Blog

Dec 9, 2021 10:06am

By Linda Ratcliff

Under performance

3 min read

The Fine Line Between Perfectionism & Procrastination

Are you always waiting for the right time to start?

Do you sometimes think you might do a better job tomorrow? Or the day after?

Are you the type of person who never wants to make a mistake?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you may be a perfectionist walking down the path of a procrastinator. Being a perfectionist is not necessarily a bad thing. But frequently, perfectionists tend to put off doing something if they are afraid they won’t be able to do it perfectly. Many perfect…

Dec 9, 2021 10:06am

By Linda Ratcliff

Under performance

3 min read

Dec 2, 2021 10:56am

By Linda Ratcliff

Under practice

2 min read

Celebrate Milestones

Are you a list maker? I’m kind of OCD and I like to work from a goal list. Sometimes I do something that wasn’t on the list, and I feel compelled to go back and add it to the list – just so I can have the satisfaction of scratching it off the list. I like to recognize my own accomplishments and milestones.

And the same is true when I’m playing my instruments. Each day we can find the time to play is a treasured gift. However, certain days mark significant moments in our musical journey. I want …

Dec 2, 2021 10:56am

By Linda Ratcliff

Under practice

2 min read

Nov 25, 2021 02:00pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under practice & criticism

4 min read

Am I a Defensive Person?

My husband and I went to South Padre Island a couple of weeks ago, to celebrate my 76th birthday. While we were waiting for our food, I entertained myself by watching the seagulls.

Seagulls are highly adaptable feeders that advantage of every opportunity for a bite. They will eat fish, both alive and dead, insects and earthworms, rodents, eggs, carrion, reptiles, amphibians, and seeds and fruit. The type of food they eat depends on circumstances and, while we were watching, their main prey was…

Nov 25, 2021 02:00pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under practice & criticism

4 min read

Nov 25, 2021 02:00pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under mountain dulcimer & hammered dulcimer

3 min read

So Very Thankful

There is a question everyone is asking these days. We’re checking our cupboards and cabinets and asking ourselves, “Do we have enough ____ ?” We all have memories of going to the store in 2020 and seeing the toilet paper row empty. My daughter lived in Switzerland at that time, in an apartment that straddled two grocery stores. I would text her a photo of an empty row at Walmart, and she would text back a photo showing the same situation in the stores below where she lived.

And now it seems t…

Nov 25, 2021 02:00pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under mountain dulcimer & hammered dulcimer

3 min read

Nov 18, 2021 02:01pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under Practice

4 min read

Lessons Learned from Gardeners

"I say, if your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life."
- from Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Winter is coming, and those who planted gardens are seeing their plants wither away once a hard frost has blown through. But watching my neighbors care for their gardens through the spring and summer, I realized that gardening and learning to play an instrument require some of the same basic principles of care. And (of course) I want to share with you…

Nov 18, 2021 02:01pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under Practice

4 min read

Nov 11, 2021 02:00pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under practice

4 min read

Finished or Not Finished? That is the Question.

I recently read this quote by artist Arshile Gorky, an Armenian-American abstract expressionist painter (1904-1948). "I never finish a painting – I just stop working on it for a while. … I like painting because it's something I never come to the end of. Sometimes I paint a picture, then I paint it all out. Sometimes I'm working on fifteen or twenty pictures at the same time. I do that because I want to – because I like to change my mind so often.”

This quote resonated in my heart because that’…

Nov 11, 2021 02:00pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under practice

4 min read

Nov 4, 2021 02:00pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under lessons & practice smarter

4 min read

Cockleburs in Your Practice

You may remember, about 6 weeks ago, we got a new family member – Mikaela. What a cute little bundle of love she was ... 2-1/2 pounds of black fur, with beautiful brown streaks running through her hair. In the sunlight, she actually looked like she had been to the beauty shop to have her hair highlighted.

Because Parvo virus cases have been on the rise in the Rio Grande Valley recently, our vet would not allow us to take her outside to play in the grass. However, last Friday she said Mikaela …

Nov 4, 2021 02:00pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under lessons & practice smarter

4 min read

Oct 28, 2021 04:16pm

By Steve Eulberg

Under subscriber news, lessons, blues & backing tracks

1 min read

New Blues Backing Tracks added to the Library

I am excited to the announce the addition of SIX (6) brand-new Blues backing tracks in 6 different keys. These are all played at 117 bpm (beats per minute). The tracks were created with guitar, dulci-Bro and drumkit and are located in our Backing Tracks Library

All levels of membership have access to this library and can download the tracks as well as the PDF chord charts that accompany them.

Making use of the Pentatonic Minor Scales for each key and/or the Blues Scales for each key, players…

Oct 28, 2021 04:16pm

By Steve Eulberg

Under subscriber news, lessons, blues & backing tracks

1 min read

Oct 28, 2021 02:00pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under performance

3 min read

When the Unexpected Happens

Performing any kind of music for a live audience can be terrifying! But when we have an upcoming performance, we do everything we know how to do to make sure everything is perfect. We practice, we tune and retune, we get enough sleep the night before. That is because our brains need to feel that they have everything under control. And our brains interpret anything even remotely unexpected as a threat. But crazy, unexpected things do happen right when you need everything to go smoothly. Strings b…

Oct 28, 2021 02:00pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under performance

3 min read

Oct 21, 2021 03:00pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under power of music

3 min read

What Makes Your Heart Sing?

Steve Jobs once said, “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying, “I’ve done something wonderful today, that’s what matters.” Steve Jobs followed his heart his whole life and that, he said, made all the difference.

If Jobs had not pursued his passion for music, he might never have created an MP3 player that fit in our pockets. If Jobs had not pursued his passion for animation, millions of children—and adults—would never have experienced the joy of …

Oct 21, 2021 03:00pm

By Linda Ratcliff

Under power of music

3 min read

The Fine Line Between Perfectionism & Procrastination

Celebrate Milestones

Am I a Defensive Person?

So Very Thankful

Lessons Learned from Gardeners

Finished or Not Finished? That is the Question.

Cockleburs in Your Practice

New Blues Backing Tracks added to the Library

When the Unexpected Happens

What Makes Your Heart Sing?

Categories