Learning what to ignore

I learned today that one of my pastors has started a blog. His post for today, On Ignorance and Imagination, is great and got me thinking. You should follow the link and read it. However, instead of discussing ignorance or imagination, I want to discuss the power of ignoring.

Since I'm a working pianist/organist, I have to learn new music every week. Sometimes it is just a hymn or two, and sometimes it is a sizable stack of music. I also help my piano students in the process of learning their music every single week. Today, I was teaching a student working on a Bach fugue that sometimes the best route to learning something thoroughly is to purposefully ignore parts of it at first.

How often do people put off starting something because they are intimidated by the size of the project? How often do people get in their own way with worry over messing up one of a myriad concerns they are mulling over?

I'm constantly reminding myself and my students that it is better to find ways to practice that allow you to fully process and properly execute what you are trying to do. Sometimes you have to practice one hand at a time. Sometimes you have to figure out and focus on only the framework while ignoring the other notes. Sometimes you have to not even push keys down, but simply walk your arms through the choreography of how they'll move to get your hands and fingers in the correct places at the correct times. Sometimes you simply play the piece through in your mind to become comfortable with how it flows and fits together. Sometimes you have to practice only the rhythm. The trick is to identify how to break the project up into many steps small enough that you can be successful at each step until you run out of steps.

I'm reminded of a phrase from one of my favorite literature quotes from The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky:

To achieve perfection, one must first begin by not understanding many things! And if we understand too quickly, we may not understand well.

It is better to admit that you do not understand something and break it down to learn step-by-step, than to exhaust great effort yet never understanding well. It is better to know what to ignore for a time than to never see it as its own component to be pondered individually.

I have seen it again and again that what is first thought of as next to impossible can be achieved if you know how to ignore properly--if you know how to ignore in a way that keeps you working and stepping forward. If you ignore the finish line, but keep moving forward, you will eventually be surprised to see when looking back to review your progress that you have crossed the finish line you thought was out of reach.

If you can ignore that you can't do the impossible.....you may just end up doing it.

[Last chance to go back up and follow the link to my pastor's blog post if you haven't already]