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OH! The Joy of Horses! |
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A New Song with Your Horse
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The other day during the snowstorm I dusted off the old piano. As I opened the cover the ivory keys sang out to me, “Why have you ignored me?” I realized that I had not played my old piano since last Christmas. So I dug out the Christmas songbooks and began to play. I was pretty rusty at first, but it all started to come back easily as I put my heart into it. I’d forgotten how beautiful those ivory keys could sing.
That evening I was thinking about the piano lessons I took as a child. I didn’t have my own piano so I went over to Grandma’s house to practice on the old upright that sat on her front porch. I remembered struggling with reading the notes and coordinating them with rhythm through my fingers. It is truly a matter of “FEEL”, that illusive word that we seek to put into natural, positive, and progressive action.
I reminisced back to Christmas’s gone by, where we would all sing carols around that old piano on the porch with my aunt Millie playing by ear each and every song. I watched in amazement, wondering how she could possibly do that. I couldn’t even plink out “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” with one finger, unless I had the music notes in front of me.
As I pondered the difference between a person who learned to play the piano by note and one who learned to play by ear I realized if a person learned to play by note, he could keep building on what he had learned. On the other hand the person who had learned just by ear could do a lot, but so many of them would hit on some good notes, then they just had to fill in a little on the rest. They would hit some more good notes. It wasn’t too bad, a lot of it; but it wasn’t something they could really build on.
This is exactly the way it is with some people and their horses. They have a few good spots and instead of branching out to get some more to go with it, they just repeat the notes they already know. They don’t realize there are a whole bunch more of them just as important as the ones they have found that work for them. Sometimes there are some dandy notes between them and their horse, but in between there are all those flat spots and sour notes. I’m pretty sure that we can all recognize when the music is played well and when it isn’t.
It seems that often we may not be able to separate and identify what is taking place between when the music fits and when it doesn’t. So much of the time when the music is a little off we simply blame the horse. We may think that he is not cooperating. We sometimes forget that the horse thinks he is supposed to do just what he is doing: even though the horse doesn’t know why or what it is for. He is sure that he is supposed to do it and does all he possible can to do it!
At the very same time we may feel just as sure that the horse is doing what he is doing because he doesn’t want to do what we are asking. We may completely miss that the horse is doing just what he has been trained to do by us! We need to realize that we are constantly training our horses whether we are a “trainer” or not!
It is not hard to miss the fact that we have trained our horses to do what they are doing. We can be thinking of it as a takeover, while the horse can be thinking he is doing OK! The sound of the music tells the truth about whether we are playing the notes from the page or just trying to fill in where we can.
We can be really sincere and try our best to play a beautiful song, but if we don’t have a musical score to go by and the practice behind it, it doesn’t matter how sincere we are. We can miss a lot, because we have nothing to build from. Just as an outstanding musician must learn to read the notes and coordinate it through “FEEL” to their instrument, an outstanding horseman must also learn to read the horse, then respond accordingly with “FEEL”.
With anyone who has had some success, whether it is in everyday situations with a horse or in the show ring, there are things that work and fit real well. However, if we try to get these high spots to carry us over the weak spots, we kind of just start to “fill in” everywhere else. When we do this we may shut out all the other opportunities out there that exist to deepen our understandings and sharpen our skills to play a harmonious melody.
Sometimes we become so anxious to get going from where we are now to where we would like to be that we forget about the lessons we have learned and begin to fill in the gaps with notes that may not fit the music. When we find ourselves in this situation it may be a good idea to get the basic books back out and practice scales again, so that we have a foundation from which to build.
After graduating from college many years ago I was thinking of my aunt Millie and my Grandfather who could play by ear and I determined that I could teach myself how to do it. With my solid education in scales, chords, and foundational music theory it completely fell into place for me as I discovered the freedom of playing by ear. Even after learning how to hear and feel the music so that I could play by ear, I still totally enjoy interpreting the musical notes on paper and letting the composition unfold as it was written.
I now realize the importance of my childhood piano lessons. They are similar to learning the seven games with horses. Once we have this solid foundation to build from we are free to discover our creativity through playing at liberty with a horse or playing an instrument by ear! The ultimate accomplishment would be to use the knowledge and skills that we have put into practice to compose a new song!
As we sing our Christmas Carols this season I will be thinking of the blessing we have through our horses, the many lessons they still have to teach us, and the new song that I hope to compose as I ride in harmony with one of the most beautiful creatures on earth!
Merry Christmas,
Sherry Jarvis
12-4-05
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