All of last week I was immersed in practice in all its various guises and all but 30 minutes of it was in group practice. Here are a few suggestions from my latest book, “The Practice of Practice,” to keep in mind when you’re practicing with somebody else. They’re either questions you can ask directly, if it’s appropriate (often it’s not), or questions to keep in mind as you’re listening to those you’re practicing with.
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The Practice of Practice is Published
The Practice of Practice is now available: U.S., U.K., Spain, France, Germany, Italy, and India 277 pages 44 Chapters Illustrations Extras (learn more) E-book edition is also available in: Canada, Japan, Australia, & Brazil Hardcover will be available July 15 (US only). Talent means nothing when it comes to getting better. Practice is everything. But exactly what is good…
Bill Frisell & Djelimady Tounkara
One of the best perks that comes from talking to superb musicians about practice is when they tell me about musicians they admire. When Sona Jobarteh talked about practice, she listed these musicians: Ballake Cissokho (Kora), Kasse Mady Diabate (Singer), Sekouba Bambino (Singer), and Djelimady Tounkara (Guitarist) I’ve barely started checking them out and already, I’m entranced. I hope…
The Zen of Alan Watts + South Park Animation + Music
Below is an interesting, truthful talk from Zen master Alan Watts, animated by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the wacky creators of South Park and other hilarities. What I love about the talk is that Watts not only invokes music, but is also justifiably critical of our education system, and our way of engaging with the…
Be Bold. The Mighty Forces Will Come to Your Aid.
The title of this post is my favorite quote by Goethe Basil King, and the content of the post is from an idol of my youth, Billy Joel, and audacious audience member Michael Pollack who was in the audience at Billy Joel’s talk at Vanderbilt University. Taking risks is a great thing to do, but you should be…
Lessons from Skateboarder Adam Miller
Winston Churchill once said, “Success is moving from one failure to the next with no loss of enthusiasm.” Here’s that gem of advice as it might look to skateboarder Adam Miller. Adam Miller posted many shots of his failed attempts to land a trick (it’s both cringe-inducing and hard to look away). After that is…
Django’s Lemonade: 3-Fingered Lightning
What would you do if your body was burned to the point that your doctors wanted to amputate your leg and told you that you’d never play music again? Django Reinhardt (already an accomplished banjo player at 18) decided to keep his leg and play the guitar his brother brought for him to play while…
Liven Up Your Long Tone Practice
… long tones are super-important for wind players. Long tones allow us to hyper-focus on the quality of sound, and since there are no note changes or any other duties, we can also pay more attention to other details like air movement, posture, and other important details we often ignore.
The Night I Met Einstein – by Jerome Weidman
It’s got nothing to do with practice, but everything to do with listening, music, and life and is well worth reading, especially if you think you’re “tone deaf” (nobody is). Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. This story is from playwright and novelist Jerome Weidman. Thanks to Akshar Smriti for posting it, and thanks to Derek…
Your Brain on Music (fMRI)
Music doesn’t make you smarter, at least not generally smarter, but playing music does make you musically smarter. In fact, there have been many recent studies showing profound differences in the brains of people who have studied music. One is that the corpus callosum, the “conduit” between the left and right sides of the brain, is…
Why There is No Trumpet Christmas
Hilariously hair-raising.
Understand Music: Sweet Animated Vid
Here‘s a beautifully animated vid that was shared by Xeni on BoingBoing: a creative studio based in Mainz, Germany, produced this beautiful animated video exploring what music is: Music is a good thing. But what we did not know until we started with the research for this piece: Music is also a pretty damn complex thing. This…
The Practice of Practice 