28 November, 2008
Ok, so here it is: I will hereby make known: THE SECRET INGREDIENT!
After the great disclosure of my discoveries I will ponder around this ancient secret that master musicians have sworn by for centuries! (Fasten your seatbelts.)
This is something I believe God in His wisdom grafted into the fabric of our being at the very beginning of time. It has the potential to revolutionise and advance your musical experience to a “whole nutha level”! (Quote: Pastor Ed Young)
THE SECRET INGREDIENT IS………… there is no secret ingredient… (seen Kung Fu Panda?)
But, here’s the bottom line: what God has given us is the ability to learn and improve! So the real “ancient secret” is…PRACTICE!
There’s a way that will make practice something you totally crave. I used to practice on average around 3 hours a day when I was 17-18 years old.
What made me do that?? EXPONENTIAL MOTIVATION
(my drum teacher so ingeniously tricked me into it when I was even younger…true story.)
Exponential is a word used about something that grows when, the bigger it grows, the faster it grows. OK?
Motivation (in this article) is ambition, desire, initiative… what drives you to practise. Big picture – we’re ultimately motivated and driven by the cause of our King Jesus, but that’s a “hole nutha article”. (HEAVENLY MOTIVATION….stay tuned..) But today, small picture, you need motivation to just get off your computer and practise!
So my teacher gave me 5 paradiddles (potentially boring technical exercises) and put it in a growth-savvy system for me:
“OK Rolf – do paradiddle number:
1. for 2 minutes
2. for 2 minutes
3. for 2 minutes
4. for 2 minutes
5. for 2 minutes”
This added up to 10 minutes of determined practice time… and after a week I had practised 1 hour! (including having one day off) Those 10 minutes seemed to fly away quicker and quicker, and a week down the track I felt improvements which was very motivating…then I put two and two together and thought: “if I spend 4 minutes on each paradiddle – I’ll get twice as good in half the time…” and BANG – 20 minutes a day…2 hours a week… and I felt more and more improvement… and this is how things started compiling to 3 hours a day. I couldn’t get enough… the more I learnt the more doors opened up for me to study deeper concepts, and the more I learnt – the more I realized how little I knew… great adventure!
So try to plan your practice into bite-size nuggets, and make it measurable – use a log… in my case here:
Monday Paradiddles 04.07.1994
1. for 2 minutes @ 120 beats per minute (using a metronome)
2. for 2 minutes @ 117 beats per minute
3. for 2 minutes @ 112 beats per minute… ETC..
Then I could see two weeks later that:
Monday Paradiddles 18.07.1994
1. for 2 minutes @ 127 beats per minute (using a metronome)
2. for 2 minutes @ 123 beats per minute
3. for 2 minutes @ 119 beats per minute… ETC..
IMPROVEMENT!!!!!! I feel so good to know that you’re doing something NOW, that you were totally unable to do two weeks ago!!!!! That is a great motivator….and it will grow as you grow. EXPONENTIAL MOTIVATION… the more you practise the more you want to practise. Remember to have fun with it all. Serving the Lord with gladness!
// Rolf
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