The Perfect Wrong Note Quotes

“mastery comes to you over time when you're focused. Don't get ahead of yourself.”
― William Westney, The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self

“The idea is to let it happen, not make it happen.”
― William Westney, The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self

“When I overdo things and take chances, I learn faster.”
― William Westney, The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self

“the body will always be more sophisticated than the mind,”
― William Westney, The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self

“Researchers are just beginning to investigate the health benefits of music participation, but the findings seem convincing and heartening. A recent study analyzed the saliva of volunteer members of a community chorale in California, measuring the amounts of certain antibodies made up of disease-fighting proteins. They were tested before, during, and after rehearsals, and at a performance. Not only did the level of immunoglobin A rise 150 percent after the rehearsals; it spiked 240 percent after the performance. This surprised the researchers, who had theorized that the performance might be stressful and thus lower the level. But apparently performing proved to be a peak experience of a positive kind. They also concluded from the data that the more passionately the choristers sang, the more their antibody level rose.”
― William Westney, The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self

“In improvisation as in life, we must be responsible for the vibrations we send one another.”
― William Westney, The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self

“success for adult learners boils down to just one key factor: adventurousness.”
― William Westney, The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self

“No subsection of a piece is too humble to merit our curiosity and serious attention. It may be literally one note (Did I feel relaxed and confident landing on it?) or two notes (Have I truly experienced the space between them%). We build mastery by integrating all these small units.”
― William Westney, The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self

“If we make surprising mistakes onstage, it's often because we're in an altered state there-more open and vulnerable-and truth will emerge. This openness has a wonderfully positive side, when we discover unexpected spontaneity, communication and
artistry in front of an audience. But a more unsettling effect can be that the customary, superficial controls we exerted in the practice room no longer seem to work. Being onstage signifies real accountability (which is why we get nervous): the chickens come home to roost, and suppressed mistakes will surface.”
― William Westney, The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self

“the golden pathway to learning, not just in music but in anything in life, is through one's own, individual, honest mistakes.”
― William Westney, The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self

“childlike intuition, free play, and body movement were integral to his creative thinking.”
― William Westney, The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self