Instead of my usual practical advice, I want to tell you a little about my success philosophy, which consists of ideas that can help you have more success in using the "practical" stuff that I usually write about.

One success slogan I often hear is "You can make it happen!" Although this is a very powerful idea, I prefer the slogan "You can let it happen," in which the three letters in the word "let" can stand for three mental processes: Learning, Exercising, and Teaching. These three mental processes produce the mental attitude that can bring success in music lessons and all other areas of life.

Years of teaching music have certainly demonstrated to me that mental attitude is the most important factor determining which music students will be successful. A student’s attitude towards learning will affect how well they learn, and as I’ve written about before, there are some students of all ages who are not very good learners and are very averse to instruction. They seemed to have not learned that continuous learning is a necessary part of successful living.

When I am asked how long it takes to learn the piano or guitar, I answer that the average person can learn to play pretty well after about a year of instruction. But I also emphasize that learning a musical instrument can actually be an endless endeavor because there is always more that you can discover and learn about the piano, the guitar, or anything else in life. To succeed in anything, we must not just grudgingly submit to instruction but joyfully embrace the process of lifelong learning.

To some people it may seem so obvious that it doesn’t need to be stated: To succeed, you have to learn. To other people, this success truth apparently isn’t so apparent.

But I think that all of us have certain ways of thinking that limit our ability to learn. Because of this, acquiring the habit of being always open to new knowledge can be our first step to greater success.

There’s so much more I could write about the mental attitude that promotes Learning, but here I can only give a brief explanation of each of the three mental processes of success. Next time, in Music Lessons and Success, Part Two, I will explain the one that is about Exercising.