Author: michellep

I have been a rabid fan of yoga for almost 12 years now, and I give it a lot of credit for the improvements I have made as a musician since then. When I first began studying piano, I was a typical voice student… full of feeling, but a little challenged by the kind of focus that instrumental work requires. I desperately wanted to play piano. I had a dream of playing on stage while I belted out my own original songs. The problem? I couldn’t seem to focus long enough to remember how to play a few basic chords. Getting the right rhythm when switching from chord to chord was so hard… and don’t get me started on how challenging it was to coordinate BOTH of my hands at the same time! I worried I would never get it. Luckily, around the same time I took on the piano challenge, I was also beginning to learn about yoga and meditation. Here is what it did for me.

Recently, I was browsing through a book called “Making Music for the Joy of It,” by Stephanie Judy. I was looking through the chapter on practicing, because I was looking for a little inspiration to get my personal practice to the next level. In this chapter, I found a really great tool to help me create better and more focused practice sessions: The Musical Logbook. After I read the chapter, I went to Staples and bought all the supplies to make one, and I have been using it daily for the past 2 weeks. I have to say, my type A personality loves this kind of structure. I thought it would make a fun activity for group workshops with students. There are many opportunities for creativity, and I think making your own individualized logbook inspires you to actually use it and can possibly get you excited to practice. Here is what’s inside: