I grew up in a family of musicians. My mother, a pianist with a voice like warm, heavy silk, cut her first album at 17. My uncle a vocal powerhouse who I am convinced would have been a household name if the US government hadn’t dropped crack off in every Chocolate City. My stepfather was a skilled trumpet player and all the family friends that ever came over seemed to be connected to music through voice or instruments. Even my uncle who will be laid to rest tomorrow was a DJ most of his life.

Every time they prepared to sing, every time they sat in front of their instruments, they all started the same: Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do...

Up and down. Again and again. The same notes they've sung or played thousands of times before.

This of course, wasn’t just a thing in my music loving family. Every morning, somewhere in the world, a vocalist opens their mouth to sing the same scales and a pianist's fingers the keys - C major scale, ascending and descending. This is a ritual of music.

I hated piano lessons as a child. I wanted to play the drums, but my mother was never going to allow a drum set in a house with 4 girls under 10. Despite it not being my instrument of choice, what I hated most about piano lessons was that we started and ended every day with scales. I wanted to learn how to play “The Glamorous Life” but my teacher was hellbent on scales. Over and over again. It was never ending.

It never ends. When musicians become masters, they continue to practice scales over and over again because this is their foundation, their home base. It is their daily reminder of where all complexity begins - with simplicity.

The little girl who hated piano practice is all grown up now, and I realize that my mother and my teacher were both just trying to teach me how to get good at something. To practice, ritualize even, a skill to develop mastery. As an adult now I look around at the things I want to master, the things I want to embody, and I have to ask myself… but what are your scales?

What I mean by that is what is that simple practice, that I do over and over again, every day—not to perfect it, but to deepen into it? What is that fundamental practice that reminds me of my foundation, that brings me home to myself?

When musicians return to scales, they're discovering new awareness, new subtleties, new possibilities within what appears basic. But as adults seeking depth and complexity, we are really starting to come off as annoyed, bothered even by the basics. So much of the erotic world now is about coaching the lover into deep practices, and so many clients are seeking depth — but are we all avoiding the simplicity of our foundation in hopes for something deeper?

When I guide a client into the experience of sensation, the desire to jump to mastering their erotic version of “The Glamorous Life.” In sex, the scales are simple. Accessing sensation and experiencing your aliveness needs simple practices that you can return to over and over again.

It never ends.

I am trying to remind myself to check myself when I find the simple boring. To deepen into ritual as basic as it is.

Because when we discover and return to our erotic "scales" we won’t be just going through motions. We're deepening our relationship with our body, discovering new layers of awareness, and strengthening our capacity to be present—not just for sex—but for life.

So I ask you: What are your scales?