"Just do it like we did it in rehearsal."

As a young band director, I was always caught off guard by how differently my band played on stage than they did in the practice room. Sometimes the drop-off was extreme, and in my first year it got to be so bad that the kids started to expect the performance to be dismal even if rehearsals were excellent.

At the district festival, I happened to be talking to one of the most successful directors in the state, and I asked him what he told his kids before they went on stage to get them to play so well. His answer is the title of this post, "I tell them, 'Just do it like we did it in rehearsal.'"

The simplicity of the concept stunned me. For some reason, I thought that I had to offer some sort of special advice to get my kids mentally prepared to play a concert in front of an audience. In reality, that preparation had already been done, and what I needed to do was help them to get in the exact same frame of mind they'd been in during those excellent rehearsals. Instead, I had been doing the exact opposite. I'd been putting them in a totally different headspace - essentially yanking the rug out from under their feet.

Don Kelbick, legendary basketball coach, had this to say about shooting free throws in intense, high pressure, win or lose situations:

"The other mental aspect that I feel is very important is understanding that all shots are the same and carry their own "intrinsic value," or their own reward and sense of satisfaction. A free throw in the first minute of the game with no score is the same as a free throw in the last second of the game with your team down 1 point. The effects of the shot may be different, but the basket is still in the same place, and so is the free throw line. The shot should be exactly the same in either case. The objective of taking a throw shot is NOT to win or lose a game. The objective is to MAKE THE SHOT! That is the only object. To inject outside values to a particular shot is a recipe for failure."
Read the full article here.

It took a few more concerts after that festival, but we started to develop a new way of thinking about performance, and steadily saw an increase in the quality of our stage playing. In fact, that group's youngest players eventually became the first group to qualify for the state festival in the forty year history of the school.

Here are two of the principles I've learned and still try to use whenever I perform, either as an ensemble member or the conductor.

Relax.
No performance is ever THE performance. You should always try your best, but it's not the end of the world if things don't go perfectly. Keep your composure, forget about any mistakes as soon as they happen, and focus on what's going on right now. Performing is practicing, so think of each performance as an opportunity to get better at performing. That said...

You'll perform like you practice, so practice like you want to perform.
As much as you can, try to stay in the same mental space that you would if you were on stage or in the studio. When I'm preparing for an important gig, I'll record or video myself at least a few times prior to the performance. Something about knowing that I'm being recorded puts a little bit of healthy pressure on me to do my best. I can always delete the recording if it's awful, and it helps me to get used to playing in front of an audience.

I watched the movie Hoosiers for the first time before I ever set foot in a band room as a beginning musician, but I think this clip exemplifies how we should approach performance.

No matter how big the hall or imposing the audience, whether it's the fall opener or the state festival, a quarter note is still a quarter note, and the key of F still has one flat. And if it worked in our band room, it'll work on the stage. 

Just do it like we did it in rehearsal. 

How do you spell fun?

"Because after a while, even lobster starts to taste like soap." - Dave Ramsey

When I taught high school band, I would start off every year by telling my new students that my whole goal for them was to have fun. That's it, just have fun. I loved the stunned reactions on their faces. They'd giggle and do little celebration dances. (Easy A!) 

Then I'd twist the plot.

"Let me spell 'fun' for you, because some of you may have forgotten how to spell it over the summer break," I'd say, matter-of-factly. Accompanied by giggling and whispering, I would walk to the white board, and with a new, fresh dry-erase marker I would spell in tall capital letters:

W - O - R - K

The laughter would stop. Instead, silence. After a minute or so, inevitably, there'd be some kid in the back who would shout out, "Hey! You spelled it wrong! That says WORK!" 

I'd smile, nod my head and say, "Yes. It does say, 'fun.' Excellent reading." 

As you may surmise, what followed was a very pointed discussion. Let me give you a version of it here.

Several years ago I was teaching a gifted drum student who also happened to be a talented basketball player. Only seven years old at the time, he was remarkable in both arenas. Ultimately the basketball schedule got busy enough that he and his parents had to make a choice between the two, and (of course) basketball won out.*

Not long after, I ran into his mom at the local recreation center. We chatted for a minute, then she asked if I'd play basketball with her son and his friends. She explained that they wanted to play, "a real game," but there were only three of them, and did I possibly have time to fill in for a couple minutes? 

Now, I love basketball. I play as much as I can. I post about it on this blog frequently. I was at the rec center that day to play basketball. But I've never had a less satisfying hoops experience than I did that day. Allow me to set the scene for you. 

