You know a professional musician when you see one.
Typically, they are booked solid. They can turn down the bad gigs because they have landed the best. But how can you get there? Well, it’s less about natural talent and more about how you think.
The best musicians – the pros – know something that the rest of us don’t. They’re not caught up in trying to succeed quickly. They don’t stop improving after college. They don’t look for an easy way out.
Their music is an extension of who they are – a form of self expression. And they’re committed to it.
You Must Move Beyond Passion
Recently I read a post that annoyed me. It was titled: “Don’t follow your passion. Follow your effort.” At first, I was apalled. “Is this guy just trying to get cheap click throughs with a bold headline? Don’t follow your passion? Really?”
But the more I read the more I was convinced that Mark Cuban is right.
If you want to become the best musician you can be, you can’t just have a passion for the piano or guitar or drums or bass. Passion is fickle. It’s unfocused. I develop new passions every day. But that’s not what’s going to cause me to succeed.
What you need is effort – long, committed, focused effort on your instrument. You need to make a decision and stick with it.
Practice for the professional musician never ends. And they’re OK with that. Matter of fact, they love it. It’s part of who they are. It has become a habit.
While so many amateurs are talking about their next drum kit, pedal board, or midi setup, the professional gets to work on what really matters – their craft.
How Do You Start?
Start with this week. Seven days. Pick an instrument.
Commit to improving yourself every day.
Don’t just play your favorite songs. Stop reading the guitar forums. Quit looking at gear you can’t afford. You’re stalling from the real work.
Practice what is hard. Over and over.
Practice your timing, your technique, your scales, your control.
At the end of the week, review. I guarantee you’ll see a difference. Because it’s not just about time invested; it’s about quality time invested.
Think different. Do the real work.
Question: What is holding you back from becoming the musician you could be? What would committed, focused effort make possible for you? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
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Photo Credit: ammgramm (Flickr)
Great stuff! I have stopped reading guitar gear blogs and everything because of this. I try to practice at least 1 hr per day on my electric guitar. I am doing a lot more technique work as well as playing my favorite worship songs- Phil Wickham stuff! haha
I have seen a great amount of improvement. I am not trying to become a professional musician because I believe that God is calling me to become a surgeon. However, I do want to be the best I can be, so when I get up to lead worship, I can be used by God in a great way.
1 hour a day is great, Brandon. What kind of stuff are you practicing?
David, you know I had to comment on this one, but this is my second start. They came to change out the AC unit in my office, right next to my computer where I was typing my response. I appreciate young people like Brandon who know what they want to do and know where guitar/music fits in. Some of the best players I know are not professional in the sense that they make their living at it. They are professional in the sense that music is a lifelong pursuit that never stops. They practice, they study, they think about music. Music IS the journey. It spills into other parts of your life. My Christianity spills into everything, so does my music. I am a Christian musician ( that was another blog).
There is a great mistake in the minds of amateur guitar players. That is thinking your fingers make music. Your mind is the musical instrument, guitar or whatever is a tool to express what is in your mind. Players get stuck in ruts that are mental, not physical.
You must develop a basic technique to operate from, but someone serious can do that in 2 or 3 years (or less) working with a “qualified” teacher. After that your technique and ideas will grow together. If you are playing “fingers only” you keep getting the same old things. After a performance, people often ask me how I do it. I have seen them play and know they are physically just as gifted as I am. They are short in the music knowledge area. There are people however just gifted that have a creative urge and spirit that just do it. Everyone thinks that will be them. If sooner or later that doesn’t happen, you have to go the other path, study to improve, settle for what you got, or quit.
Don’t let guitar playing become a tactile obsession where it just occupies time. If you are going to spend the time doing it, put some thought and direction to it. Learn something NEW every time you play. The way most guitar players practice or study is like being in a maze where you constantly pick the longest path that never leads to an exit. Or, they find something by accident that other musicians already know, then they want some kind of credit for re-inventing the wheel. They are looking for a magic pill or silver bullet that will instantly fix all of their problems. I try to help guitar players stuck in these situations. Start asking questions. Try to figure out which questions you should be asking. Do you know what you don’t know? It never hurts to know more about music if you think of yourself as a musician Or is it, ” I’m not a musician, I am a guitar player’? Musical improvement takes a plan with daily application. The cliche applies here as well. Do you plan to fail or fail to plan? If you are spending the time anyway, develop a work ethic to go with it, or it just falls into obsessive compulsive behavior. I honestly think most guitar players don’t know why they play guitar or why they still play guitar. They have no plan for getting better, but they are frustrated where they are at. The definition for insanity: ” Doing the same thing over and over expecting a new or different result each time”. Here is the key. Professionals have had all of the above problems, they just refuse to stay at that level in those problems.
So much good stuff here. “Your mind is the musical instrument” – that is brilliant and so true.
It is usually too abstract to word it this way but it’s the difference between playing guitar and playing music. There can be a huge difference. I enjoy it most when the rest of the musicians hear and respect each other and the music being created and their contributions to the piece are respectful in the same way. When done correctly people are just moved by the end result. A friend of mine that has since passed once took his complete percussion set into a session and played probably less that 25 notes in the whole piece and at the end the other musicians knew how powerful his contribution was and just quietly shook his hand or gave him a hug. He had been concentrating on his music over 20 years to get to that point.
You’re right, Dennis. It’s another level when a musician can see beyond what they actually play and contribute to the music as a whole.
I forgot to click the follow up box.
I’ve studied music at university, played professionally, taught, coached, band led and the rest. If there are two things I’ve learnt it’s these.
1. There’s no replacement for time on the instrument – apparently great players have done 10,000 hours min. I keep telling myself this. Play, play, play, practice, practice more and more. Get off that web! lol
2. Practice is not music – That said, you can’t make music without practice. You sit in your room and play the whole instrument. Scales, exercises, the hard bits. You play 1000 notes so that when you get to the gig, you can choose the 6 notes you will play. Only by then, they are not notes, they are music. Music is BEYOND the notes.
So here’s my rant; Don’t turn up to church, or band rehearsal or whatever and tell me you haven’t had a chance to practice that song. Firstly, is total BS. You’ve had chances, probably lots. You used it on the TV or the net or whatever else. Secondly, I don’t want you’re still-born notes, I want a music. I want a musician, not a note-player. I invited a musician to come play, so come practiced and give me music, not notes.
P.s. I repent for all the times I did not practice. ;o)
Ah, love this Pete. Here’s a question: what are some tips you have for moving beyond “notes” to playing “musically”. I think that would be helpful. Thanks!