The Practice of Practice

This cracked me up.

Adrian Holovaty and friends doing some beautiful playing. Adrian co-created the wonderfully useful SoundSlice practice application, and spoke with me while I was researching practice for The Practice of Practice.

Warning: there are a couple eff-bombs in there.

A summary of Jon Acuff’s book, Finish.

In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write a famous author and ask for advice. Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond. Here’s his reply: “Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to…

Johnny Conga has some great stuff for any conga player, like this gem below. It’s simple, but it ain’t easy! In The Practice of Practice, I recommend taking up a drum. It’s great for your rhythm skills, it’s fun, and if you’re a piano player, a hand drum is a lot more portable!

I loved what she said about “just messing around” with her music as it relates to practice. She and her brother were allowed to stay up as late as they wanted as long as they were making music. 🙂 Also, her brother Finneas wrote “10,000 hours”” above her bedroom door frame (12:20). Just don’t forget,…

Gypsy jazz guitar master Stéphane Wrembel offers some terrific exercises that will help you develop fret-hand strength. He makes them look easy! Stephane also had some great practice advice included in The Practice of Practice. Source: Play better than ever with these 5 essential guitar warm-up exercises | Guitar World

Allison Miller was one of many master musicians who shared their experience of practice for my book, The Practice of Practice. (full list here). Allison mentioned that, in addition to hitting her fundmentals and all the “usual” practice stuff, she also made time to go into a room with her drums and just play. That…