What is the ONE thing you must always practice?
When I started to study music some years ago, every little thing I learned such as mastering my breathing, each note of the instrument, learning music theory, the staff the clefs and all of the other things that I don’t even remember… everything was by levels. Then you move to another level and grades and thats how you kept learning until you graduated from school.
Now you graduated from school and you are a “Professional Musician” at least in papers ( Diploma ), now you have to start working, making it happen because you are a professional and you need to make a living out of it, but because you are a great player you start to get work and you realize that your time is limited and you need to go back and practice, what is that ONE thing that you must always practice?
If you are a horn player the quality of your sound and tuning are the primary things, that is the first impression and first impressions count, believe me. Could it be long notes? Could it be flexibilities? At the end you need your lips fully relaxed and flexible, if you are a woodwind player maybe your primary thing is working on your tuning, articulation, maybe fingering or quality of sound same as horns, but what would be the thing that sets you apart from anybody else?
To me the ONE thing you always need to focus on is BEING ORIGINAL, now you will say... “thats it? all this time reading this post and the cuban guy is telling me this”? Well yes thats it.
Now let me explain a bit:
Being original is not as easy as you might think, since we are born we are wired to always copy from all the people around us, in fact we are just a copy of somebody else only living in a different period of time, and we always repeat this pattern over and over again, in other words, we as human beings have mastered the art of copying things that people better than us have or do, and make it what we think is our own version.
Now to make this practical for musicians, basically every little thing that you learn in your instrument, scales, trills, licks, or whatever, you always try to imitate someone better than you, could be a friend more advance than you, your teacher or someone you admire or simply a recording from a really good version of whatever you are trying to learn. The good news is that you will keep learning technical stuff, the bad news is that you will never discover who you truly are as an artist.
How do you reach YOUR full potential ? Well you need to forget about music theory and let’s get personal for a sec:
- Are you happy with what you do?
- Do you really, really love and enjoy what you do?
- Are you satisfied with how you sound?
- Do you like to work with the people that you always work with?
- Do you play music because you love it, or because of fame or money?
- The point is you have to look inside you, be honest with what you like and what you don’t.
Listen, we live in a really crowded, saturated world, everything is so fast now, when you think you are doing something new or extraordinary there is this guy from somewhere doing it better than you, and if you play this song in this key then someone else plays it better, faster and in all twelve keys. I hope you get the point, now the only thing no one can take away from you is your personality your voice and originality.
Your sound is yours and only yours like your voice, be more honest with yourself about what you really want to play, about what you want people to remember you for, what do you represent? I believe there is something special inside each one of us that set us apart from the rest of the world, fortunately some can find it thats why we want to be like those who have found it.
Keep working to make yourself better, and whatever you do make sure to be honest with yourself. In the end, you are the last person you want to lie to, and to finalize this long post I’ll leave you with this thought if you want to create something special:
Be the best critic of yourself, it is ok being average but being unique, that depends on you and only you, remember there is a reason why you walk on this earth, find it, and never forget you will always inspire people if you are truly unique.