I´ve suggested you record yourself – for a lot of reasons. One is that as you improve, your standards go up too – and since most people are their own harshest critics, you may continue to think you´re useless, can´t play for toffee, etc etc. If you record yourself, you´ll have a baseline from which to measure your progress.
I haven´t mentioned listening back to your recordings! This is the musical equivalent of putting away a piece of writing, and then looking at it a month, six months later – getting distance, perspective – and a pleasant surprise, perhaps.
It happened to me, when I was searching for a recording of me playing the theme, on trumpet, of Thad Jones´ “A Child is Born”. I couldn´t at first find it anywhere – but I did turn up a recording of me playing it on the piano, which I´d completely forgotten about: so here it is, to celebrate the best thing that happened to me in 2015, becoming a granny. And, whether you believe in Christmas or you´d rather put the x into xmas, it comes with my deepest wishes that your creative dreams, and mine, see the light of day in 2016.
I´ve always been far better at supporting other people´s creative efforts than standing up for my own. My timidity in this has garnered me so much support from musicians over the years, that I´ve backed myself into a corner, and there´s no way out but leaping into the light – after all, you deserve to know if the person writing this book can play at all herself.
Well, I always said there´s two kinds of inspiration…