Until You Find Your Place

I want you to fail sometimes, so you learn how to try

learn you can dig a well when the river runs dry.

Learn to hold on and hang tough when the going gets rough

and when things look bleak and you’ve had more than enough.

Learn to believe in yourself and have some faith

because hope and diligent effort will help you find your place.

I want you to fail sometimes, so you learn you can cry and then

wipe your tears. Dig a well when the river runs dry.

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My Dear Students,

I hope you think on these words as you journey through life, face its many challenges, and learn. As you pick yourself up when things don’t quite work out the way you had expected and look for a different path. Sometimes starting over.

Know that success is often built on failure. And that life gives us sorrow sometimes, in order that we truly understand the experience of joy.

I first published this poem on November 21, 2021. At a time that brought struggle to many of you and grief to some. And it might, at times, have seemed like you’d hit rock bottom. So, I wrote this to tell you to take comfort in that feeling if it’s yours and be strong. Because hitting rock bottom means that the only available path moves upwards and there’s much hope in that.

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I’d taken my poetry off this website but suddenly found the need to have this one back.

Piano lessons are about trying. About enjoying the process of learning. And about piano practise techniques that promote aural, singing and rhythmic skills.

It’s so different from academics where the focus can be result oriented and fixed on marks and examinations. And I often find myself talking to my piano students about the difference in approach between learning the piano and doing well in academics at school.

Piano examination success flows from musical learning and musical learning is about trying. About keeping at it with enjoyment of the process so that music becomes a part of your life.