Even though I'm slow and out of shape, I'm 6'1" (about 185 cm) and have a decent knowledge of the game. These were nine-year-olds. I was a giant compared to them. It took fully the first ten minutes to stop instinctively blocking every shot. None of them could steal the ball from me or really defend me in any way, and none of them could score on me until I chose to let them. I felt like Dwight Howard. 

For about sixty seconds.

It was NOT fun. At all. That was the day I learned that winning isn't everything in basketball, or in life. Especially when there's no multi-million dollar contract or shoe endorsement deal on the line, winning takes a major back seat to fun. And by fun, of course I mean work.

Many times I go to the rec center and get into pick-up games with people who are younger, faster, stronger and more talented than me. And - I've got to tell you - it's usually a lot of work. I have to run hard, jump high, out-think and keep up with a variety of humans in a variety of basketball settings. Sometimes I win and sometimes I lose. I'm always sore the next day. But it's almost always fun. 

My absolute favorite is when I hustle really hard against a player or team that's better than me and am able to gain some success. I block a shot or keep them from scoring, or maybe I finally make that nifty move, hit a great shot, or my underdog team wins. Those small moments of hard-fought victory are exponentially sweeter than easy wins.

They're fun, but only if you work for them.

My new band students every fall wanted to have fun, and they wanted to work. They just didn't know that the two of those things go together. 

The first group of students that I took all the way through that school were phenomenal. They somehow intuitively knew that it was going to take their best work to achieve something great, and they wanted it. Badly. 

One thing the band at my school had never done (and, at this writing, haven't done since) was to qualify for the State Concert Band Festival. As that first group of students entered their senior year, several of them came to me and said, "We want this. We're going to qualify for state this year. We don't want to play any of the easy stuff anymore. We want music that will get the judges' attention, and we'll work as hard as we have to, to succeed."

I didn't want to get their hopes up, but I didn't want to let them down. In rehearsal, we talked frequently and candidly about what would be expected in terms of quality and execution, and they consistently worked to improve themselves. 

We qualified for state that year. It was sort of a miracle. (Part of the story is in another blog post here.) The band played with a level of maturity and passion that we'd never had before, and they accomplished something great. They put themselves on the map. 

Afterward, I heard many of the students say, "That was fun!" 

I'll never forget what that school year felt like in terms of effort. All of the rehearsals, the sectionals, the coaching sessions, the clinics, the tour - all of it. But for all of the pain and effort, what still gives me chills is the memory of walking on stage with those amazing young people and making great musical history at the State Concert Band Festival. What was the last thing I said to them before we took the stage? 

"Let's go have some fun." There was nothing else to say.

As a musician - and especially as a drummer - it can be easy to get into a comfortable place and never want to come out. Once you can play certain styles or pieces, or you've got solo ideas that work, or whatever it is, you might lose your motivation to keep developing your skills. 

Take any example you want - only ever eating ice cream, never having to do homework, playing video games all day or blasting nine-year-olds at basketball - eventually you need a challenge, variety and something to work towards. If not, even lobster starts to taste like soap. More than that, you'll never do anything great, and never have any real-for-true fun.

What every great musician and athlete knows - what every great person knows - is that hard work for the right cause is fun. 

Push yourself. Work hard. Accomplish something great. Make the most of your own unique talent and creativity. Achieve your potential.

Have fun!

*Sports or music? The answer, of course, is, "AND." But that's a topic for another blog post. 

Practice LESS. (Wait....what?)

Like all music majors, I performed solo recitals at the end of my junior and senior years in college. The experience of prepping for a recital is excruciating, and it feels like every waking minute is devoted to learning, cleaning and rehearsing every aspect of the performance.

Just a few weeks prior to my senior recital, I was seriously struggling with a difficult snare drum solo, and the stress was really getting to me. I was practicing no less than an hour and a half per day on just this one piece (in addition to hours on marimba, vibraphone, timpani, rudimental snare drum and drum set), and I was making very little progress. I was frustrated, and getting very desperate.

At my weekly lesson, I presented the problem to my instructor, Dr. Dennis D. Griffin. He suggested something that sort of blew my mind. It went something like this:

Dr. G: How long are you practicing this piece every day?

K: About ninety minutes, give or take.

Dr. G: And how long do you spend warming up - doing exercises and rudiments and the like?

K: About fifteen minutes.

Dr. G: Ok. Here's what I want you to do. Practice the solo less. Spend at least half of your time on technique exercises, things like the Stick Control book. Make sure you're using exercises that apply to the challenging aspects of the solo.

