The term “Practicing” is often shrouded in mystery. It’s what many people of a variety of disciplines believe they should be doing it, but for various reasons… don’t.
What does practicing mean?
“Practicing: the act of repeatedly doing something in order to improve one’s skills or proficiency in that particular area. In the context of a profession or a skill, practicing often involves performing tasks, exercises, or drills that are intended to improve one’s abilities.”
Notice the words in bold “tasks, exercises, or drills”. Sounds pretty relaxing right? Who wouldn’t want to spend their spare time doing “tasks, exercises, or drills” for the sake of doing them? I am not against those things as I do them myself routinely. For some however, it’s putting the cart before the horse. Some backstory if I may of how I came to practice regularly and love doing so.
When I was 8 years old, I was in the back seat of my parents’ car and we happened by a music shop with several guitars displayed in the window. Even from afar, hanging silently in that window, they had a visceral effect on me. They still do.
Seeing Is Believing…
Mtv (MuchMusic for us Canadians) was relatively new at the time. I was fully enamored with Bryan Adams in the “Run To You Video”. He was wearing a black leather jacket, jeans, and playing a classic black and white Stratocaster. On the beach. At night while it was raining. That was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Later, it was Steve Stevens in the Billy Idol videos. He was pulling sounds out of that thing like I had never heard before and he looked like an other worldly being.
Sounds In My Head…
Walkmans and ghetto blasters were also new at the time. I would take my first ghetto blaster up to my room and listening for hours. I remember looking forward to taking a bath every night just so I could lay in the tub and listen to music. Platinum Blonde, Top Gun, or the Footloose soundtrack were popular.
Well Hello there beautiful…
Eventually, my dad took me to a music store at some point and I immediately went towards an electric guitar. For whatever reason, any black electric guitar was incredibly seductive. The person in the shop plugged one in for me and all I could do was run my hand over the strings and make noise with it. My parents knew I wanted one, but made a deal with me that I would have to take lessons for a year before I could get an electric one.
I Got My First Real Six String….
For 12 months, I stuck it out on a 3/4 size acoustic nylon string guitar. My brother and I would go to the local music store and head down to the basement where all the lessons were done. He took keyboard lessons, and I guitar lessons. My early lessons were me asking my teacher to show me my favorite tunes. Bryan Adams, Cats Can Fly, Hall & Oates, and Corey Hart were all orders of the day.
At the same time, I was also very into skateboarding which had come back into fashion. Music was a big part of that scene as people would bring their ghetto blasters to a skate session. Skateboarding to music was inspiring. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were just new on the scene and their music was almost synonymous with skating.
When I went to school dances, I would often hear songs that inspired me to want to play them. The last song of every dance??? Stairway To Heaven of course. Of course, I went home after one dance and spent the rest of the night learning that song.
Never Gonna Give You Up…
This is all to say that music was a big part of my life already. I listened all the time. I was never a big reader, and I was quite happy with listening to music or watching music videos. I took my Walkman everywhere. Playing guitar initially came as an outgrowth of that.
In my initial lessons, I didn’t impress my teacher at all. Listening to Steve Stevens playing Rebel Yell was one thing, but plunking out bad sounding chords on an acoustic guitar was another. It was hard. I had small hands, and I just didn’t sound very good at all. Not like those long haired rock guys who wandered into the store, picked up an axe and started ripping. Were we even playing the same instrument?
Time After Time…
Time went on and I kept playing. Certainly my early teachers would unanimously say I was not one of their best students. One of my teachers even said “You’ve never given a flamin’ f@$% about anything I’ve said… but I admire the spirit and all”. It wasn’t that I wasn’t playing the guitar, it was that I wasn’t wanting to do those “tasks, exercises, and drills.”
Around the age of 12, I started to buy guitar magazines. I read interviews by guitarists I had never heard of and getting hipped to checking out new music all the time. I liked reading their thought processes of their craft and general outlook on life and really being drawn in by that. They were hyper focused and motivated and that had an impact on me. Steve Vai was a huge part of this… and still to this day someone I have the utmost respect for. He was playing, writing, arranging, mixing, and producing his own music. His process was fascinating to read about.
Joe Satriani I learned had taught Steve in his formative years and so I got heavily into his music. I would come home everyday from school and listen to the Flying In A Blue Dream album all the way through. My parents had just got a new stereo system for the family room. I would spend hours in there just soaking in music.
