep it unified, but always changing.

MR: What is your compositional process? Do you follow a routine?

DW: My wife's nickname for me is "routine boy"!  I just get up and I start writing.  There's no question that I'm going to do it.  Composing is just something that happens every day.   I do the things I don't want to do first, like working with a programming language.  I usually work until I don't feel like working any more; that could be anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple hours. Then I do something else, and come back to it.  I might do multiple sessions; they might be as short as 5 minutes. But I don't do it until I feel like "this isn't working".

Part of what makes it easy for me to write is that I know that ideas are a dime a dozen. You can have the worst ideas - actually there are no "worst ideas". It's what you do with them after the first bar.  Someone asked Bach "Where do you get your ideas?"  He said "I have a hard time not tripping over them when I get up in the morning."  Look [holds up the salt shaker] there's the form for your next piece. It's round here and square at the end, it starts out with all these little holes. [makes little-hole-like-noises]  Everywhere you look.

Mr: Are there phases to your compositional process?  For example, planning, writing, editing?

DW: Yeah, I'll write two or three minutes of music really quickly, and then I'll edit it, and often it will become about 5 minutes, because I realize there is more to it. Then I'll start writing some new material, and then revise again.

MR: Do you have any stratagems for composing?

DW: I don't do this anymore, but I used to start by writing down all the possibilities. For example, for a string quartet, I'd start by writing down all the possible ways each instrument can make sounds, then I'd make a list of each possible combination of instruments.  Then I'd make a structure; and then I'll meditate on that, and then I'll start writing. I don't do that anymore, but that really helps, especially beginning composers, because they don't think of all the possibilities. You think of all the possibilities, and then you might pick three, and then you start writing.  It's really more craft. The art is really something you can't talk about. All we've been talking about is craft.

MR: A quote I like is "The work of art is the mediator of the inexpressible."

DW: There you go. I tell my students: "Musicians are people who want to communicate something they can't communicate with language."

MR: What composers do you admire and why?

DW: The ones that are still doing it! (laughs) But actually, I mean it. I really like György Ligeti. He has a very intricate way of writing that comes out sounding very unified. He's quite adventurous but not crazy. Avant garde but still accessible.  He's got a very textural way of thinking which I'm very into. I like Steve Reich, Arvo Pärt.  Xenakis, but more for his process then how it actually sounds. Alfred Schnittke - he'll use whatever he needs to use in order to communicate what he wants to communicate, as opposed to all the guys in the 60's who said "I'm a 12-tone composer and everything else is shit." There's a lot of guys, I can't think of them all right now. Todd Sickafoose. He's more of a jazz guy.

MR: Why compose? What is the reward of composing?

DW: I've got nothing better to do! You might be asking me this question at the wrong point in my life. There are so many people out there doing it. I don't understand, anymore, why I need to compose. I don't see how me composing helps anyone except for me.

MR: That's a reason!

DW: Yeah, it makes me a better person, and then when I go out into the world, I'm a better person, so it helps that way. But there are a lot of ways I could become a better person besides writing music.

MR: Do you enjoy composing?

DW: Yeah, that's why I do it. I really enjoy it.

MR: Are there any books, CDs, DVDs, etc., that you would recommend?

DW: Techniques of the Contemporary Composer by David Cope. Arnold Schoenberg's book [Theory of Harmony]. Messiaen's book [My Musical Language].  I used the Cope book for teaching, because it is really clear.

MR: Which of your own compositions are you most proud of, and why?

DW: I like the first string quartet I ever wrote, "In Medias Res". It is really direct and clear.  I like this saxophone quartet I wrote more recently, "Compensation". I like the way it opens. There is a narrative to it, there is a reason that everything happens.  The narrative is described on my website.

If you're interested in learning more about Dave Wall or his music, visit www.davewall.org.

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Jazz Mind, Beginners Mind

(This is actually something I posted to my Facebook page a while ago, but I thought I'd re-post it here, since it seems relevant.)

Lately I was re-reading a chapter from one of my favorite books, "Zen Mind Beginner's Mind", by Shunryu Suzuki, and I was stuck by it in a new way - I saw how it relates to my music practise. When I first started learning the double bass, I felt I had virtually no skill and everything to learn. Although this was very stressful for me, I practised hard and eventually saw some dramatic improvements. I didn't become a virtuoso, but in a two or three years I went from having a poor sense of time and being virtually tone-deaf to having a reasonable concept on the instrument. Since then, however, I think I have seen a gradual reduction in my rate of improvement. I've been practising the same things for years now and not improving so dramatically. When I first started, everything seemed extremely hard to me. Now I tend to practice things that seem fairly easy to me, with the hope of perfecting them. However, if I was really aiming for perfection, then they I would still regard them as hard, because perfection is very hard to obtain! I think this subtle difference in attitude, together with simply less hours put into practicing due to a lessened sense of urgency (the threat of getting kicked out of Grant MacEwan College for failing my technical jury no longer looms over my head), may be responsible for the diminishing returns I've been experiencing. Basically what I am saying is I think every time I practise it should seem "hard" to me, whether that is because it is something new which I actually can not execute presentably, or because it is something I am aiming to master perfectly. I want to feel like a beginner every time I pick up the bass. But that's kind of a tricky thing, isn't it?

