Are You Asking The Right Questions?

While practicing violin, I am usually become excessively occupied with my sound quality or getting the right pitches, instead of truly thinking about how I can change my violin playing. Don’t get me wrong, sound quality and intonation are important, but in order to change my playing, I have to get brain, body and soul involved; and I feel that I have been leaving my brain out for some time. In order to change my thinking I believe that I must have the right thought process in order to make my playing and practicing more whole. So, in order to get my brain more involved to create a more whole approach to my practicing and thinking I feel that I must focus on specific questions that pinpoint particular aspects to hone in on.

In the “Smart City Memphis” blog, one entry included the concept of asking the right questions, in order to focus on the right things. Memphis was planning to welcome a Bass Pro Shop to The Pyramid, and the author argued that they were not thinking of “what should we do with the building and/or the site that makes the most sense for a city that desperately needs more vibrancy, more ambition, more talent, more innovation and more entrepreneurship,” but rather they thought about “ how they could fill up The Pyramid with a tenant.”

Normally, I just fill up time with mindless hours of practice. However, I believe that if I start asking more sensible questions when I practice violin or study for school, that I can get to the “heart” of the problem. This is quite a challenge for me, as I am not always up to using the full capacity of my brain when I practice, because I haven’t trained myself to think in this way. But I feel that a bit of a “stretch” could help me benefit from this new way of thinking.