A Guy Called Steve…
In 1990, Steve Vai’s Passion and Warfare album came out. His face was all over every guitar magazine. Who was this guy? I bought the cassette of that album and quickly found out. I remember playing the melody of “For The Love Of God” in a music store when I was 15. I got the attention of many people in the store who stopped to have a listen.
By high school, there were many opportunities to play guitar publicly. I joined the stage bands and before long, found myself playing with a high school rock band. The first jam session I ever had with that rock band, was in the drummer’s basement. None of us had really come prepared as we couldn’t collectively get through even one song all the way through. The other guitarist was playing twice as loud as I was.
Because I also lived within walking distance of a music store, and I had more independence to go out… I would often go in there to browse. I remember the first Steve Vai Floral guitars coming into the store and just being spellbound looking at them. When the Passion and Warfare transcription book came in, I remember walking 2 miles to my grocery store employer to ask for a $30 advance to get enough money to buy it. I walked another 3 miles to the music store and picked it up. I poured over that book trying to play what limited bits my fingers or brain could digest.
Who Needs Netflix Anyway?
There was a huge social component involved with playing at this point. It wasn’t just about playing, but about being around others who were interested in the same thing. I was shy by nature, so playing music with friends for friends kept me from otherwise being at home so much.
It felt good. Performing in front of people was a huge rush. My high school band practiced every Friday and Saturday night. Then we’d play a gig at an all ages club on Sunday. We’d be playing on a bill with two other teenage bands and hundreds of our friends would show up. We wrote our own music, played for parties and invited friends over to our practice sessions. We would pile into one vehicle and drive long distances together together just to play a few tunes at some small club. I met my first high school girlfriend while playing at the Hard Rock Cafe in Toronto. Times were very different then…
At some point, I also got a 4 track recording unit and an effects unit. I started writing my own music and figuring out how to record my own music. When I was 16, my mom drove me all the way across town to record my own music at a real recording studio with a couple of session players procured by my guitar teacher. The whole idea of recording and listening back to the music was enamoring. I recorded more and more as time went on.
No turning back…
By the end of high school, I couldn’t see myself doing anything else except playing music for a living. I had heard about a music college in Boston and decided that’s where I wanted to go.
When I got there, practicing took on a whole new feel to it. It was literally about surviving the classes. I would go down to the basement of my dorm where the practice rooms were, close the door at 8pm and coming out around 2pm. There was never a shortage of things to work on. If I had a performance of some kind coming up, there was no question of putting the best foot forward and working towards playing as best I could. I was literally only doing “tasks, exercises, and drills.”
I worked on technique, reading music, improvising, ear training, theory, chord voicings, learning my neck…etc. I remember my first ensemble there was a jazz ensemble with Ron Mahdi who was an amazing upright jazz bassist. He would often sight the value of playing simple jazz tunes as it was just “bare bones music” and it required making something out of it in real time.
Everyone was there for the same reasons. The conversations always steered towards the classes, ensembles, projects, asking questions and getting advice. Encouraging others and receiving encouragement (and criticism) along the way. I’d be lying if I said that time was wasn’t filled with much frustration. Seeing the level of musicians there was really intimidating for many of us… and I certainly wasn’t sure how I was going to find my way or where the path was going.
Since leaving the school, I started teaching and playing gigs right away. I was still writing a lot of music and recording. The motivation to practice then was still pretty high because there always seemed to be something in the horizon to work towards.
When I started teaching, I now found myself in the other chair and teaching students of all ages and abilities. Many of them starting off like I did, wanting to learn their favorite tunes.
Prior to YouTube and the advent of mobile devices and remote internet access, music was very much a part of what made up my students’ interests. Like it was for my generation, music was heavily intertwined with personal identity. It influenced how we dressed, and what social groups we were in.
Ok, what does all this have to do with practicing???
Consistent practice is linked to long-term values and personal identity. In my case, seeing and hearing others play music at a high level was the initial inspiration. All of the best students I’ve had over the years have that initial captivation and wonder about music and the emotions that go along with listening to and playing it.
Once that initial spark is there, you have to put that inspiration into action. For me, getting my first guitar and learning my favorite tunes was where it started. I would imagine what it would be like to perform music for my friends. I read magazines, listened more, took lessons, and kept playing wherever the instrument kept taking me. When I got to a certain place, I realized I could start performing and writing music in my own way. The specifics in how to improve in those areas are what I will address in part 2. In the meantime, when is your next gig?