How to ditch the structure and "mess around", and still get better

Is structured practice overrated? It depends.

When I was 17 years old, I attended "band camp", and came away with the disquieting conclusion that I wasn't practicing enough. Surrounded by people who had spent their lives practicing 3, 4, 5 hours-a-day, I felt like I'd barely scratched the surface.

I knew I had to catch up.

The easiest lever to pull was "quantity". I started with a blank slate of 3 hours-a-day (minimum), and found things to fill it with.

I maintained that through the last years of high-school, into college, into grad school, and for many years after graduation.

I think two things are true of long, structured practice routines: first, everybody who wants to be a "black belt" needs to put in those hours at some point in her career.

(I'm *not* saying I'm a black belt, by the way.)

Second, you can't *not* get better when you're putting those kinds of hours. It's a brute-force approach. What's more, learning to practice efficiently is a skill in its own right, and probably requires that you spend years practicing *inefficiently*.

But what happens when we take a look under the hood?

As you might suspect from the name of my channel, you likely discover that not everything you've been practicing has equal value. A small number of things, 20% or less, is probably responsible for 80% or more of the results.

So - first conclusion: if you stay with the 20%, you can spend less time, and rely on less *structure*, and still get better faster: hence the "mess around".

In the interview I play at the beginning of the video, Nate Wood told me he mostly improvises in the practice room.

But what are those 20%? How do you know you're not just continuing to mostly waste time, but just getting fewer potent hours?

That's certainly the fear. "I'm doing a whole hodgepodge of stuff, and I don't know what's working and what's not, so I'm gonna keep it all."

Tantamount to "we know we're wasting half our advertising dollars. We just don't know which half."

But you can have reasonable hypotheses. In today's video, I put forward 4. The "4 Cs". These are core skills that, as long as you're working on *one* of them, make it almost impossible to waste time.

Can you see the complexity of the narrative thread I'm trying to weave here? (Not that I'm saying I'm succeeding:P) That's why this video is 20 minutes. And we haven't even gotten to feedback loops.

Ok, so why does 80/20 "messing around" work. One good hypothesis is feedback loops. If you want a pure illustration of feedback loops in action, just loop a bar of John Coltrane (a slow solo), and try to whistle it. The first few reps will be atrocious. If you repeat it enough, it will get better, little-by-little, without your conscious brain needing to do anything.

That's a pure feedback loop. So we want to spend as much of our practice session as possible engaged in feedback loops toward goals we want to achieve. Simple, right?

And that's why Stick Control and the 26 Essential Rudiments work so well. They're tailor-made for those feedback loops.

But they have to adapt as your needs change. Which is why: The 4 Cs.

Hope you enjoy.

What Matt Garstka Can Teach Us About Odd Meters

There are videos that I hope catch on with a broader audience - i.e. those I hope/figure have at least a chance at "going viral".

THEN there are videos like today's. Videos I make just because I want to.

I don't care if only 450 people watch this, I had to get it out there.

Kepler, from Matt Garstka and guitarist Josh De La Victoria, has been on my mind since I first watched the video. I've been a fan of Matt's playing since the Berklee Jam days, and I've seen plenty of Matt Porn, including last year's VF Jam, and the collaborations with Henrik Linder.

But Matt's playing is synergistic with this track in a way that recalls Oli Bernatchez and Le Havre - they sound like a band.

And it's my suspicion that Kepler will be a classic in a way that other videos/recordings won't precisely because of the "lightening in a bottle" element that's part math-metal schmorgasbord, part rootsy rock guitar, and part vibe-in-the-room-on-that-day.

Whatever the reason, we love Kepler.

But there's more than meets the eye. Sure, maybe you've admired the solos. Maybe you've figured out some of the meters. Maybe you've even played along.

But the hope with this video is to expose you to some of the subtle elements of the arrangement/performance that you may NOT have noticed before.

Hope you enjoy!

How to get out of your head when you play

Today's lesson is about "gig anxiety" or "stage fright".

It's one thing in the practice room, but when we get in front of people, or we want to make a good impression, that's when the nerves happen and we get up in our heads.

But for some of us, it's tough to get out of our heads *even in the practice room*.

The was the case for me.

When I first started playing, ignorance was bliss. I'd bang gleefully along with my favorite records, never knowing that "I sucked", so I had no reason to be self-conscious.

Once I went to music school - heck, once I started playing in bands - I *started* to grasp the height and steepness of the mountain, and then I started getting in my head.

Sure, I was improving technically. But my playing became cerebral, and I was no longer having fun.

One big "elephant in the room" is the typical advice I give on this channel: I *encourage* people to drill down, and root out their weaknesses, rather than living in the illusion that they're good.

So how do I reconcile this with my admonition to find the "fun" in music?

A couple of ways.

First, it's about realizing that you'll go through "cycles". To reach a new plateau is going to require some pain and frustration, but once you "level up" you can enjoy playing again.

More subtly, we can draw a "perimeter" around the shed. When we're in the shed, we focus on rooting out our weaknesses. When we're on the gig, or in real musical situations, we have to be equally committed to getting out of our heads and making music.

But how are we supposed to practice getting out of our heads when all the popular exercises are about technique, or coordination, or time?

Via the methods in this video, hopefully;)

Is Jazz Dead? (No)

Jazz Standards have been on my brain this past week. Maybe blame Jacob Mann, who's currently crushing the wedding/bar mitzvah game with his Jazz Standers Trio.

I have friends who tell me "jazz is dead". Whether it's magical thinking or confirmation bias born of spending 6 years of my life and a consequential sum of money on my "jazz education", I'm not ready to say that by a long shot.

Nor am I fully on-board with the thesis that Kneebody and Snarky Puppy are the "jazz" now. Those are two of my favorite musical acts, but I don't think even they'd say they were "jazz" - definitely "jazz influenced", but not "jazz" per se.

Nor am I ready to say the only "jazz" is completely repertory. Rehashing the 1950s like zero time has passed. I think we've come too far since 1990 to go back.

The "sweet spot" - one some friends insist is so small as to be inconsequential (and obviously I disagree) - is jazz that isn't fusion, but isn't repertory either. And I assert there are *plenty* of records in that vein.

Which begs the question: why aren't any of those tunes in real books?

Seamus Blake's Badlands.

Terence Blanchard's Wandering Wonder.

Zhivago by Kurt, f@#$ sakes.

This week's lesson simultaneously catalogues ten records I think we should add to the real book, and my climate-fueled retreat to the west coast for a few days.

Hope you enjoy.