1st Post: The most important concept of all.

So, as I was trying to figure out where I wanted to start with all of this blogging business, I realized that instead of any technical mumbo-jumbo I would make my first post about something more important than all that.... a topic that I am more passionate about than any of that stuff......hard work. My students hear me rant about it constantly, music is probably the the most competitive of all disciplines, and in order to be useful to someone, to be legitimately good, be it a studio musician, live performer, producer, engineer, or whatever, it takes LOTS of hard work. Period. There are three different simple, and similar, ideas that have really motivated me (and others) over the years that I want to share here.

1. "Very good things can happen if you actually care about your life moving forward." 

This was something I heard someone say once that I wrote down, made it my desktop, and my screensaver. It was someone who I admired greatly, who was a very successful musician/producer, and had accomplished more before the age of 35 than I probably will in my whole life. Before meeting him I remember thinking "How did he accomplish all of that?", and this was one of the very first things I heard him say. I can't tell you how many hundreds of times, literally, that saying popped in my head and it got my off the couch to go practice drums or work in the studio. Now one of my most fundamental mantras in life is just "Keep moving forward!"

2. 10,000 Hours. Live it.
This has become a popular concept in the last several years. You have probably heard about this. All sorts of studies have been done that show regardless of the discipline, whether talking about creative or non creative fields, it generally takes about 10,000 hours to become an expert at most things. If you do some math that amounts to about 40 hours a week for 5 years, or 20 hours a week for 10 years, or 10 hours a week for 20 years. You get the idea. If you are not careful, and have an unhealthy affinity for video games, Netflix, your couch, or any number of other things, it could easily take your whole life to get to 10,000, if at all. (This is a big pet-peeve of mine......  Person X:"I want to be a producer." ME:"What did you do last weekend?" Person X:"I binge watched three series on Netflix."////  Person Y:"I want to be a studio musician." ME:"What did you do last weekend?" Person Y:"I beat Halo 3 again.") I've actually started advocating that my audio production students shoot for 20,000 hours to account for inflation (joke), and the fact that the field they want to work in is much more competitive than most (not a joke).

3. "It's amazing what can happen when preparation intersects with opportunity!"
This is another quote that I took from someone that I greatly respect and that has accomplished truly great things. He explained it as an idea of there being a line of preparation and a line of opportunity that run parallel to each other throughout our lives. These lines cross occasionally in everybody's life and it is import to do everything we can to prepare (practice, rehearse, etc) for those rare great opportunity's when they arrive. He got this idea from his mentor who also happened to be a successful and influencial person.  See a pattern?

As you can see these all boil down to the same thing. Work Hard! There is a very, very real and inseparable correlation between being excellent at something and the amount of time put into becoming excellent at it. Sometimes I hear "So-and-so is just a natural. yada, yada.." ... for the most part, though, I think people understand it takes hard work to be successful. Of course. However, here is where I think the HUGE break down is, DISCONNECTIA MASSIVIA, NO COMPRENDE......... Most of the population, the average person, those who are just aspiring instead of doing, have a hard time comprehending the actual amount of sacrifice it takes to become truly excellent.  The sacrifice of time first and foremost, but probably also friends, and family, and creature comforts, and all sorts of stuff really. The definition of "hard work" to someone who has put in the hours and is successful is very different than the definition of "hard work" to the average aspiring musician, engineer, or anything else. To illustrate this I recently did some math where I calculated out the amount of hours my typical students would have towards their 10,000 by the time they graduate with a 4-year degree if they only work on the projects that are assigned, and not work on projects of their own. That amounts to about 500-750 hours after 4 years. Some of them would perceive that as really "hard work" and may even think that they are going to be experts by the time they graduate, but as you can see this is still a LONG ways from that "magic" 10,000.  Do you wanna be an expert, and be ready when opportunity crosses your path? Do some math.  Calculate when you want to arrive at your goal, and how many hours a week you need to practice to get there.

This ended up up being way longer than I anticipated. If you are still reading this........WHY??????? Get up and go practice something productive!!!! Keep moving forward! WORK HARD!!!