As musicians we all have our heroes. Players we admire, respect and aspire to be as great as..

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Ask any of them how they got to where they are, most will have a combination of being in the right place at the right time, a great teacher, networking, maybe even a little bit of luck. I can assure you ALL of them will say they worked hard at their craft! In other words they worked their asses off! 

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Nothing worth having in life is easy. From a toned body, a fine home, fine dining.  They all cost and it goes double if you want to be on top of your game as a musician. 

 

I recently bought a football top of my favourite team. It looks great, feels great. The only problem is it exposes EVERY flaw in my upper body. While it's not skin tight, it's a more fitted/tailored design. So for me, carrying a few extra pounds, its not the most flattering look. So with all of this in mind did I purchase the item? You bet I did! I now have a goal of losing about 10lbs of fat while developing lean muscle. My goal is not to lose weight as such, but to LOSE the FAT! There's a difference!

 

I don't mind the size I am, but I mind the TYPE of size I am at he moment, also being leaner will benefit my health and general wellbeing. 

 

As musicians we sometimes find ourselves in situations outside of our comfort zones, where are skills are not portrayed in the best possible light or we just plain suck and crash and burn. We can either quit, retreat into a shell and not go there again or we can regroup, work on our weaknesses and come back a more rounded musician and maybe learn some valuable life lessons. 

 

Personally, it's about having a very structured practice routine that covers the following areas:

 

Technique

Ear Training

Chord/Scale work

Learning/playing tunes

Improvisation/composition

 

All of these elements go hand in hand. Sometimes I have had a hap hazard approach to practice, sometimes I've have rich veins of intense practice. Other times I have intense listening sessions. It works for me, BUT sometimes we need to look at what we're doing and see if we can make more efficient use of our time. I'm going to go in depth into each of these areas listed above over the next few blogs so stay tuned!