Practice Like The Pros!

One of the biggest questions I’ve gotten in my many years of teaching people to play music is about learning music theory. It seems that most people think of music theory as some mythical language that takes decades to learn and implement, or some wonky, intellectual mumbo-jumbo that has no real app...

So you don’t feel like practicing, huh? Join the club, pal! One of the most challenging things with learning music is that it’s something you have to…you know…LEARN! Learning takes time. Learning takes effort. In this instant gratification culture, who wants to deal with time and effort??

I think b...

At the time of publishing this article, I’ll have been playing music in one form or another for over 40 years. Most of those years, I have been performing music in a high-level, professional capacity. Over nearly 30 of those years, I have spent a lot of time teaching other musicians of all ages and ...

Let’s face it: very few people on planet earth actually like practicing music!

There! I’ve said it! The “Practice Warriors Guy” just admitted that people don’t like to practice. Wow! 

Stop the presses! Alert the media! We’ve got the scoop of the century!!

Sarcasm aside, perhaps I should change my...

 Most people have plenty of things to practice, but they first need to learn HOW to practice. That’s what we teach our Practice Warriors. So, don’t worry about what to practice until you learn how to practice using the specific music learning strategies that have helped thousands of people all over ...

 I’ve heard the excuses so many times I can recite them by heart. They fly around my head like songs on a broken record. I’ve heard them for decades, and they amuse me just as much today as they did many, many moons ago. They are all answers to the same question I ask people again and again:

“Why d...

In an earlier blog post, I talked about the Top 5 Myths that people have with learning music. Like most myths, some are True, some are False and some could be thought of as True, BUT… where this is some validity to the myth. 

…but are there only five myths? Of course not! The good folks here at Pra...

In our previous blog (Part 1: Why You Won’t Practice), you learned why your “old self” wasn't able to practice in a deliberate, consistent way due to the negative associations you created in the past about practicing.  You also learned about the forces of  'avoiding pain' and/or 'gaining pleasure' t...

Isn’t it funny how impatient we are? We always want to be able to do something…NOW!  This seems especially true even before we undertake any kind of learning process.  For instance, if you throw a basketball towards a hoop and you miss it wildly, what’s the first thing you think?  Most people think ...

When I was in college, I had the great fortune of working with an amazing composer and jazz ensemble director named Stan Gosek.  Stan has nurtured multiple generations of musicians, as well as compose hundreds of songs from simple pop tunes to the most complex big band charts ever written (think Mah...

Dear readers: you will be happy to know that I will not be burying the lead in this article.  I’m going to get straight to the point without any cute or snappy or snarky little comments to warm you up to make my big point.  You want the 3 P’s To Music Mastery?  Here goes:

Practicing, Perseverance, ...

When you are struggling with doing anything physical, whether it’s riding a bike, shooting a basketball through a hoop or trying to do something challenging on your musical instrument, there’s always this great source of pride and joy when you finally get over that hurdle and achieve that goal.  

A...