Don't Accept Speed Limits On Learning

Derek Sivers is the indie musician who started CD Baby to release his own music and later sold it for $22m. He has a lot of interesting things to say about building a career in music.

In There is no speed limit he tells the story of how he got to know an inspiring teacher Kimo Williams who taught him whole semesters worth of college courses in a few lessons. Here's a few quotes

Kimo: My doorbell rang at 8:59 one morning and I had no idea why. I run across kids all the time who say they want to be a great musician. I tell them I can help, and tell them to show up at my studio at 9am if they're serious. Almost nobody ever does. It's how I weed out the really serious ones from the kids who are just talk...

Kimo's high expectations set a new pace for me.  He taught me “the standard pace is for chumps” - that the system is designed so anyone can keep up.  If you're more driven than “just anyone” - you can do so much more than anyone expects.  And this applies to ALL of life - not just school.

 (Derek passed 6 exams on arriving and ended up conpleting the whole course in just 2 1/2 years)

He touched on this story when gaving a speech called 6 things I wish I knew the day I started Berklee. More quotes

The teachers are taking their favorite music and using it to teach you techniques. Learn and appreciate those techniques.  They're great. But if you only learn the techniques they teach you, you're only learning their favorite music. Never think their heroes are better than yours. The same way they will break apart a Shania Twain hit song or a classic Charlie Parker solo to teach you the craft inside, you must learn how to break apart your favorite music and analyze it. Learn from your heroes, not only theirs.

While at Berklee, I felt I had to learn Donna Lee, the old bebop jazz standard, to be a good musician. Got a great gig going to Japan for a month with Victor Bailey...He's one of the best bassists ever, who's played with Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul, Sonny Rollins, Sting, and more. He heard me playing Donna Lee...and said, “Man - jazz was all about inventing something new. For a musician 50 years later to be stuck in the 1950s would be like a 1950s musician being stuck in the 1900s. There's nothing cool about that.”
A couple weeks later I was at the piano quietly working on one of my own songs, and for the first time he said, “Hey - wow - what is that? That's great, man. Can you show me?”

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Too much monkey business

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Everybody Knows The Pentatonic Scale

Now this is truly incredible. Firstly because everybody seems to know the rest of the notes without being told. How do they do that? And, secondly, it's amazing to see Bobby McFerrin, a man who obviously eats, sleeps and breathes music, doing what comes naturally. You'd never guess what he's capable of by listening to "a little song he wrote..."

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale

Zach Nielsen saw it first


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Too Much Monkey Business

It’s not everyday a bunch of monkeys gives support to one of you ‘pet’ teaching theories but here it is.

Anytime you’re trying to learn something new musically you’re only truly practicing when you’re doing it correctly. If you’re getting it wrong 50, 40 or 30% of the time you are NOT practicing. (Other than practicing how to do it wrong, and chances are you already excel at that).

Prof Earl Miller from MIT, who has already spent more time than is healthy teaching monkeys how to use computers, found that monkey's neurons became more efficient when they made the right decisions but showed no change when they got it wrong. In short (neurologically speaking) you don’t learn by your mistakes.

So what should you do next time you pick up your guitar, or piano (my, you are strong!) and try to get the nice scientist to give you a banana?

Slow the music down till you can play it easily. Playing everything at top speed is one of the biggest errors that people make.

Play a smaller section. Most musicians practice as much music as they can manage till they make a mistake and then they start again.

Bad monkey!

What is happening? Simple.

Every single time you play you are making a mistake.

So what are you really practicing? Making mistakes.

No bananas for you Bonzo!

Isolate the one element that is causing the musical train wreck and just practice that.

It might be a physical thing - you just can’t get your fingers in the right place. So forget about the song, the groove, the tempo. Just get the chord.

It could be a mental thing. The reason you keep messing up is you don’t really know what you’re supposed to be playing in the 14^th bar. Learn it.

It could be stamina. Forget the song. Put on Season 2 of My Name Is Earl and play that riff till your arms go numb.

But remember you’re only practicing if you’re getting it right all the time. Listen to the monkeys.

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