"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. 

With the end in mind, you don't need resolutions

I'm on record as saying that I don't do New Year's resolutions. They're largely a waste of time and they set you up for failure. And that failure results in less motivation and less productivity.

One alternative is to focus on results. Ask yourself what you want the end result to look like, then work backwards. What will have to happen to get that result?

The other day I was shooting baskets, and I wasn't having much success. Mostly, I was just chucking the sphere at the hoop. The more I missed, the more I just thought, "Well, try it again!" You know what they say about insanity, right?*

Finally, after missing many shots in a row, I thought, "What am I not doing right?" I had been focusing on my feet, my arm/hand position, release, follow through, etc., but I had forgotten what needed to happen at the hoop - for the ball to go through! That simple thought reminded me of a key concept, that of "dropping" the ball on top of the hoop.

Instantly, my release angle changed, my elevation (such as it is) improved, and my posture straightened up. Miraculously, the ball started to go through the hoop. It sounds simple, but just by knowing what needed to happen at the end of the process, my brain automatically changed the beginning.

Like my shooting baskets without thinking about the end result, many resolutions are basically nice gestures, but ultimately useless. When I hear people say they need to, "exercise more," or, "eat less junk," or, "start saving money," I usually cringe. Unless you connect those good intentions to an end result, they're almost worse than not making resolutions at all.

Join me in a little mental exercise, will you? Just take a minute to think about the next few scenarios.

Let's say you played fifty paying gigs last year - and that's cool - but you want to double that number this year. What would you have to do to play one hundred paying gigs this year? What would you do first, then next? Whose help would you need? What would need to change about how you run your business?

What if you really did need to lose twenty-five pounds this year? What would you need to do to get it done? Is there anything you need to stop doing or eating? Need to get a gym membership, or a new alarm clock? Maybe you need to finally read that health book or take your friend up on his offer to be your jogging partner.

Or maybe there's an audition you want to prepare for and take. Where do you need to start? What instruments do you need to get? Do you need to study with someone?


Whether it be a technique goal or an earning goal, number of gigs played or something else, this same process can apply. What will the end result be? What do you need to do first (right now!), and what is next? If you keep your eye on the final goal, the process will usually make itself clear.

Happy drumming!

*It's a colloquialism by now, but, "Insanity is doing the same thing you did before and expecting a different result."

Servants get all the good stuff

"You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." - Zig Ziglar, Secrets of Closing the Sale (1984)

December is a great time to be a freelance musician. One of my annual Christmas gigs is to play in the percussion section of Dr. Craig Jessop's American Festival Chorus and Orchestra. It's a world-class ensemble, and always features a prominent soloist.

Dr. Craig Jessop

This year was no exception. The performances were electric, and the guest artist, Alyson Cambridge, delivered passionate, moving interpretations. It was a joy to be a part of the process of preparation and presentation of such a gift.

During one of the performances in a section where I had rests (welcome to orchestral percussion), I was watching the singers, the instrumentalists, the conductor, the soloist and the audience, and I had an epiphany.

I don't think about it often, but a section percussionist's role - almost without exception - is to be servant to the music. Candidly, what musician doesn't have this responsibility? Percussionists, possibly more than other musicians, have to find ways to fit fewer notes into the texture and framework of the performance, and make them count.

Watching the performance that night, suddenly all I saw were servants.

Each musician was giving, contributing his or her sound and heart. Dr. Jessop, with his back to the audience, while conducting energetically with both arms, was sweating and breathing heavily, smiling the smile of the joyous laborer. He was serving the music, the performers and the audience at once.

Alyson Cambridge

Alyson Cambridge, the soloist, was engaging the audience in every imaginable way, expending her considerable talents to the fullest. The audience, for their part, received the gift with absolute grace and rewarded the performers at every possible opportunity. The ovation at the conclusion of the program lasted for several minutes.

All gave. All received. That's how it's supposed to work.

I'll be honest. It's not totally altruistic. Nobody plays music exclusively to give. Music has huge rewards, and one of them was the rush of being a part of that much energy focused in one room at one time. There are other rewards, but I think this is the one that keeps me coming back for every gig.

Financial guru Dave Ramsey has a saying, "Live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else." In a nutshell, he's talking about being financially conservative now so you'll have money later.

If I may, I'd like to alter that saying a little bit as follows: "Play like no one else, so later you can play like no one else."

American Festival Chorus and Orchestra

The best, most successful musicians in the industry are the ones who give their whole hearts to each gig, be it a casual for a few people who don't even care, or a huge venue in front of attentive, die hard fans. When these musicians play, their colleagues, clients and audiences appreciate them and learn that they can depend on them to deliver meaningful music each and every time.

Develop a reputation as a good servant, and you'll soon be master of your own career.

Happy drumming!

