Five minutes a day?

A few years ago I was privileged to be teaching at a studio with a guitarist friend of mine. He is truly one of the most creative, unique and thoughtful practitioners of the six-string art I've ever encountered.

One day we were trading stories and shop talk, and we struck up a deal to take lessons from each other. I'd teach him percussion, and he'd teach me guitar. Knowing my own schedule and priorities, I decided to test the "how much time to commit" waters. The following conversation took place.

"How much would I have to practice every day to make progress?"

"Five minutes."

"Really?"

"Yep. If you focus on just one thing, and really work for those five minutes, you can make a little bit of progress if you do it every day."

Over the years of teaching, practicing, rehearsing and just generally trying to improve myself as a musician and a person, I've found the wisdom of this philosophy. Often we try to do it all at once. We want to work on stick control, four-mallet chops, independence, speed, creativity and twelve new styles all at once. That can result in lack of focus and ineffective practice sessions - and little to no results.

Now, I'm not saying you should always limit yourself to only one thing. You should definitely have a well developed and comprehensive plan to become the musician/person you want to become. What I'm saying is that what it takes to make forward progress usually comes down to focus and consistency.

So, here are today's two cliche rules for becoming a better musician.

First, whatever your top priority is, you must work on it every day. Every day. Especially if you can really only give it five minutes.

Second, whether you practice five minutes or five hours at a time, you must focus. Particularly if your time frame is short, you have to make every rep count.

Happy forward progressing!

Friday Feature: Dave Grohl of Nirvana / Foo Fighters

I have a man-crush on Dave Grohl. I can admit that.

When the sounds of Nirvana caught my ears (ok...they caught EVERYBODY'S) in the early nineties, I had no idea who their drummer was. Truth be told, I really didn't have a read on Dave Grohl until the advent of the Foo Fighters* in the mid 1990s.

From then 'til now, I've gained an appreciation for Grohl's drumming style, his songwriting, guitar playing and producing skills. He has been involved in countless successful and creative projects, and seems to have limitless energy and drive to create. Every time I hear word of a new project, I'm immediately interested and look forward to the release. And, like many of his fans, I've rarely been disappointed.

As with earlier features, I have no intention of providing even an attempt at a total picture of Dave Grohl. If you already know him, you know more than I'll provide here, and if you don't know him (what's wrong with you?!), let this simply serve as a point of entry in your inevitable Dave Grohl fandom.

For a more complete history, go here.

Enjoy the Foo!

*True story - my personal DW Collector's Series drum kit was played by Taylor Hawkins in 2002 when the Foo Fighters performed in Salt Lake City for the Winter Games. The backline company who supplied drum kits for the Olys sold them locally after the games were over. I was in college at the time and put together every penny I had - and then some - to buy one. I still have and play the kit regularly.

Friday Feature: Carter Beauford

It's time for this post. It's been time for a long time.

Carter Beauford of the Dave Matthews Band is one of the reasons I play drums.

(Start here, then go listen to some tunes. It may be helpful to start with the band's first major release, 1994's "Under the Table and Dreaming." )

I started playing drums in the sixth grade in the middle school band. By the seventh grade, I had a drum set in the basement and was jamming with a friend (a once-in-a-lifetime guitar talent, it turns out). By the ninth grade, everything I heard on the radio just made me mad. I'd constantly think to myself - or complain aloud to anyone who would listen - "I can do anything any of these guys do! Why am I not famous and making loads of cash as a drummer?" (Reason number one is probably that I was fifteen years old, but I wasn't really thinking of that.) Anyway, long story short is that I wasn't hearing anything that I thought was creative or sophisticated, and I was pretty frustrated with what I thought was the height of modern pop-rock drumming.

The summer after my junior year I had to borrow a car from my boss (cool boss, no?) to run an errand. Her car was a late model Acura with a killer sound system, and the disc that was playing was the aforementioned "Under the Table" album. I had heard of DMB but never actually listened to them, so I didn't even know who I was listening to. When I got back I was actually a little disappointed when I found out (skeptical kid!), but it was too late. I was hooked. I had never heard a drummer do things like Carter did/does with the backbeat, fills, set-ups and pulse*. It was like going from black and white to color.

Fast forward about six years and I owned everything then available from DMB and played in a band that had a fiddle player. And since then I've done more studying and listening and loved every minute of it. Carter B is the man, and his playing has only gotten better and more musical.

After you've had a chance to just get immersed in the music, it's worth checking out Carter's instructional video, "Under the Table and Drumming." There's not a ton of nuts and bolts instruction, but a lot of, "This is what I was doing on this part," and a few great conceptual things.

There are a million videos I could choose from to give you a sample of Carter's playing, but I've always believed that's all about the music - the song as a whole - and that the drummer has to contribute to that. So this track is my all-time favorite DMB tune, and one of Carter's grooviest and most musical performances.

One caveat: this video conforms to the radio edit of this track. Do yourself the favor of tracking down the album version and giving it a thorough listen. It's almost double in length to this version. No offense to Dave, but the best music happens after the singing stops. See if you can count the number of instruments being used during this track.

Alright, enough talk (er...type). Let's get to the tune.

As always, happy drumming!


*It doesn't hurt that Carter plays an unusually large and complex drum kit. You can check out his current configuration of gear here. 

Friday Feature: Walk Off The Earth

I know I put this on the Facebook page already, but I just got hipped to these guys this week, and I can't get over the simple innovation of this performance. The tune is called, "Somebody I Used to Know."

You can check out Walk Off The Earth here.

Enjoy!

Beyond the Kit: Why music?

So, I taught high school music classes for five years - band and guitar. It was a blast, for the most part. Loved it.

One of the assignments I gave each year was to have the students write a paper (a short one, but a well-crafted and thoughtful one) that answers the question, "Why music?"

I have to admit, that of all the great experiences I had with amazing students, none were better than reading some of those papers. You can talk down to high school kids all you want, but there are some incredibly intelligent, passionate people that walk those halls every day. (It's a crying shame what they have to go through to get an education, but that's a post for another day.)

Today I'd like to pose the question to you, as well.

So - why music? Why does music exist? What's its purpose? What does it do? Is it important? Why?

I'll give you my personal philosophy - if you care to read it - next week.

Happy thinking!