Internationally recognised art and literary critic, writer and cultural producer. Published in ELLE, Glamour, Esquire and Cosmopolitan; member of the Union of Writers.
David Hall is a full-time painter and decorator who took on a personal challenge: to play the piano every single day for 365 days. The project began as a practical solution to a creative slump. As someone who works creatively for a living, he wanted to reconnect with that side of himself, deciding to make creativity a daily commitment rather than waiting for inspiration to return. Fitting the music around his full-time work, he simply chose to turn up and play.
He is not a professional pianist. Some days he works on ideas, some days he improvises, and some days he just plays. What started as an experiment in consistency has attracted attention, including coverage in his local newspaper, an appearance on BBC Radio, and a journalist from The Sun has interviewed him. With 100 consecutive days of playing now complete, the challenge raises a wider question about how we maintain creativity. We spoke to him about the pressure of expectations and what happens when you make time to create.
What exactly was the slump, and why did the answer turn out to be playing every single day?
I’ve always found it easy to just sit down and play the piano. I’d normally let it flow, and if something sparked an idea, I’d home in on it and try to turn it into a piece. But I found myself starting to overthink what I was going to write. I was putting the piece on too high a pedestal before I’d even pressed the first note.
One Sunday morning, while having a coffee, I decided I was going to write something every day from Monday to Friday. It didn’t matter if it was only 39 seconds long, and it didn’t matter what it sounded like. I told myself nobody would ever hear it. I was just going to sit down, play and write until Friday.
And I did it. By the end of that week, I realised there might actually be something in this. That’s where the idea for the challenge came from. I thought, if I just put it out there on social media and committed to playing every day, maybe taking away the pressure to create something brilliant would allow me to enjoy it again. That first week turned into the idea of playing every day for a year, and here I am, 100 days in.
Which day was the hardest to sit down at the piano, and what got you there?
It’s actually been surprisingly easy, which sounds funny, but the less I think about it, the easier it seems to be. I haven’t really had many days where I’ve struggled to sit down and play. If anything, the hardest piece to write so far was Day 100.
I’d been thinking about doing something special to mark the milestone, but the plans I made didn’t work out. Then I started putting pressure on myself to make the piece something extra special, and I realised I was falling straight back into the trap that had made me start the challenge in the first place. I even tried writing in the morning, but it just wasn’t working.
In the end, I left it until later in the day, picked up my phone, pressed record and just flowed. No big plan, no trying to make it perfect. I just played. In a way, it was probably the perfect piece for Day 100 because it reminded me why I started the challenge in the first place.
After a hundred days, what has changed in your playing, and what has changed outside it?
I think I’m personally playing better than I’ve ever played. I’m definitely not some highly skilled virtuoso pianist, but I think I’m good at writing a melody, and I feel lucky that I can sometimes just pick one out of the air. Over the 100 days, I feel like I’ve tapped into a kind of flow state, and so far the magic seems to be there each day.
But I think the biggest change has actually been outside the piano. I’m a massive overthinker, and this challenge has made me realise how often I can get in my own way by thinking too much about something before I’ve even started it. If there’s one thing I’d take from these 100 days into everyday life, it would be to try not to overthink everything. Just get on with it, be in the moment and see what happens. That’s something I’m still working on, but I think the challenge is helping me with it.
