Did you ever wonder why the word ‘play’ is used to describe practicing an instrument? As a child after coming home from school and finishing my snack, I would tell my mother that I was going to ‘play the piano’. I would then sit down at the piano often practicing scales for a good half hour until I felt that I had given my fingers and brain a good work out before even beginning to play music. So what was it that I was doing all those years and continue to do on my cello today? Working or playing?
We tend to think of play as the domain of children and animals. Of course that’s not true! As I discuss in my book Digging Deep: Unearthing Your Creative Roots Through Gardening