Here an excerpt from the original lecture, which was given after a meditation session. I see further implications for music, beyond just technique, into creativity as well. I would highly recommend buying the book, it contains many other fascinating insights into life and art. You have to excuse his broken english - it isn't his first language.

"We say, "Sho shin." "Sho shin" means "Beginner's mind." If we can keep beginner's mind always, that is the goal of our practice. We recited Prajna Paramita Sutra this morning only once. I think we recited very well, but what will happen to us if we recite twice, three times, four time, and more? Then we will easily lose our attitude in reciting -- original attitude in reciting -- the sutra. Same thing will happen to us. For awhile we will keep our beginner's mind in your Zen practice but if we continue to practice one year, two years, three years, or more, we will have some improvement, and we will lose the limitless meaning of the original mind. In beginner's mind we have many possibilities, but in expert mind there is not much possibility. So in our practice it is important to resume to our original mind, or inmost mind, which we, ourselves -- even we, ourselves do not know what it is. This is the most important thing for us. The founder of our school emphasized this point. We have to remain always beginner's mind. This is the secret of Zen, and secret of various practices -- practice of flower arrangement, practice of Japanese singing, and various art. If we keep our beginner's mind we keep our precepts. When we lose our beginner's mind we will lose all the precepts."

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Books About Creativity That I Love (or at least own)

In my quest to understand the creative process better, I've amassed a modest library on the subject.  I thought it might be helpful to post my thoughts on some of the books I own.  I feel somehow unqualified or disinclined to call these "book reviews", but I'll just say a bit about how each book effected me personally.  Here they are, in the order I was exposed to them:

It seemed everyone was reading this book when I was starting music school.  I hope young musicians are still reading this book, because I think it has an important message. It had a big effect on me at the time.  I started doing the "steps" and listening to the guided meditations during breaks in my practicing. I even attended a five-day workshop on this subject with Kenny at The Banff Centre in 2002.  (Actually, I just found YouTube videos of his wrap-up concert at the end of that week: part 1, part 2, and part 3.) Personally, I found the spirit and overall philosophy of this book to be very inspiring, but when I tried to use it as a specific path to achieving the kind of freedom it describes, it didn't really work for me.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for Mr. Werner and his vision.  For me this is a good book to flip through now and again, to sort of soak up its vibes.

I purchased this book because I was excited and interested in the idea of creativity being a skill you could learn by practice - just like, say, juggling or playing a major scale.  I wanted to learn and improve that skill.  What I was hoping for was an almost scientific analysis of creativity, what it is, where it comes from, and how it can be harnessed.  I found only a small portion of the book was about the details of how a formulated creative process would work. The rest seemed to me a sort of catalogue of tricks for stimulating your creativity.  (Which is also helpful in its own right!) Along the way we get a bit of a portrait of Twyla Tharp as an artist.  All in all, I think it was a helpful book to read, and each person will probably respond to it in a very personal way, depending on their own strengths and interests.  For example, Christine Bougie considers it her bible - check out her blog posts on it here, here, and here.

I definitely feel that there is something fundamentally sympathetic between Zen and creativity; Zen lore and culture is full of beautiful art in the form of poetry, paintings, rock gardens, etc. When Samu Sunim (head of The Toronto Zen Buddhist Temple) found out that I was a musician, he remarked that artists often like Zen, because "Emptiness - that is like a blank canvas."  ("Emptiness" is a central concept in Zen.) However, I didn't really feel a strong affinity for this book, and I never finished it. It didn't seem to be addressing the specific questions I have. I'm sure there are lots of great things to be discovered in it though. Maybe I would be better off considering some of the original writings of Dogen et. all.

The bulk of this book is made up of theoretically-based composition exercises, but I was interested in the last chapter, which is basically a collection of rants on the compositional process by the likes of Bill Evans, Carla Bley, George Russell, Horace Silver, Pat Metheny, Chick Corea, Lyle Mays, Anthony Davis, Herbie Hancock, Richie Beirach, and Ralph Towner.  While I didn't find anything specific to latch on to, I found it really interesting to read the essays.  Each artist has a totally different perspective and set of interests about composing. I eventually flipped through the first section of the book, and was surprised that I found the compositional exercises fun to think about as well.

I've blogged about this book before - actually, twice.  This book isn't actually specifically about creativity, but I found it helped my creative process more than any other book I've read in recent years.  I guess I'm just excited about Brene Brown's whole "thing".  Part of that might just be because I have an affinity for her outlook - we both like to take a "scientific" look at "messy" subjects, and try to invent systems to deal with them.  (I think part of this book is kind of about learning to be comfortable not doing that.)  Lately I've been noticing that someone can tell me something really wise, but if it isn't told to me by someone I'm prepared to hear it from, in the way that I want to hear it, I don't appreciate it. Which is my loss. (And the aggravation of my teachers and everyone close to me!) Anyway, this book is about letting go of anxieties about who you are. I may read it a second time.

