On Spring Cleaning

Image borrowed from ADHD and Spring Cleaning: 10 Survival Tips,
which also has an awesome list of steps to overcome distraction!

About this time every year, all of humanity seems to go cuckoo for cleaning.  Some even say it's ingrained into our cultural identity from our ancestors clearing out their dusty huts.  Last year I went cuckoo and ended up re-caulking a bathtub.

Cleaning can be therapeutic and invigorating.  It's freeing, in a way, to have a literal fresh start.

This year, I'm challenging myself to funnel my spring cleaning urges into musical things.  (My bathtub caulk can temporarily fend for itself.)  A couple of these are literal, physical cleanings.  The others are figurative and psychological.  Like that weird ribboned radio thing above, though, all are ugly and broken, and all need to be cleaned.

Here are four highlights from my list, complete with plans of attack.  Feel free to add yours below, and we can fight the good spring cleaning fight together!

 

 

- Shel Silverstein

Enemy: The "Fall Back" Reed

You know the reed I'm talking about.  It's kind of smelly and might be chipped, and you hope you never get asked to show it to your teacher in a lesson, because then he/she will know that you still put that in your mouth.

Weapon: The Wall Test

Should you still be playing this reed?  *smash*  Nope.

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Enemy: The Locker

This one's also pretty self-explanatory. My bassoon sits on top of two copies of the Weissenborn, my three-weeks-past recital music (all out of order), and a box of tea bags.  I'm not joking.

Weapon: Locker Clean Out Day

Remember that day in middle school when everyone piled into the hall with trash barrels on wheels and finally threw out all of the gum wrappers and bananas and old quizzes?  I'm doing that.

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Enemy: The "Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda"

Your jury/recital/competition is next month/next week/tomorrow, and you are freaking out.  "If I woulda had more time, I coulda practiced more, and I shoulda made it a priority."

Weapon: The "Did"

All we can control is what we do moving forward, and maybe the best use of my time is not thinking about what I woulda-coulda-shoulda done, but rather doing what I can and should do to put my best foot forward. This  is a biggie, and it could be another blog unto itself.  Hm, stay tuned...

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Enemy: The Impostor Phenomenon

I do this one particular injustice with a tiny paragraph.  Most basically, this is a near-constant feeling of fraudulence.  "Thanks for thinking I'm awesome, but it's really only a matter of time before everyone realizes I'm just really good at faking."

Weapon: Going Public

After doing some reading,  I found a cool Psychology Today interview that recommends airing out some these feelings simply by saying them, so here goes.  Sometimes I feel like I am less competent than everyone seems to think.  Sometimes that makes me worry that people will regret working with me.

Need a safe space to go public?  There's a comment section below!

So there you have it, a quick introduction to my musical spring cleaning list.  Now that I've taken care of "going public," maybe I can actually bring myself to throw away that moldy recital reed...

Best of luck in your spring cleanings!