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Dear Friends,

This newsletter normally goes out on Sundays, but this week I’m writing it one day late, on Monday, which is about right for finals week! 😂

I just taught my last lesson of 2025, and I’m in the midst of tying up loose ends to close out the semester. Today my Butler University piano students played their piano juries (final exam for the semester), and tomorrow we will have an end-of-semester party.

This time of year, a lot of people feel pulled in ten different directions. Finals, concerts, holiday events, family, travel, and on and on. By the time you get around to thinking about practicing the piano, it can feel like one more item on your to-do list instead of a restorative activity.

Can you relate? It’s so easy for practice to fall to the bottom of the list of priorities. So we postpone it, imagining that we will finish “all the things” someday and then finally be able to get around to practicing.

In her inspiring (but at times rather stern) book The Creative Habit, dancer and choreographer Twyla Tharp describes her morning ritual: she wakes at 5:30, pulls on her workout clothes, and takes a cab to the gym. She writes:

For those of us who live by the academic calendar, it is very tempting at this time of year to think of “self care” only as collapsing on the couch with a show, or taking a bubble bath or a long nap. Those things can be lovely and deeply restorative!

But self care can also mean taking action that makes life easier for your future self: practicing, working on an email backlog, or finally fixing that leaky faucet.

Over break, it can be helpful to think about "self care" as caring for the pianist you will be in a few weeks. Sometimes that looks like going to bed early and getting some rest. Sometimes it looks like sitting down to practice, so that the version of you in the future doesn’t feel like you’re starting from zero.

So, if you are feeling frazzled, hectic, or behind at this time of year, understand that this is normal. And, here are a few suggestions. (Read them through and choose just one or two to try - this isn’t yet another list of things to feel stressed about!)

Build a simple practice ritual

• Even though we won’t all be hailing a cab at 5:30 like Twyla Tharp, you can establish a ritual around your practice routine: one that establishes practice as a daily habit that you do automatically.
• Take the pressure off yourself by telling yourself: “I’m just going to sit down at the piano and work on this one spot.” Often that will turn into a longer, productive, potentially delightful practice session.
• At the end of every day’s practice, write down a one-line plan for where you’ll start the next day, so you can pick up right where you left off.

Make steady, manageable progress

• Divide up your piece by section and learn a little bit every day so you’re not feeling overwhelmed, yet you still have steady forward momentum.
• Pick one messy passage and play it slowly and correctly three times in a row.
• If you memorize music, memorize just a single line of music every day.

Let me know if you try any of these strategies for "pianist self care," and how it goes for you!

Happy practicing! 🎹✨

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