What is concentration? Is it the key to success? Do we need to work on it? These are the subjects being discussed in this blog. Fasten your seat belt.
I didn’t check the dictionary, I’m going on the fly here, but we’re going to accept this definition: Concentration is the ability to keep your mind on a certain task. That ability is very precious for musicians who have to understand that their body and mind is doing. It’s a very slow sometimes very painful process. What do you want, we are organic being, analog through and through.
Concentration can be pushed to great limits. Some people (I’m looking at you Tom Cruise) refuse to sleep in order to keep their mind active. What an intensity, what a dedication! What a neurosis, too! But anyway. I am always in awe of those surgeons who can stay “on it” for ten hours while fixing some impossible plumbing problem inside someone gut. That is grade A concentration, my friends.
Now, does it means that it’s the reason why people succeed? Yes and no. I’ll put a big fat “It depends” right there. At first glance, it sounds like you have a super power: you focus on something, you learn, you learn, which results in… a job. By that token, it seems that every one famous has an incredible ability to concentrate. But I don’t think so. Not that simple. Not always. You can also be plagued by too much focus, as the people affected by Obsessive Compulsive Disorder can attest. Repeating the same task over and over can be sterile and frustrating for both the OCD person and their surroundings. But, then again we are really in the grey area here because some of us use their OCD to excel at what they do (I’m looking at you Leonardo Di Caprio) (You didn’t know that Leo was OCD? Well, he is).
Here’s a good question: can you work on concentration? My answer is no. A resounding no. Nobody ever works on concentration. Concentration is a by product of something else: what you’re interested in. If you like stamps and build a good collection, chances are you’ll end up spending hours in a dark basement hunch over little pieces of papers and having the time of your life while your wife is leaving you. You won’t notice she broke up with you until hours later, once you come out of the pit you dug yourself in, and I’m not talking about the basement, but the depth of your own mind. So, as far as getting better at concentrating, I don’t think it’s even a subject. What’s a subject is how high the stakes are for you when you’re embarking on a new task. If we go back to surgeon I mentioned earlier on, the stakes are extremely high, but don’t think that they are any lower for a drummer or a piano player about to play at Carnegie Hall. Again, it just depends.
All right, I’ll come out and say it: I am working on my concentration. I’ve been at it for what, 11 years now. Before, because of difficult circumstances in my life, I couldn’t focus for 5 minutes straight. Everything had to be immediate and short. Now, I am trying to stay on it for 5 or 6 hours. That helps when I’ve got a full day of students or, like today, wen I have to practice my piano, my drums, compose a few songs, write a few pages and a few blogs.
Now, concentrating seems to be extremely difficult, especially in our digital world of memes and TikTok videos, but I’ll give you a huge freebee: the brain never hurts! It can be strained and used extensively and you might not even get a headache. That’s contrary to any other part of your body, like a muscle, a tendon, a bone or a piece of gut, who will let you know if you’re going too hard at it. So, keep concentrating, or find an activity that’ll help you focus.
