Really get it together as it’s supposed to go, but also explore with it; take it down the road, take it for a walk around the block, climb to the top of a building and come back down with it, and then come back and play it exactly as it’s supposed to be as well….
Author: Jonathan Harnum
Hi, I'm Jon Harnum, author, publisher, teacher, musician, and scholar. If you'd like to learn more about music or how to publish books, come check out my web sites and online courses. Lots of freebies so you can try before you buy. See you online!
Colin Oldberg: Principal Trumpet, Hong Kong Phil.
Colin Oldberg is an excellent player who has played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and earned a spot on the first YouTube Orchestra and has played Carnegie hall twice. He’s also part of a fantastic brass quintet, Axiom Brass. There’s a link to the full length mp3 of the excerpt from the beginning of the show. Colin talks about practice.
Erin McKeown: Singer-Songwriter on Practice
Music is unique. The more I know about how it works, the deeper it gets; the better it becomes.
~ Erin McKeown, from the Interview
Check out what the excellent singer-songwriter Erin McKeown has to say about music practice. I’ve been a fan of Erin’s since hearing Distillation in 2000. Erin plays guitar, piano, drums, and bass and has recorded albums. I learned of her through one of many interviews with Erin on NPR, this one on The World Cafe, a most excellent show hosted on WXPN in Philadelphia and hosted by David Dye. Great stuff! Erin’s got 12 albums out, and they’re all worth owning. My favorite 3 albums are Distillation, Grand, and Hundreds of Lions.
Chad McCullough: Jazz Trumpeter on Practice
Check out the interview with Seattle-based jazz and classical trumpeterChad McCullough. Last year at the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival, Chad and I met and after a quick chat he agreed to talk with me about practice. Not only is Chad an excellent trumpet player, he’s also got piano chops, and this influences his trumpet playing. Listen to the podcast to learn his thoughts about trumpet playing and practice. McCullough just returned to Seattle after a tour of Belgium and release party for his latest album, Imaginary Sketches (out 2-15-11), from Origin Records in the states, and De Werf in Europe. He’s a busy guy and has some other great stuff out, too, including an excellent album from The Kora Band, and he was generous enough to let me use a tune from their latest album to open the podcast. The clip that opens the interview is Over-caffeinated and Under-fed. The Kora is a West-African stringed instrument that has a great sound. It sounds a bit like a Celtic harp, but with a different attitude and more rhythm. Oh, and a giant gourd. Here’s a video clip of Kora master Toumani Diabaté in action. Chad has interesting things to share about practice and how he thinks about music that I found both interesting and useful. Hope you enjoy the interview. Have fun and good luck with your practice.
Nicholas Barron: Chicago Singer-Songwriter on Practice
A talk with Chicago singer-songwriter Nicholas Barron who has an interesting take on practice. Check out the site for a free mp3 of Nicholas’s music.
In the course of the interview Nicholas said, “That’s what a lot of people do; they practice in a room and they don’t get anywhere. It’s really about practice being life, and life being practice.” Check out the whole interview if you want to understand what he means.
Podcast Ahoy!
Well, I’ve got a few interviews in the can and will be editing and processing them in the coming weeks. The next post to this podcast will have an interview with Nicholas Barron, singer-songwriter from Chicago, followed by interviews with classical trumpeter Colin Oldberg (principal trumpet w/ the Hong Kong Symphony Orchestra), Singer-Songwriter Erin McKeown, jazz trumpeter Chad McCullough, and the most excellent Chicago Symphony Orchestra Tuba player Rex Martin. There are more interviews in the works, too, including (tentatively) Ingrid Jensen, Bobby Broom, and Josh Ritter. Stay tuned. When that first one is posted, be sure to subscribe to the iTunes podcast feed to download future interviews automatically. The first one should be up by mid-March.
Lessons from a VW
Last Saturday at the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, I went to listen to Victor Wooten give a clinic. A while ago I posted a review of Victor’s book The Music Lesson, which is up for an audiobook award. For the clinic, Victor Wooten played with the fantastic and funny bass player (yes, there is another bass player in his band) Anthony Wellington; legendary jazz bassist John Clayton showed up for an improvised tune or two. The clinic was a fantastic example of playing, teaching and telling it straight. It was so good and inspirational, I knew it would be worth sharing.
Getting Loopy: More Practice Tools/Toys
I like to use electronics to make practice more fun and I think, more demanding. In this quick post I’ll show you the Boss Loop Station. It allows me to layer recordings. It can be used with a microphone (that’s how I record trumpet and various percussion), electronics (you can input beats or any other digital media), and/or guitar. Mine is set up with a microphone and guitar input. I won’t get into the details of how the loop station works, but here’s how such a device helps with practice.
A Pentastic Practice Tool
This is the most awesome lesson tool. Truly. With it you can record exactly what your teacher says and demonstrates as you go through your lesson so that if you’re stuck or need a review mid-week, it’s just a click away. But it’s even cooler than that. You can post these notes online and share them with whoever you want, or make them totally private so only you can see or hear them! There is a piano function for which, if you draw a piano, you’ll hear the notes plink away when you touch the piano key. It can translate simple phrases in several languages, too.
Cross-Training
We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color. ~Maya Angelou ——————- Want to learn more about the best ways to practice? Get an e-mail with a discount code when The Practice of Practice…
The Habit of Motivation and Barking Against the Bad
Every moment of one’s existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
~Norman Mailer (1923 – 2007)
If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down.
~Mary Pickford (1893-1979)
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Plumbing the depths of motivation is a long unending process. Previous posts in this blog contain other aspects of motivation, including some theories about why we persist in difficult tasks. Today I want to shoot from the hip and talk about my own informal experience with and opinions about motivation. No theory. No rigorously tested hypotheses beyond those done subconsciously or haphazardly. Just two things that are on my mind.
Sir Kenneth Robinson, animated
Now and then I run across something that is only indirectly related to practice, but which I feel compelled to share. Here is a talk by Sir Kenneth Robinson that you should listen to and watch, wonderfully animated by the good folks at RSAnimate. Hope you find it enjoyable and stimulating. Have fun, and good…
The Practice of Practice 