At this point I sort of freaked out.

K: Practice....less? But, Dr. G, I only have a few weeks until my recital! I just CANNOT give up the practice time on the solo.

Dr. G: Try it for just one week. Give it as much focus and determination as you can, and if it doesn't help you in one week, you can go back to doing it your way.

Needless to say, I felt pretty hopeless. How could I possibly make progress on the hardest solo I'd ever played in my life by practicing less? And a lot less, at that?

But the good Dr. Griffin had never led me astray before, so I took his advice and went to work. Over the next week I took apart the solo, broke it down to its elements, and found exercises (mostly out of the Stick Control book, using the slow-fast method as my approach) that applied to each element.

To cut to the chase, it worked. In that week, by practicing my solo for half of my normal time, I made more progress than I had accumulated up to that point. I made my recital deadline, and played the toughest piece of concert snare drum literature of my life - and played it pretty well!

Candidly, it would have been good enough just to make it through my recital, but here's the amazing part: the skills I worked on during that period of time have stayed with me to this day. They have become part of my vocabulary and remained at the tip of my fingers for use not only in formal concert settings, but in my improvising and drum set playing, as well.

There are probably more lessons here than I'm thinking about, but here's the one: Being a great musician is much more about having the skills to construct a variety of musical phrases, sounds and components, rather than knowing a piece or a collection of pieces. You've got to have a repertoire, for sure, but to continue to be expressive and adaptable, you must constantly be building a collection of musical tools.

Musicians often call this their, "toolbox," or, "bag of tricks."

Let's think about it another way.

Did you ever play with Lego's? Imagine if you only had one kind, size or color of Lego block. What could you build? Not much. You would have a limit on what shapes and functions you could construct out of one block.

But what if you had two, or five or a hundred? With every added type, shape, size of block, you exponentially increase what you can build, how it can function, etc.

One more comparison: Basketball. If you only have one move, your defender will easily stop you from scoring, and you'll be an ineffective - not to mention boring - player.

The same is true with your musical skills. If you don't have very many rudiments, sticking patterns, independence skills - even ideas - to draw from, you'll be limited, ineffective, boring, etc. More than that, you'll be frustrated.

Lego's, basketball and music all have this one thing in common - they're more fun when you're better at them. And you're better at them if you have more tools, tricks and skills.

So, long blog post, but short message: Practice less. You'll get more done, and you'll keep it longer.

Happy drumming!

Can you 'flip the switch?'

About two years ago, I decided I wanted to become a better basketball player. Specifically, I wanted to be a much more accurate shooter. Since I'm a stat geek and can't stand to do anything halfway, I created a little diagram of the court, complete with all of the places I'd practice shooting from, and how many of each shot I needed to make.

I try to complete this routine at least twice per week, and more if I have the time. (Just like practicing music, I don't worry so much about how much time I take, but about accomplishing each goal or shot on my list.) I'm sort of OCD about two things: One, I have to complete the entire routine, and, two, I have to make my last shot each day. It's superstitious, I know, but I can't leave on a missed shot.

So, one day in the gym I was down to the last shot. It was an NBA-distance three-point shot (four feet longer than a high school three), and I was struggling. I had attempted the shot probably twenty-five or thirty times, and I seemed to be getting worse with each try. Also, it was getting late, and I needed to get going to make it to work on time.

I had the inevitable conversation in my head. "Maybe today's the day you just don't get it done. It's time to go, and you're too tired to make this shot. At this point, you're just wasting your time."

That day, I almost walked off the court in frustration. But then that other voice (you know the one) started talking back. "Nope. You're not leaving until you get this done. You've made tough shots before, and you can make this one. You made this commitment to yourself, and you're not letting you out of it. Get out there and keep shooting."

I've had similar moments in my life, but at that instant I felt myself flip the switch. No longer tired and frustrated, I was focused, determined and confident. I wasn't looking for an excuse or setting myself up to fail and quit. Failing and quitting were no longer options.

On my very next attempt, I nailed the shot. Straight through the net like I was Deron Williams or Kyle Korver. It felt great, and I immediately grabbed my things and ran for work. Mission accomplished, as it were.

You hear athletes talk about it all the time, but I think musicians do it, too. And we should be doing it. It may be in performance, on the stage at an important moment. But in my view, it's much more critical to do it in practice. To flip the switch over and over and over when we're practicing hard things. When you get frustrated and want to quit, you simply tell yourself, "No. It's not an option. I'm getting this done."