I was pretty excited by this book because the title seemed to be getting right to the heart of my issue.  Unfortunately, when I actually started reading it, I found it kind of poorly written, and even sort of bizarre.  However, I did find a few bits I really like.  I haven't yet finished it, but to me the best of everything I have read thus far can be summed up in the following quote:



"The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars."



I think if someone were to take just that quote and what is implied by it to heart, amazing things could happen.

Maria Schneider is apparently a devotee of this book - she reportedly carried it with her everywhere she went during her visit to U of T a few years back, and she sometimes does clinics with the same title.  I've only just started it, but it seems to me like a sort of manifesto for the modern artist (Robert Henri lived from 1865-1929), and it seems to espouse some ideals that I can get on board with. For example, it opens with this quote from Mr. Henri:

"There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. If one could but recall his vision by some sort of sign. It was in this hope that the arts were invented. Sign-posts on the way to what may be. Sign-posts toward greater knowledge."

The book seems to be full of sort of fatherly advice that Robert Henri gave to his students.  So far it has been inspiring, and I'm looking forward to finishing it.



Have you read any of these books? What is your opinion of them? Do you have any other recommendations?

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On Consistency, Winning Races, Zen, and Seinfeld Calendars

It's a cliche for teachers to emphasize it to their students: practice a bit every day. Fifteen minutes a day is better than two hours once a week. Slow and steady wins the race.  Consistency. 


Despite this, it wasn't until I started keeping track of and analyzing my own practice habits that this idea really hit home for me.  Of course I had already fully accepted the idea that if I wanted to get better, I'd have to spend lots of time practising.  (Perhaps you've heard of the 10 000 hour rule?) In order to motivate myself to practice more, I started keeping a spreadsheet of how many minutes I practiced each day.  This was a useful exercise, both motivationally, and in helping me understand my own habits.  The most glaring thing was that if I completely missed a day, it was very likely that this would start a streak - I would miss several days, in one case an entire month!  If you add to that the advantage of allowing your mind to absorb information gradually over several days, rather than in one intense session, it became obvious that focusing on practising at least little bit everyday was the best use of my energy.  Consistency was the key to increasing both my total practice time and effectiveness.


Soon afterwards, I became a cliche myself and started emphasizing consistent practice with my own students.  My new strategy for getting them to practice was to ask them to just take their instrument out of its case and play one note, everyday. If they wanted to do more, they were welcome to, but that was all that was required. I hoped that if I could instill in them this simple habit, they would begin to actually practice on their own.  I even went so far as to read a passage from "Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind", one of my favourite books, to one thirteen-year-old student:

If you lose the spirit of repetition it will become quite difficult, but it is not difficult if you are full of strength and vitality.

Several months later, I heard about  what has come to be called the "Seinfeld Calendar".  According to legend, the key to Seinfeld's success is that he has a giant wall calendar, and if he spends some time working on material, he marks an X on that day with a big red marker.  The idea is to get a chain going, and then "Don't break the chain."


I was smitten.  I enthusiastically set up not one, but four "Seinfeld calendars" - for practising bass, for composing, for exercising, and for meditating.  There are even more things I would love to have calendars for - practicing guitar, ear training, listening to music with full attention, promotion, reading a novel, etc.  However, I rightly guessed that just these four things would already be a lot for me.

My Seinfeld Calendars worked smashingly; for about two months I hardly missed a day on any of the four things.  Composing was a tricky one - it was hard to be creative when I felt I wasn't in the mood.  But I still found it encouraging, because at least I was dealing with "Oh my God, why can't I write anything?" rather than "Oh my God, I haven't even sat down to compose in weeks!"  I feel that with thoughtful, consistent effort, I'm working through the issues that come up; without my calendars, I might not even be getting to the issues. I set the bar pretty low - if I did even a little bit, I got my X. Eventually I decided to make the system more complicated - a black X if I did even a little bit, a blue X if I did a certain amount - for example, 45 minutes of practising or 20 minutes of meditation.  And a unicorn sticker if I got blue X's in all four things.  I was very into getting my X's.


Then one day, trouble came to my productivity paradise.  I was feeling very stressed - despite working hard everyday, it seemed my to-do list had been growing all week.  I was up late trying to get my "X" for composing, and not getting anywhere.  Finally I decided to give myself a break.  Forget about the "X" for a day.  I immediately felt so much better that I knew it was the right decision.  I took the next day off too.


I felt better, but unfortunately it also meant the start of a streak of not composing/exercising/ practising/meditating! And I chose those things because doing them keeps my life working the way I want it to work.  So, now I've realized the pros (increased productivity) and the cons (increaseed pressure) of the whole Seinfeld Calendar thing, and I've made an informed decision to get back on it. I'm loving it all over again. Also, in writing this blog entry, I've realized how self-obsessed the whole thing is. What a journey. I need to get out more.  Maybe I should make a calendar for that too?


P.S. If you want to try a Seinfeld Calendar of your own, but are low on wall space, this guy made a PDF that fits a whole year on one 8.5x11 sheet.


P.P.S. What is your trick for being productive? Would you give the Seinfeld Calendar a try? Leave a comment!

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