More lessons for the would-be Writer

Simple lessons are the best.  Lessons we learn and internalize early on are lessons we return to – even years later when those simple skills have been transformed into virtuosity. 

When I was eight, Mrs. Alice Manzuetti handed me a book of Hanon exercises.  Along with the diatonic and chromatic scales, these exercises formed the core of my piano regimen.

Over the last five decades, I’ve played for pleasure and I’ve played to vent anger and frustrations; as an accompanist to Sunday School choirs, and to accompany drunks around a piano bar.

Never the “Piano Man” that others urged to the piano bench to experience the joy of my virtuosity, I proved competent at an eclectic array of musical styles.

Composer-pianist Franz Liszt once said that if he failed to practice for a day, he noticed; for two days, his wife noticed.  If he lapsed his routine for a week, however, the audience noticed.

And whenever my practice lapsed for a week (or a month, as it often does, or even years, as it did once), I return to simple scales and Hanon to warm my fingers and regain confidence and competence at the keyboard.

Writing is like that.  Simple exercises help the novice writer.  Returning to those simple exercises helps the expert Writer.

The cursive equivalent of diatonic scale rendition is the dictation and expansion of the five-word sentence.  Just as with notes on a piano keyboard, repetition and familiarity flow with the outpouring of letters and words and phrases.

And, just as any series of notes offer infinite variety and beauty when interwoven with dynamic and rhythmical variance, the English language provide surprising harmonies as words combine and conflict on the page.

Do this:

          •  Write a five-word sentence.

          •  Then write ten words, which offers increased 

              opportunity for intricacy.

          •  In twenty words, you’ll observe a seeming increase 

             in communicated substance, when, in actuality, the

             underlying message is substantially identical.

          •  But understand: Five words suffice.

Each time you expand and contract the word count, rewriting essentially the same content, you’re learning to stretch and compact words to suit the needs of varying circumstance.

Long sentences require lots of commas, usually, and the care to observe that, in adding length and breadth, you don’t stray from the core message, even forgetting it entirely amidst the melody of sing-song words rattling onto the page.

Short sentences enforce discipline.  Spareness. They paint a stoic portrait – Napoleon, not Tolstoy.

Medium-length sentences offer a buffer between the desert and the floodplain, a spring morning and a stormy night.

All are necessary tools in your palette. Master them.  Use them.  And never let it be said that virtuosity strained against measures of talent for lack of necessary practice. 

Next: A fun lesson for writers who hate to practice

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