Regular readers will know how much playing the piano helps me, how much I enjoy it. Whilst going through a course of CBT recently I discovered that I especially found it beneficial when I wasn’t having to practice for anything in particular but was just sitting down to play. This also makes sense when I think back to starting my degree which was joint honours of Music and Religious Studies but I dropped Music at the end of my first year due to all of the enjoyment being taken away.

Following university I probably went quite a while without really playing, especially not with any purpose, but recently I’ve started leading musical worship at church. There were quite a few very nervous months with shaky hands and a shaky voice (that I noticed anyway). However, on Sunday, it was the first time I really felt like I was lost in the music, I was solely playing for the purpose of worship, not playing for anyone else.

Purpose can be helpful, it can also be constricting. It’s important that we allow the purpose of our actions to help us not to bind us. When I was at uni I allowed the practice required for music take away from the enjoyment I got from playing individually and corporally – but I think that says a lot more about me than anything else and I think that can easily be another blog post!