Lockdown Post: Creativity #2

June 9 2020

With the ever-increasing workload, I have found it rather difficult to keep being creative and active at home. Nonetheless, whenever I stop or forget to practise, I become more driven to do better next time. This mindset has also been challenging to uphold, but remarkably, I have found that some of my activities help in keeping me motivated. For example, I began meditating in late May and even downloaded two separate applications with an assortment of guided meditations to help with a variety of issues. I have found that using the sleep meditations in Calm and some of the soundscapes provided by Headspace have drastically improved my sleep schedule which has been starting to worsen. I also meditate after school to relax and recuperate, but also to focus and motivate myself for whatever work I have next.

I began practising Russian for only about five minutes per day, which I found to be very helpful. I could speak with more confidence when I called my mother, who speaks Russian, and I began remembering many of the words I had forgotten over the years. At some point, I began doing it less, practising every other day for five minutes only, but when I began meditating to control my sleep schedule and regain some balance in my life, I became more motivated to practice. Over time I upped the length of the lessons to ten minutes, then fifteen, and finally twenty, the maximum you can practice on Duolingo for free.

I really began enjoying playing the bass. While I still need a lot of practice, I really like playing along with my favourite songs and learning new ones. The biggest issue I have currently is training my left hand to cover more space on the fretboard, but I am able to play a couple of songs almost in their entirety. I learned to play Bandruptcy, by Stuck in the Sound, in only a couple of hours, which I am happy with because it was very hard to play so quickly.

(Playing Bandruptcy on bass, video taken by my brother)

After playing bass for about a month, I became more inclined to try playing the guitar again. The music I listened to all featured guitar more than bass, especially acoustic, so eventually I decided to try playing a song. I translated my knowledge of the strings and everything else I learned from playing bass, and after reading a couple of guitar tabs, I was able to start learning how to play. Chords are still something I need to practice and improve, but I am happy with the way things are going.