On Discipline and Specificity: Starting Thoughts
Before I can start exploring the question at the core of all of these thoughts, I feel like I ought to define my terms.
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All right.
I know I want to get some of these thoughts out of my mind and into the world, but I’m not quite sure where to begin.
Before I can start exploring the big question at the core of all of this — which, by the way, is “what is the difference between discipline and specificity,” or perhaps “can you have specificity without discipline,” and you can already see that the way in which I phrase the question will affect the way in which I answer it, so I’m going to want to ensure the question itself is, shall we say, specific -
Where was I?
Before I can start exploring the question at the core of all of these thoughts, I feel like I ought to define my terms.
Especially the term “specificity,” which seems to be the key behind all of this.
(Unless it’s discipline.)
(Which means I should probably define “discipline,” too.)
This isn’t just an art question, by the way, and it isn’t just a creativity question — though it started out as a discussion of how to become better at the piano, and in this case I’ll go ahead and define “better” as “more specific,” because that’s what L and I really mean, when we talk about where we want to go with our music (and our writing, and our music-writing, and our chess games, and everything else).
Our piano room has a chalkboard wall, because the people who previously owned our home used the space as a kids’ playroom, and when L and I toured the house for the first time, our realtor (no, wait, Realtor) said “You can always paint over the chalkboard wall,” and L said “We can always paint over the chalkboard wall,” and I thought to myself we are never, ever painting over that chalkboard wall.