Gear Up: What's in your tool bag?

"If you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail." - Traditional Proverb*

Any musician knows that you can never have enough stuff. Whether it's reeds, mouthpieces, picks or strings, you need tools at your disposal. For percussionists, this means sticks and mallets - and a lot of them - and a variety of other small instruments and tools.

One of my students recently asked me which was my most expensive single bag or case. I pointed to three: a cymbal bag (lots of metal means lots of dough!), DW kick drum, and my mallet bag. The last one surprised him.

"Isn't that just all your sticks and stuff?" Yes. It is. And it's maybe my most valuable bag - if not monetarily, then certainly practically.

Think of yourself like a construction worker.** Even if you only have one specific job, like framing, you are going to need a wide range of tools. Hammers, a variety of saws, measuring tapes, levels, squares, nail guns and air compressor (if you're using pneumatics), and more - not to mention special tools for problem solving, like a jigsaw or power drill, and all of the accessories. And if a tool fails, you'd better have a backup. Can't be running to the hardware store while your partner holds up a wall!

For every tool you don't have, you either can't do the specific task, or you'll do it with the wrong tool. And if you do it with the wrong tool, you're not likely to do it well - if you can do it at all - and it will be a lot harder than it needs to be.

Drummers and percussionists are actually a lot like the construction worker in our example. We need to have tools in our bag that will allow us to play a wide variety of styles and instruments at a moment's notice on any gig.

You can find literally thousands of lists of tools you should have in your gig bag, and many of them are extensive. Specific brands and models are the subject of another blog post (or several), but here's a bare minimum list of a few things I think are critical on any and every gig for a percussionist.

Light, medium and heavy drum set sticks.

At a minimum, you should have three pairs of kit sticks in good repair. Not only will you face different styles - like jazz and hard rock - you'll face different volume needs, environments, and preferences of band leaders, just to name a few. If nothing else, you can answer a confident yes, when the inevitable question is asked: "Hey, do you have something lighter/heavier you can use?" Besides, it's easier to actually play louder or softer if you have heavier or lighter sticks.

Brushes and rods.
Aside from their obvious tonal and stylistic uses, brushes and rods provide great options to get to lower volumes without having to use 0.05" high strokes. In super low volume situations, you'll need rods or brushes just to get below the tolerance of, say, the mother of the bride. You might end up even using your hands!

Timpani mallets.
More than one pair is preferable, but you'll need something in the medium range. You might end up playing timpani (but if you're the timpanist on the gig, you need a very different bag of tools - again, for another blog post), but more likely you'll play cymbal rolls and your drum kit with them. Because of that, buy something cheap that you won't mind getting beat up, lost or broken by the bass player. I use these. They're passable for rolls, and they sound great on my toms.

Keyboard mallets.
Again, at bare minimum, you need a pair of something either cord or yarn wrapped that could be used on vibraphone, marimba or xylophone in a pinch. A set of four would be even better. You'll also need a pair of phenolic or acrylic mallets that can be used on bells (glockenspiel) or xylophone. They can also be used on wood blocks and other small percussion if needed.

Shakers.
Egg shaker? Yes. That, too. I'd also recommend at least one plastic barrel shaker for medium to soft volumes, and a metal barrel for louder settings. As a side note, try practicing basic rock beats with your hi-hat hand playing eighth or sixteenth notes with a shaker instead of your normal hat pattern with a stick.

Pencils, pen, sharpie marker and highlighter.
No, I'm not kidding, and keep the pencils sharpened. In fact, get one of these and throw it in your bag, too. Most musicians have at least learned to carry a pencil, but the other tools are useful if you need to mark up your music, quickly write out a chart or sign for your check. And at some point, you're going to sign an autograph. Pull out the sharpie and make the kid happy, okay? You're the drummer!



Ear plugs.
As a very young man, I got asked by the coolest band in town to sit in on a "jam." It happened to take place at a new local studio, and we played Voodoo Chile at volume eleven for forty-five minutes. It was my first real hearing damage. I would have killed for a pair of ninety-nine cent foam ear plugs.


Miscellaneous tools.
A drum key (or two), a roll of gaff tape, a note pad (legal size), your business card(!), a metronome, and anything else you've ever needed on a gig and didn't have.

All of my recommendations come from personal experience. I've played hundreds and hundreds of gigs over the last fifteen years or so, and every item on this list has been needed on at least several occasions. Over time, you'll develop your own list of must-haves, and you'll never leave home with out it.

As the ol' Boy Scouts say, be prepared!

*If you're a nerd (like me), there's some interesting and brief background on this proverb here.

**Full disclosure: I actually worked a construction job for my father, who was a general contractor, for many years. We built homes. Lots of homes. It was my dad who taught me the value of not only having great tools and the right tools, but also taking care of them. 

