#learning piano

[boldlygotohelll]

I decided it's never too late and at 29 years old I booked my first ever piano lesson

[hismercytomyjustice]

My husband effortlessly outmaneuvered my OCD today. I am still in awe.

I didn’t want to go to my piano lesson. Last week was ROUGH. On top of still struggling with this more advanced piece, I had major migraine brain fog.

The good news is that I didn’t want to fake my own death or wind up in near tears after. Yay, progress! But it wasn’t the best experience otherwise. It was just really frustrating and humiliating to struggle so much.

This more advanced piece has been triggering my OCD like crazy too.

I told him I didn’t want to go today because I hadn’t practiced enough.

He responded with “So?”

It was exactly the right answer. Even though I still tried to push back with, “I haven’t made enough progress.”

And he was just like “The point of you going is to practice. And you did practice.”

“I haven’t practiced enough.”

“Not going isn’t going to help with that.”

T^T !!!

(extended OCD rant below the cut)

I had similar convos with my therapist where she’s insisted that the only thing I need to do for piano is show up for my lessons. That is the only expectation.

My piano teacher would disagree with that, lol. But I get what she’s saying. Because my desire for “doing it right/enough” is my perfectionism OCD talking.

Which is why piano is such good unintentional ERP for me. Because it upsets my perfectionism OCD so much. My therapist has said this multiple times now.

Lol, I also finally told my piano teacher I have OCD and that my OCD loves piano. In that it loves to tell me how bad I am at it. He was telling me last week, “Just play through, it doesn’t have to be perfect.”

Which has become his new mantra for me lately. orz I was playing some for my husband too to show him how far I’ve come and he said the same thing because I kept stopping when I’d mess up. “Just play it through.”

It is SO HARD TO though. Especially with how hard my OCD focuses on every single mistake I make. Which just leads to building anxiety and more mistakes.

I’ve had moments where I’m struggling while practicing and have literally had to tell myself “practicing will only help, it can’t make you worse at this.”

Because lord knows avoidance is one of my favorite compulsions. Because you can’t be bad at something if you don’t do it, amirite? (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

God, I also realized my OCD has eased up a bit when it comes to writing (sort of), but now it’s decided to focus on replying to comments on my fics instead. Something I genuinely enjoy doing because getting comments fills my heart with rainbows. It gets riled up with me trying to leave comments too.

My perfectionism OCD has decided this is a great time to overthink every single word I type. Just a constant stream of “You have to give the perfect reply to a comment, otherwise people won’t think you’re grateful enough for them taking the time to comment and they won’t want to read your fic anymore and they’ll hate you.”

And “You’ve left comments on other fics that people have said made their day. If you don’t leave a good enough comment or if you don’t comment at all, they’ll think you don’t like their fic anymore. You know how happy getting comments makes you. If you don’t comment on everything you read, that makes you a bad person.”

None of that is true, ofc. I know it’s not true. I know it’s not even logical. But it is all triggering my avoidance SO HARD. Because I can’t mess it up if I don’t do it at all! So now I have a bunch of comments that have piled up and a bunch of fics I’ve read that I haven’t commented on and I’m starting to ruminate on all of it.

And it’s just like…so objectively ridiculous. That’s not self-compassion, I know. But like, it feels so absurd to be in an OCD spiral over this. Where I am actively spending more time agonizing (ruminating) over the fact that I haven’t done either than it would take to just…reply or leave a comment on a fic.

Like. This is not a life or death situation. This doesn’t even have to be a situation! And yet the spiral continues. I stress, I avoid, I stress about avoiding. And I waste time and energy and brainpower on all of it.

I have the same issue with the other fics I’ve promised too. I’ve been deep into the final chapters of my kid!Alastor fic and hyper focusing on it as a result. But I have been talking about posting Part 8 of my Radioapple series for so long. I threw 8k words at it like a month ago and then started overthinking it and then started worrying about falling behind on my kid!fic. The same for the BG3 oneshot I drafted. All I need to do is edit it so I can post it. But editing to me = executive function (writing somehow does not…?). And, again, I wanted to get caught up on my kid!fic. So now I feel guilty for not finishing it and posting when I said I would.

None of this is anything I should feel guilty for! And I know that. I am doing all of this FOR FUN.

It is supposed to be fun!

AND YET.

Ugh. Not me over here like “My OCD hasn’t been that bad! Why can’t I get anything done?”

Because it picked new things to obsess over and I was late to the party on realizing that. ( ˶ •̀ ⤙ •́ ˶ )

I’m glad I’m meeting with my psychiatrist tomorrow. My depression has been better but now that I’m aware my OCD is ~clinically severe~, I’m hoping maybe she can help get me on something that will do more to help with it. Because while the meds I’m currently on are preventing me from a full blown relapse, I don’t think they’ve been very effective at straight up treating my OCD otherwise.

I’m really hoping a different medication will help. It’s just frustrating to be putting all this work into therapy and all, but not seeing more of a reduction in my symptoms.

Literally one of the questions on the YBOC is: “How anxious would you feel if you were prevented from performing your compulsive behaviors?”

I told her it wouldn’t make me anxious because I don’t WANT to do the compulsions. And if I had a magic button in my head that would make them easier to resist, it would be the greatest thing ever. The compulsions are what’s making me anxious. Most of the time I don’t realize I’m obsessing or compulsing.

So then I get frustrated and upset at myself for not getting things done and it’s only then that I’m like, “Wait, is this an OCD spiral?”

If I could get better at recognizing them sooner and acting sooner, I think it’d go a long way toward helping me. The thing is, I don’t know if this is a medication thing or a me thing and tbh I’m worried it’s a me thing. That I’m not doing something right, and that’s why I’m having such a hard time with it all.

