Auditioning Process

Practicing Without Feedback is Like Bowling Through a Curtain

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(The Attributes of Deliberate Practice: Continuous Feedback Loops) You Won’t Get Any Better, and You’ll Stop Caring In 1996, Ethan and Joel Coen went bowling. Or, more specifically, their film Fargo had just been released, and after its opening night showing they hosted the after-party at the Bryant Lake Bowl in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was there that they cooked up the idea for their next movie — one which would ultimately rank among the most iconic cult classic movies of all time: The Big Lebowski. Lebowski turned 20 a few weeks ago, and …

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Practice Between Comfort and Panic

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(The Attributes of Deliberate Practice: Design and Intention) How many times have you ambled into your practice room, setup your instrument, gotten yourself situated, and then thought, “Okay…now what?” Yep — same here. That used to happen to me far too often. And here’s the bad news: whatever might happen after that, it’s not deliberate practice. That’s because one of the defining attributes of deliberate practice is that it’s designed. It’s planned out in advance, thoughtfully and intentionally, with a sense of both where you’re going and how you get there. It is …

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The Deliberate Practice Book Club

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An Avalanche of Understanding Back in 2008, I read a book that changed my life. It’s called Talent is Overrated, written by Geoff Colvin, and it’s partially based on Anders Ericsson’s research. In my previous post, I described this event as “my third inflection point,” in which I began working with John Tafoya, he recommended the book, and I subsequently embraced its practice methodologies under his guidance. That process was tremendously influential. It radically accelerated my improvement, and pointed my trajectory much higher. I want to dive more deeply into that experience, …

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I Don’t Care How Good You Are — I Care About the Trajectory You’re Willing to Set

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I was not born talented at the timpani To wit, there’s Mrs. Gustafson’s entirely accurate assessment. I was definitely weak due to lack of consistent practice. I was not a committed music student. This is partly because my entire career as a timpanist traces back to random occurrences. The first was in 1988: “Beverly Hills Cop” was in theaters, and for some reason my 4th grade music teacher created a version of its famous theme, “Axel F,” to play on his (then-brand new) Ensoniq synthesizer. I heard that tune and thought it …

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A Process for Everyone: Teachers, Freelancers, and Big-Job Auditioners

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Audience calibration can be difficult. Being an opera timpanist is, to put it mildly, a very specific niche. But one of my aims with this blog overall is to use my specific experience to extract and extrapolate principles that are universally applicable. So, reader, who are you? If you clicked your way here, you might be a percussionist at a conservatory, or an auditioning instrumentalist, or a dedicated music enthusiast. (Feel free to comment below!) Maybe you saw a facebook post, are on the mailing list, and/or have already read some of …

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