[Harp-L] Oy Vey - More on Getting Good and Getting Better

[Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

First, I'd like to say that everything I say below is well known to many of 
the musicians on this list.  Not that they might not get something out of 
reading it, but it's posted especially to encourage newer players.

I don't know that I agree with everything in the article linked below, but 
it is germaine to the discussion I initiated last month.

http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?type=article&article_id=218392857

The main theme of the article is that serious, focused practice is 
something the experts share in common.

One interesting bit:  It seems researchers on the subject of talent and 
practice "suspect that what many people think of as "talent" may just be 
the motivation and commitment to continually challenge yourself."

And one of the important places to challenge yourself is away in your lab, 
practicing new ideas, coming up with newer ones.

I work with lots of graduates of the Berklee School of Music.  They are all 
amazingly technically proficient as players and as composers.  And yet very 
few of them are really exciting musicians.  Too many of them graduate and 
never learn another new thing, and it shows in their playing, which becomes 
more and more academic and boring.  The ones who keep studying and growing 
are the ones that make the exciting music.  The best of them, an 
extrodinary and very successful guitarist, continues to practice as much as 
8 hours a day into his 50's.

I can't practice 8 hours a day, never have in my whole life.  But I do 
practice every day, and I NEVER only practice what I know, I'm always 
reaching for new ideas.  Jerry Wexler, the great record producer, said that 
one thing all the great musicians he worked with had in common was the 
tendency to 'get sick of their own smell,' meaning get sick of the licks 
and feelings and whatever that they have been playing for too long, and 
come up with new stuff to replace it.

Playing lots of gigs is good practice, but if you mix it in with alot of 
solo practice, and alot of 'rehearsal' with other cats, you will get better 
and better at coming up with new vocabulary.

Last night I read a book about Glenn Gould, the wonderful piano player.  He 
is quoted as saying he practiced rarely.  However, another pianist, Gary 
Graffman, spent a few days at a Steinway piano facility in Europe, and he 
said Gould practiced a great deal during the time they were both there.

Remember the kids who said they didn't study, and yet still got all 
A's?  Remember how that was a load of baloney?

It adds to your mystique if you say you never practice, but if you really 
never practice you ain't gonna excel at harmonica playing.  I didn't FEEL 
like I was practicing those first few years, neither did you.  But if you 
don't want to get bored, keep practicing.

There's a link in this article to another article titled "Expert 
Performance and Deliberate Practice."  Very worthy.

http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson/ericsson.exp.perf.html

Now, when I was a sprout I believed that thinking about such things might 
actually hurt my playing.  Someone either on-list or off mentioned to me 
that there were certain things that they were afraid if they learned it 
might affect their playing adversely.

I highly recommend learning everything you can about everything, as it will 
all have a positive effect on your music.

Ken