Growth
Carmel, California – August 2007
I didn’t think that I’d have a post for today. No matter, I thought; I’ll probably have one for tomorrow, better get ready for work. So, that’s what I did. After getting dressed, having a bowl of oatmeal, and relaxing for a few moments, I decided to practice my guitar for a little bit.
The guitar, and associated music, sit on the floor, ever-ready for me to tickle, or torture, those strings and misread that music. 
I have a lesson today at 5:30. As I picked up the guitar and made my music selection, a thought hit me. It was a comment from Gordon that he made on my post about practice. Here’s what he said:
I remember reading about ‘vertical’ and ‘horizontal’ practice. Essentially, the ‘vertical’ practice is the hard stuff – going beyond your current abilities, trying something new, failing, trying it again – learning new chords, switching to finger picking from strumming, learning how to using lighting gear if you always use natural light, approaching strangers if you always shot still life, that sort of thing. Expanding your skills and growing.
Horizontal practice is doing more of what you can already do. Learning a new song, taking new pictures of new things, in a way that you’ve done before. Developing your skills but really more enjoying the skills that you have.
Both are good, but the vertical growth and practice is the stuff we often shy away from, because its hard, because we might fail, but often where the rewards are really found, if you are willing to be bad and make mistakes for a while.
The reason that this jumped into my head was because of my music selection. I initially picked up a piece of music, Ode to joy, that I’ve almost ‘mastered’, that is, I can play it through, albeit slowly, while making few mistakes. It is my most pleasurable piece to play. It strokes my ego. My most difficult piece, for whatever reason is Greensleeves. I tend to shy away from that one like the plague. Why is that?
Well, quite frankly, it’s an ego thing. I want to have control. I want to ‘feel good about myself’, etc. Dodging pain, disappointment, and lack of control has never facilitated growth. That is something that I learned (am learning) in spades this past year and a half. It goes for photography, too.
How does one grow photographically and what does that even mean? It means, I think, trying new things that are likely to fail the first few (hundred?) times. It means having a good laugh at your missteps. Let’s face it, it’s not that serious. It’s part of learning. What’s the harm in learning something new? We aren’t good at everything that we do.
If you are uncomfortable about shooting pictures of strangers, but you deeply desire to, confront that fear and give it a try. Get yourself a wingman that does it and have him/her show you how. Believe me, it works better in a small group the first time that you try it. Continuing on with what Gordon mentioned: Want to try lighting but afraid that you’ll be no good at it? So what?!!! Buy some lights and give it try. What do you have to lose? Grow! If it doesn’t appeal to you, then there’s not need to pursue it, but you only obtain growth when you step out of your comfort zone and start to explore that which you previously feared. So, find that something that appeals to you that you’ve been scared to try and … try it. Sure, it’s scary because we’ve heard it thousands of times: don’t do that or ________ (You’ll get hurt, other people will laugh, no one will like it, girls don’t do that, boys don’t do that, etc)
In the end, I did pick up Greensleeves and crash, clanged, and squeaked right on through it. It was barely recognizable when I finished with it, but I gave it a go, had a few laughs, and was glad that I tried. There was no one around to listen, critique, or help. It was just me and this strange, squawking instrument called a guitar. So, for the next few weeks, that’s what I’ll be attempting to play until I get much better at it, then I’ll move on to something more difficult.
I agree that the most difficult part of growth is letting go and making that first big step. Often it ends up like the first ride on a bicycle without the training wheels but if we stick with it, the ride gets better over time.
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The balance between those two states is a constant battle for me as well. Great image, just wonderful.
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Paul Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Inspired by your photos from Carmel.
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I’d love to plant myself there one weekend day, ‘walk slowly,’ and just burn a few rolls or CF cards, and see what I get. The people there were so un-self-conscious; no one cared I had a camera, no one even looked at me. The only being that cared whether I was there or not was a dog who wanted me to throw his ball for him. I should post that image! But the special thing about your image is the blur . . . wonderful.
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Paul Reply:
January 13th, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Thank, Chris. I could do that, too … just hang around for a while. I remember that I was experimenting with slow shutter speeds that day. It was cool and very foggy that morning. As I remember it, I stood there watching the lady throw the ball for the dog and wanted to capture that motion. I took a number of photos, this, of course, being my favorite. I love to experiment with slow shutter speeds and panning. Probably my all-time favorite one that I’ve taken is the one at the top of this post.
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It was always a hard decision for me to make when to try to move on to another song to practice. I remember Greensleeves well.
Sometimes it would be driven by the pure monotony of practicing the same song over and over and over. My muscle memory never cooperated with my brain in developing faster than my brain’s wishes to move on to something else.
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Paul Reply:
January 14th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
That is an important thing, boredom. However, I’ve been trying to keep myself focused until I get it right. Yesterday we started working on arpeggios, or broken chords. So, my challenge for the coming week is to practice songs that I’ve already played and instead of using my thumb, use my first two fingers to pluck the strings. It’s like starting over again! Clang! Crash! Squawk! Squeak!
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I like it when thoughts “hit” you because these well written posts arrive at peoples readers. Again the word comfort rings in my ears. I’m one who seems to want to live in comfort zone, avoiding taking those steps required for growth as a person and a photographer. It was a major step for me to start commenting on anyones post as I wondered if I really had something worthwhile to share. The more we comment the better we come to understand what we think and feel and how to express it. One step at a time.
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another link, on ego vs task goals : http://intentionalpractice.wordpress.com/2010/01/03/its-not-about-you/
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on the moving on to new songs thing, there’s an obvious balance between going on too soon and never finishing anything. I think for us two complete novices, that moving on is actually a good thing, as there are new techniques to learn (single note songs, to chord based songs, to mixing single notes and chords). The practice of learning the new things will probably make the earlier, simpler stuff actually easier, more quickly, than if you just stuck with them. (least that’s been my recent experience). I go back to the few songs I learned right at the beginning and find that even though I haven’t been near them for a month or two, that my fingers are better able to move around, so I can play them again.
One idea I liked was the idea of working in ‘albums’ of songs, that you bring up to a performance or playable level, all together. So you are always working on a repertoire of a dozen or so songs (when you get up to that many obviously
)
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