Nate Wood likes to compare practice to building a clay sculpture, and I got my first taste of what he means the last 3 weeks. In this lesson, I’ll give you a short version of the lesson I taught in the Asia clinics last month. I couldn’t have done this lesson a month ago, and I wouldn’t be able to do it again.
Anyway - Nate Wood. When you practice, he muses, it’s like adding a piece to a clay sculpture. It’s soft, so you can shape it. That’s practice. Then you need to fire it. That’s gigging, or playing in front of an audience.
My clinic run went predictably: the first clinic, in Hong Kong, started off rough as I was finding my stage legs. That sent me into a near-panic, causing me to steal away for early-morning practice sessions in Bangkok between speakers and masterminds at my business conference, and rework the presentation from the start. That paid off. Somehow, in front of nearly 35 people, including two of Thailand’s best drummers, I pulled it off.
By the time I got to Taipei, I could “jump around” within my prepared material. My sculpture had been fired. Two days later, back in Kaohsiung, I turned on the cameras and did it for the channel. That’s this lesson.
And for the comment thread this week, should I go to PASIC? It’s expensive and sudden, but...sunlight, and Mark. And John. Oooh choices. (Maybe I should wait for NAMM. Is that more my peeps’ pace?)