The "hot air balloon" principle

I've said it before, but I'd rather have my students practice for five solid, focused minutes per day than to get in ten hours on only one day per week.

Why? Because your skills are sort of like a hot-air balloon. You're either getting higher, or you're getting lower.

Let's take a closer look, shall we?*

You see, there's this force called gravity. It's constantly pulling on everything, including the hot air balloon. When heated by a burner, the air inside the balloon lifts the balloon, the basket and anything in it up into the air. When the burner is firing, the balloon is lifting.

But just as soon as the burner is turned off, the air inside begins to cool, and the balloon slowly begins to fall. From a distance, it looks like the balloon is keeping steady at a certain altitude, but that's because the balloonist knows just when to turn the burner on and off to keep the craft from getting too high or low.

How does this compare to technique and skill development in music? Well, it's not a perfect comparison, but you're either getting better or you're getting worse. If you practice in a focused, systematic matter - even if it's only one thing and for a short period of time - for the next five days, you will be better than you are today. Conversely, if you don't practice for the next five days, you will not be as good as you are today.

This may not be the message you want to hear, but there is simply no "static" or standstill position for music skills. In fact, some of your daily practice is what is called, "maintenance practice." It's the time you need to invest just to get you back to where you were yesterday.

One other way to think about this is your physical health and fitness level. If you're not exercising, and you start working out every day, you will improve your overall health in a relatively short period of time. But if you aren't exercising, then you're health and fitness are actually deteriorating a little bit every single day. In fact, it takes as little as twelve days for your muscles to start losing strength and mass if they aren't being exercised.

(Well. Aren't I a little ray of sunshine?)

Here's the good news. Just like the hot air balloon, it doesn't take a huge amount of effort to consistently increase your altitude. What it takes is consistency. Practice on most days of the week in a focused, systematic way - with specific goals in mind - and you will make progress.

Happy drumming!

*For all you balloonists out there - look - I know I'm butchering this. It's a metaphor, okay? You can correct me and clarify in the comments below. Thanks much!

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!