1 January 2022, 12:14 Good year! Hope you had a wonderful holiday season full of friends, family, great food and great times. As the holiday season draws to a close, a new year begins, creating the perfect opportunity to talk about resolutions and goals for 2022!

More precisely, I would like to talk about the musical resolutions of each one. Of course, you could have more than one goal in your musical life, but at this point what is the nature of your main goal for this year? Where would you like to see the most improvement, attention and resolution? I’ve put together a list of general goals, and I’d like you to pick the one that speaks to you the most, and then describe your goals in more detail, in the comments.

Here’s a quick overview, some ideas to get you started:

Practice. There is always one obvious goal: to train! Maybe you’d like to do a better job of saving some practice time and really making it happen. You might like to increase your hours. Or maybe it’s just a matter of getting there in a more consistent way, even for a little while.

New directory. Another idea is to explore a new directory. It could mean exploring a standard repertoire that you have never learned, or it could mean watching new music, or music less known by women or composers at BIPOC. Or, you might want to explore a different genre than what you usually play.

Technical progress. Technical goals can also provide a lot of motivation: fixing your position, getting a good spiccato, mastering the raised arc staccato, really making the bow arm mechanics work, etc. Does the idea of ​​conquering a technical goal inspire you?

Upgrade equipment.Upgrading equipment is a worthy prison as well. It takes real effort and willpower to get a good sounding violin or to find the right bow for you. It requires research; contact shops, luthiers or bow makers; try out the equipment; and then finally find the means to acquire it buy it. It can take real planning!

Find show / play opportunities. You may also simply want to find more acting or performance opportunities: start playing in a band, form a quartet or ensemble, join a band, etc.

Listen more. Another thing that can happen when we play a lot is that we are so busy with the “outs” that we forget to give ourselves “inputs”. In other words, we stop listening to recordings, stop going to performances, stop enjoying the performances of other musicians. We neglect to observe, without playing. Do you want to put down your instrument and listen to more recordings? Go for more performance?

Please choose the response that best describes the nature of your main goals for this year, then describe your specific goals in the comments.

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