I really hope that’s not the case. Like, I am DESPERATE to get out of these never-ending loops. I just really, really hope that the will is already there and that a different medication can help get my OCD under control enough for me to actually make progress.

T^T Guess I’ll find out tomorrow. Lol, not me stressing now that my psychiatrist is just gonna be like “Your problem is that you aren’t trying hard enough!” Because I think my problem is trying so hard to the point I unintentionally actively sabotage myself… Like I’m trying to fight perfectionism OCD with gasoline instead of water or something.

Ugh. Fingers crossed she can give me some better insight into all this tomorrow.

I’m just curious now too if my OCD has always been this bad and I’m only just now realizing it, or if it’s just been worse in general over the past year or so for whatever reason.

FIX ME, SCIENCE! FIX ME!!!

[xx-lun4c3st-xx]

I’m trying to learn hey Jude on the piano and I’m having the worst time of my life

[labratofthemonth]

hi

i play piano so i’d like to take this time to document the songs i can play fully (in the order of learning them), and rating them based on how hard they were to learn:

•mary had a little lamb, 0/10, literally not hard to play at all

•final duet (from Omori), 7.5/10, it wasn’t horrible, but there were parts that were absolutely horrible to learn

•good ending title theme (also known as “do you remember”) (from Omori), 4.5/10, not hard at all, most of the plot of Omori could have been avoided if they just learned this version instead. it’s cool how i can line it up to Remembrance though

•main title theme (from Omori), 1/10, this was so easy i’m not even kidding

•der flohwalzer, 0/10, learned it to make a danganronpa joke, but it was so easy, i learned it in about 10 minutes

•BlackBoxWarrior - OKULTRA, 15/10, will wood, i love your music so much, but holy hell this about gave my brainrot trying to learn this. this song is roughly 5 minutes, it took me months to learn, AND YOU HAVE TO SING TO IT. singing to this song while playing it is like spewing buzzwords rapid fire while trying to slam your fists into your keyboard in a coherent way, AND THEN having to deliver that 5 paragraph essay of a monologue in the middle of the song, which I CANT EVEN DELIVER. I HAD TO SWITCH TO THE BLACKBOXWARRANT VERSION OF THE MONOLOGUE SO I COULD ACTUALLY FORM A SENTENCE. anyways, my favorite piano song i’ve ever learned, i love it so much

•Skeleton Appreciation Day in Vestal, N.Y. (Bones), 10/10, so complicated, i almost wanted to rip my bones out by the time i got to the ana stands and rends her rancid meat part. AAAAAAAAA

anyways, thank you, i really wanna learn White Knuckle Jerk next, because it’s my favorite will wood song (YEAH I SAID IT, FIGHT ME), thank you for your time

[amorcitadream]

Playing piano is bittersweet. The process of learning a new song is painful and frustrating. Yet, once your fingers learn to know the rhythm, it's a beautiful harmony you forgot you ever struggled through.

& that song, is the same of life.

[shotbydrea]

you can get accepted to berklee and also think you suck as a musician

[disturbedgent]

I love piano class.

[a-shooting-jade]

As someone who plays guitar and reads off of tabs (never even the treble clef) and has just decided to learn piano... What the fuck is the actual deal with the grand staff...

Like I get it... I get it I really do... But also I don't get it.

(me; at the grand staff)

[thesafecafe]

I teach myself small songs to play on my piano sometimes, and recently it's been the fist verse of mary had a little lamb

[gutzy]

pov; you're listening to clumsily learning how to play my piano with both my hands

[dxmxuse]

finally dropped my “i’m too old to start that” mentality and bought my first keyboard piano so if anyone has youtube lesson recs or easy sheet music it would be much appreciated 😌

[hismercytomyjustice]

Type on my computer all day?

My Wrists: Let’s fucking gooo!

Type on my phone all day?

My Wrists: Hell yeah, brother!

Crochet for hours?

My Wrists: We got you, boo!

Practice piano for like an hour?

My Wrists: What the actual fuck?! Jail for mother! Jail for One Thousand Years!

[shrcker]

if anything, I've learned today that piano is extremely painful

[atheusa]

today i’m so fucking proud i learned piano.

i learned to play one song that i’ve been listening to lately.

it’s i’m not in love by 10cc or kelsey lu.

i’ve resonated with it so much because i’ve been talking to this guy i like for a while now. he makes me crazy, even if he’s so far away.

i only did the melody part, the right side of my hand. and that’s fine.

because my cousin was doing the left side.

but maybe tomorrow, i’ll learn both hands.

[oceanandspring]

My first non language or literature focused post! I feel like I am using tumblr wrong since all I post are rants... and I am planning on using it like a blog/life journal. I think I will try to write one larger post a week with that weeks dates. Like a weekly journal entry maybe?

Anyway, that is not what this is about. I am relearning piano! I played piano in a semiprofessional capacity for about four years. I played for my highschool and for community recitals in the past. I began learning piano and playing when I was about 14. I stopped playing piano almost five years ago. I really want to get back into it. I picked up my old piano lesson books. Luckily I can still read sheet music well. I am glad I never stopped singing choir as it allowed me to retain some of my previous music knowledge. I don’t have a proper piano anymore as it was sold by my parents, but my sister has a keyboard that I can practice on. My sister also plays piano. We used to attend lessons with the same teacher when we were younger. I miss those days. Regardless of missing the past I am excited to learn again. It is never too late to pick things up as an adult!

[tarotbylibby]

Just noodlin and thinkin' about John Prine and learnin piano at 43 and eating carbs and wondering if there are any waterfront properties available on Cheddar Bay