Obviously, there are some limitations. I'm not asking you to play something way beyond your level just because you tell yourself you can. But if you break up your objectives into logical, sequential steps, then you should be able to accomplish today's step even if it pushes you beyond your comfort zone a little bit. And then tomorrow, do it again. Before long, you have developed the ability to look a challenge in the face and say, "I won't quit. I can do this."

Just like anything else, "flipping the switch" requires practice. Try something today that challenges you, just something small, and accomplish it. And tomorrow, do it again. Or, like Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Do something every day that scares you."

Happy switch flipping!

Do it right!

I have used many basketball metaphors and analogies in writing for this blog, and it's time I share some of the reasons why.

For starters, sports and music have a lot of elements in common. They're both about a long term commitment to mastery of a certain set of skills. And that involves always learning, practicing and being willing to adjust.

Another reason - probably the main one - is my high school basketball coach, the late Steve Hodson. Coach Hodson was a stickler for proper technique. He would absolutely blow a gasket if you shot the ball incorrectly, make or miss. But if your form was good - even if you shot an air ball at a critical time - he'd give you a nod and a clap and encourage you to shoot again.

So, why was the coach such a technique stickler? He believed that sacrificing good technique for any reason, even for a critical basket now, would rob you of future scores.* That always using the proper technique would, over time, garner a player more points and, therefore, more wins.

This is one of my fundamental educational philosophies: If you do it right, every time, you'll get consistent results in terms of sound, execution and musicality.

Of course, there is much more to be said about technique, but that's for more future blog posts. For now, just remember to do it right every time if you want to get consistent, long term results.

Happy drumming, and make the most of it!

*Not to mention the fact that poor technique can increase your risk of injury.

"Spirit Houses"

Just a warning. I know I've written some pretty whack stuff before, but this might be the most whacked out yet. So, read with a grain of salt handy. 

Several years ago I attended a workshop by Wally "Gator" Watson. There's much more to it than this, but he talked about how all of our instruments - especially drums - were once living things. Since he's a drummer, he talked especially about drums being made from trees.

Wally believed strongly that all living things have spirits, trees included. And since they were once living, they retain the ability to "house" a spirit. Specifically, yours when you play. Wally talked about playing with your whole heart and soul, putting your spirit into the drums when you play them. He called his drums, "Spirit Houses."


Beyond the instrument, too, Wally talked a lot about putting your soul into your music. As an example, he brought a teenage girl up in front of the group and asked her to do a little singing. He quieted the audience while he spoke to the girl, and she sheepishly began to sing, "Happy Birthday" to the audience.

Honestly, it was pretty embarrassing for all of us. She turned red, giggled her way through it, and looked around awkwardly the entire time. The audience didn't do much better. It couldn't get over fast enough! Wally smiled kindly, quieted the audience again, and whispered something quickly in the girl's ear.

She closed her eyes and began to sing the same song again, but in a completely different way. As the first notes poured out, the entire room changed. The air itself seemed to be made of a heavier substance. The once giggling teenager stood calmly, eyes closed, beautiful voice clear and true. As she got to the third line of the tune (sing along, everybody), she choked slightly as she sang, "Happy birthday, dear Mom, happy birthday to you." It was breathtakingly beautiful, and I was completely stunned.

The young woman finished the song and opened her eyes, and the audience applauded, almost in awe. As she stood there, Wally asked her to repeat what he had asked her to do. The first time, she said, he just asked her to, "Sing 'Happy Birthday.'" The second time? "He told me to sing it to somebody that I love, so I sang to my mom. She died of cancer a few years ago."

I don't exactly know how to put into words just how much that experience changed me, but it did change me. Since then, no matter what I play, be it complex and crazy or simple backbeats, I try to play it with every ounce of my soul. I try to fill my drums with as much of my soul as I can.

Not gonna lie. It takes a great deal of effort to play like that, but it's immensely rewarding. It's that whole, "What can I give to my music, the other musicians and the audience?" mentality, and I've come to love it, depend on it, and expect it of myself.

And if that's not weird enough for you, I've got one more. One night after a particularly amazing and enjoyable gig, I started doing something I've made a habit of - I put my hand on one of my drums and just said, "Thank you." I know it sounds really crazy, but I thank my instruments for allowing me to make music with them. It's humbling, and it reminds me that playing is a privilege, a team effort, and that I should never take it for granted.

Weirder yet? About a week ago, walking out of the gym, I looked up at the basketball hoop and softly said, "Thank you," and hoped nobody heard me. Because without the hoop, you can't, you know, uh.......never mind.

Happy drumming!

