Working for Inspiration

"Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy."

-Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

If your playing, teaching or conducting is ever lacking inspiration (which happens to us all from time to time), the best thing to do it is work your way out of it.  As Tchaikovsky alluded to many years ago, the most inspired people I've worked with in my career were also the hardest workers.