The Practice of Practice

Listen to this greata Freakonomics podcast. Listen now. And these. Or listen to the same ideas in the audiobook version of The Practice of Practice. Better yet, do it all!   Advertisements

Angela Duckworth has spoken out about Grit, an essential element for achieving success. But early on, no matter what you’re doing, there are lots of hurdles to overcome. Here are some musical hurdles to avoid altogether, if you can. Every little bit helps. <snip> But the real reasons that students quit is often beyond their own…

In The Practice of Practice is a chapter that covers how world-class musicians (yes, even classical musicians) use improvisation to improve their playing. You should do it, too. Trouble with improvising or composing? Here’s a tool for you: http://www.tonicgame.com/

Andrew Hitz is a former Boston Brass tuba-ist. His blog is worth subscribing to. This quote is from Doug Yeo, the former bass trombonist for the Boston Symphony. Thing is, it works for ANY music and any musician. Great advice. If you practice, you get better. If you get better, you play with better players….

Learn by ear. Play what you know. Have fun. Exhibit #748:

Some of the best practice I’ve ever had, and some of the most fun, has come from using loops. Here are two example: Joe St. George of Owleater kills it on percussion:   Bonus points for Leah’s keyboard percussion and the Paul McCartney-style bass. The BOSS loop station (one pedal, two pedals, three pedals) is…

In The Practice of Practice, Erin McKeown talks about how she used songwriting as her practice. Not only did songwriting with ap 4-track recorder give her some serious feedback, resulting in serious chops, her process resulted in some excellent albums, too. There are lots of resources online to learn songwriting. Here’s one:

There are so many careers in music, many more than “just” performing, and they all take practice of one kind or another. Here’s one music career that sounds fascinating.

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