Play a little song as you walk out the door.

There is another heat advisory today in Detroit, so whatever I'm going to do outside needs to be done in the morning.

I don't have serious time to practice until later tonight. On days like today, I add five minutes to my “Getting ready to go” schedule because the last thing I am going to do before I leave the house is play a song.

Any song.

The idea is not to win a Grammy. The idea is to play a song for funsies.

This is also not a practice session. This isn't, “Lemme see if I know this song” and you kind of hammer it out. This is, mentally, “John Legend is here and he said ‘Hey gurl, do you know All of Me?” and Chrissey just gave me banana bread and now we are all friends and they're coming to my birthday party in a couple of weeks and so I have to just do it and see what happens.

OK, here's the part that makes pros bristle:

• There will be mistakes.
• You'll forget how a part goes.
• You'll remember that time you played this song at that dive and that one person was like, Hey what's up?, but you just wanted to get paid and go home and now you're wondering what would've happened if—oh no, wrong notes!

So. What.

Who is listening?!?

Maybe the neighbors, but they aren't wondering why you ended that phrase with a diminished chord. They're just jammin’.

So jam.

When do you let go of the expectation of perfection and just let the music flow, come what may?

So, I knock it out in three minutes—with mistakes, gaps and wrong/repetitive chords—and I’m on my way.

Right? I just…saunter on out the house like nothing happened, right?

Not quite.

Your environment has now changed:

• You've created longitudinal waves that are traveling through your pets, plants, and people. (Math!)(Physics!)
• You've lifted your own mood. (Psychology!)
• Depending on where your piano is in the house, you've positively affected your neighbors’ moods as well. (Community unity!)
• It adds legitimacy to your business. (Business cred!) (“Yeah, she plays the piano pretty well”, says your gossipy neighbor. “Her hedges though…eeek”.)

After playing a single song, you're different. They're different. Your home is different. Your plants respond. Your body is happy. And so on.

Look at the time stamp on the video for yourself. Two minutes and some odd seconds.

That's how long it takes to do all that.

Play

for

fun.

What in the heck is the point of the lessons if you're not doing THIS? Did you hear the laughter of joy at the end?

We teach this.