The Weight Room: Practicing for consistency

The philosophy behind this one is simple: If you want to do it well in performance, you've got to do it really, really, really well in practice.

Before you start, you need to determine a couple of things. First, choose a small chunk of music - a measure, phrase or fill, etc. Clearly define how/where it starts and ends. Then set up your parameters. What are you practicing for? Rhythms or pitches? Dynamics, articulation or phrasing? All of the above?



In short, you need to know how to determine if you got it "right" after each repetition or attempt. It's an oversimplification, but I use basketball as an example. If it went through the hoop, it's a make. If it didn't, it's not. So you've got to know what the "hoop" is before you start. Once you've decided what that is, don't back down. Hold yourself to that standard each time, with no slacking off. Remember, the harder you push yourself in practice, the easier the performance will be.

Okay, done with the preliminaries. Here are two ways I help myself develop consistency.

Get it right a total number of times.
With this technique, you don't worry about how many attempts you make, or how many mistakes for that matter, but the total number of times you can play it right. Using the free throw example, don't worry if it takes you 283 attempts. As long as the ball goes through the hoop a total of 10 times (or whatever you've determined the magic number to be) you're done!

Get right a number of times consecutively, or "in a row." This one's a little more demanding, because every time you make a mistake, you start back over at zero. Again, with free throws, it doesn't matter how many total makes you have, you have to make 10 (or whatever number) consecutively, with no misses in between.

Honestly, when I'm learning a new concept I usually start out with the total number of times idea, and progress to the consecutive times technique as I get better. Pretty soon, you're developing the sense of what it takes to get it right each time. And, as you do it over a period of several days (or weeks, months, whatever) you will train your brain and body to do the motion(s) correctly by default. You will, in essence, "program" yourself to perform whatever it is correctly, almost without thinking about it.

This is one of the reasons teachers ask you to perform basic exercises (think 8 On A Hand) every day. Not because you need work on your eighth notes, but because you'll reinforce correct grip, path, travel, etc. about a thousand times in the first five minutes of your practice session.

And finally, remember that developing skills and technique that will last is sort of like watching your hair grow. You won't notice the progress day by day, but if you keep at it, after a few weeks, months and years, you've gone from a buzz cut to Rapunzel.

Happy drumming!

Beyond the Kit: Shooting Free Throws

My apologies to my private students, because you're getting another basketball metaphor.

Here's the question: what makes us confident? Not only in music, but in life? While there are doubtless many things at play, I'd like to suggest one that works fantastically in drumming: The Free Throw Principle.


Imagine that you're a basketball player, and you're lousy at free throws. Problem is, you never make them in games, and you never practice them. As a result, every time you get fouled in a game, you instantly get nervous. You'd almost rather just hand the ball over to the other team because you know you ain't makin' no free throw. Your confidence in your free throws at this point is zero.

So let's say you finally decide to tackle the beast one day before a game. You decide you're going to shoot ten free throws. You miss the first nine, but - miraculously - the tenth one is perfect and swishes right through. Suddenly, you're a great free throw shooter, right? Uh......no*. At best, you're ten percent.

That night at the game, how's your confidence? Probably a little better, but not great yet. So you keep shooting. Let's say the next day you work on your form, and you hit five out of ten, and by the next week, you're hitting nine out of ten. The first day you hit nine of ten, you're pretty happy, but soon you want to hit that many every day, and you start thinking about ten of ten.

Take this to its logical conclusion, and let's say you're hitting somewhere between eight and ten of ten every day. Now you get fouled at the game, what's your confidence like? If you know you can hit 80% or better, you'll start to look forward to going to the free throw line. And if you miss one, you know that your chances of hitting the next one just went through the roof.

How can we apply this to music? Simple, whatever you want to do at the game, er, gig, you need to have done in the practice studio. And you probably need to have done it many, many times at different tempi (tempos?).

The point is, when you get to the gig, you shouldn't be trying to pull off crazy fills or take huge risks that you haven't practiced up to a respectable level at home. Back to the basketball analogy - even when you see somebody like Kobe Bryant or LeBron James take what looks like a circus shot in a game, remember that those boys have spent just as much time in a gym practicing every imaginable shot from every imaginable spot as you have practiced any lick, fill or groove on the ol' skins.

So, again. Do it right, do it a lot. As a band teacher friend of mine has on his wall, "The amateur practices until he can get it right. The professional practices until he cannot get it wrong."

Happy shooting, er, drumming!

*Although we do this all the time, as musicians. We work on something until we get it right once, then, "Yay! Let's move on!" What are we thinking?!