Blitz!

I love playing chess, and in particular I love playing chess with my kids: the strategy, the opportunity for growth, and on and on. (I’m not very good.)

Recently, I’ve been using an app to play a chess variant called blitz chess, in which each player has only three minutes. (I’m really not very good, and I’m only playing against a computer.)

But it strikes me as a great counterbalance toward the more measured, careful, practiced approach. And in particular, it highlights a skill that I want to have locked down as a musician: the ability to react well, and think clearly, in the heat of the moment.

Certainly I also want to have put in my hours of practice, to come into rehearsal prepared and to do my best in unpressured situations. But it’s of great value to put yourself in “blitz” musical situations, if only to really see what is locked down. As James Clear wrote in Atomic Habits, “We don’t rise to the level of our goals; we fall to the level of our systems.” Blitz is a great way to check in on our systems and see what’s working.

Musical collaborations with strangers. Sight reading in a group. Performing in new environments. Taking new and different gigs. There are lots of ways to practice a little “blitz” music, even as you’re also doing a more measured scholastic approach.