Book Review: The Gigging Musician by Billy Mitchell

I just finished a book. That's not unusual for me. I read a lot of books, usually fantasy/sci-fi, business management and personal finance books. I'm a nerd. For a musician, I don't read a lot of music related books aside from the notes and staff variety, but this one reached out to me. Maybe it knew I needed it.

The book is Billy Mitchell's The Gigging Musician: How to Get, Play and Keep the Gig.* 

So, how did I come by it? Pretty simply. There's a decent thrift store in town, and I cruised through the book section and picked this one up. It had a one dollar price tag on it, so I thought, "Well, I'll just carry this around for a while and then bring it back."

I couldn't bring myself to leave it, so I paid the buck and took it home.

Not only did it have a title that hit close to my heart, but this book was a little ragged around the edges, seemed colloquial - I honestly felt like I was adopting a lost puppy. I brought it home, but didn't think I'd actually read it. But the first time I cracked the cover, I was hooked.

Billy Mitchell, Author

There was a reason for the ragged cover - the book shoots straight. It's full of plain advice and straight talk that the wise musician will take to heart. It is written in a conversational style that provides for easy and quick reading. It seemed to me that the author tried to create the feeling of having a personal conversation between colleagues.

In short, Billy Mitchell gets to the point, and gets there very clearly.


There's much more here than this, but a few of my favorite lines include these:

• "If you keep on doing the same stupid things, you can expect the same stupid results"
• "You are the only one who realizes the full potential of your work."
• "It's blood, sweat and tears - and then you still might not get the gig."
• "When you begin to look at gigs for their dollar value only, you begin to diminish the spiritual value of the craft."
• "The music business is a living thing, a beautiful yet vicious animal that sometimes eats its young."

There's no shortage of one-liners, and there are myriad concepts that you simply cannot miss if you're attempting to make a career in the music business. From figuring out who you are, to showing respect to those who work with you or for you, to arriving prepared to the gig - Mr. Mitchell covers critical aspects of the music business. I've been playing paying gigs for almost twenty years, and there was plenty that I needed to read.

It's a unique thing to read a book that makes you instantaneously feel that the author knows you, knows your situation, and cares. But you do get that sense. The writing style is personal, honest and very straightforward. More importantly, it's plain. I don't mean uneducated or simplistic, but written like you'd write something important to a good friend.

If you're a gigging musician - or aspiring to be one - you need to read this book. It'll take you an afternoon. Two, at most. And it'll be worth every minute, and every cent you spend to buy the book.

Happy reading. And happy gigging!

*Active on the pro LA scene since 1970, Billy Mitchell is as experienced and decorated as any musician in the game today. You can read his full bio here. 

It's all about the music

As a sophomore in high school, I was one of two drummers in our school jazz band. This may sound strange, but at our school the band had as much prestige as any of the athletic teams, and the jazz band was the top of the heap. It was an honor, but also a lot of pressure, to be in that band.

For the first couple of months, I struggled to open up in rehearsals. My playing was stiff and not very musical. I had a hard time reading the charts and couldn't see the, "big picture," of the pieces we were playing.

Each fall our band director brought in a clinician to work with us, an amazingly gifted and inspiring educator, the illustrious Dr. Newell Dayley. During the session with Dr. Dayley, I was more than usually nervous. I buried my head in the chart and tried for all I was worth to play every figure, hit, fill and groove to exact specifications. Our band had a very good reputation, and I wanted badly to live up to it.

Near the end of the rehearsal, Dr. Dayley walked over to me, smiled, and said, "How well do you know this piece of music?"

"Pretty well, I guess," I replied.

He smiled again, then took the chart off my music stand and started to kick off the band. I didn't know what to think - didn't know what to do.

How could I play the music without my part? What would I do without the chart?

Something seriously strange happened when we started to play. My entire approach changed. It was as if I had been playing under a cover, in a cave - as if in total darkness - and now the sun had come out, the clouds had lifted, and the drumming sunshine was bright and clear.

While playing without the sheet music to glue my eyes to, I was able to make eye contact with my rhythm section mates, as well as to look around at the other sections - to pay attention to what and how they were playing in a new way - and to take cues from the director.

Now, I'm sure it wasn't my best playing that day, but to my fifteen-year-old mind it was a totally new experience. I was no longer playing notes, figures and rhythms.

I was playing music.

When we finished the tune, one of the trumpet players looked at me and said, "I don't know what that was, or where you found it, but you'd better find it again!"



It was awesome. I loved it. It changed my perspective on playing music forever.

Scott Hagen, Director of Bands at the University of Utah, is fond of saying that the music is what happens between the lines, notes, rhythms and rests. So, next time you sit down to play a piece of music, be sure not to stop where the ink ends.

Happy drumming.