Practice...

[Doug@GT]

Came across this today. It's for geetar players but I suppose the principles would apply to anyone.

[quote]How The Pros Practice
By Robert Gravelle

During the mixdown of Ivory Knight's Unconscience CD, I had the opportunity to work with guitar god Jeff Waters, the founder of the legendary Canadian metal band Annihilator. After one evening talking to him about music, it would be no exaggeration to say that I had learned more about the art of recording than I had in all my twenty years of playing music – and that includes four years of University studies! I'll admit that in Ottawa, we are sheltered from the outside world, so we don't get much influence from established industry pros, except through their albums. I had often wondered how top professionals approached their craft, and what made them different from all the hopefuls who can't quite get it together. Well, I finally got my chance to learn and now I'm going to share with you some of the things I learned in the hopes that you can avoid some of the common pitfalls that threaten the careers of aspiring musicians.
There are a number of differences between professional and amateur musicians but if I had to single out one above all others, it would be that the pros play with a much higher level of consistency. When you watch live performances, you'll notice that the players seldom make mistakes and they play all their parts very solidly, no matter how technically difficult the part. I used to think that there was such a thing as "good enough", especially when dealing with difficult passages. Not so in the pro world. In the big leagues:
NO MATTER HOW EASY OR HARD A PART IS TO PLAY, YOU MUST BE ABLE TO PLAY IT PERFECTLY.
It doesn't matter whether it's whole note chords or 32nd note arpeggios. Also keep in mind that any recording project has a fixed budget, which means that you have a set amount of time in which to put down your tracks. If you're struggling with playing your parts, in order to keep the project on budget, a producer will likely bring in a session player. Let me repeat that with more emphasis, in case it didn’t quite sink in the first time:
IF YOU CANNOT RECORD YOUR PARTS WITHIN A REASONABLE AMOUNT OF TIME, THE PRODUCER WILL LIKELY BRING IN A SESSION PLAYER!
In my amateur naiveté, I used to joke to my bandmates that I'd like to see them try to find someone who could lay down my rhythm parts in any reasonable amount of time! After talking to Jeff, I am convinced that they could and would replace me if I were to give them a reason to. That’s when it really hit me that:
AS A PROFESSIONAL MUSICIAN, YOU MUST BE ABLE TO PLAY CONSISTENTLY WELL UNDER PRESSURE
Playing music is a lot more fun than working in an office, but let there be no misunderstanding, with potentially large sums of money at stake, you are expected to do a job and do it well. Now I don’t mean to imply that you have to be some kind of virtuoso. Far from it. To be successful in the studio, a musician simply requires a strong sense for what a song needs and be able to capture those ideas on “tapeâ€

[MikeMason]

i kinda thought it was totally applicable to tuba. very profound stuff.

[Leland]

Copied & saved it. I know some people that need to read this.

[windshieldbug]

I can only add what a great bass trombonist used to say to me: "Practicing shows a lack of self-confidence... "

[Chuck(G)]

A principal-with-a-major-symphony, when I asked about his practice routine, said "I don't practice. After 30 years, you can pretty much play this stuff in your sleep."

[tubeast]

There is a nice German proverb:

Wer übt, kann nichts.
Wer nicht übt, kann morgen auch nichts.

Translation attempt:

Those who practise suck.
Those who don´t, still suck tomorrow.

Another one came to my mind the other day. It only works in English and has some nice twists to it:

In order not to suck on your horn, blow it !!

Have fun