Monthly Archives: August 2012

Last week I wrote about musical success, which isn’t necessarily the same as having a career in music. This week, I’d like to offer some thoughts on developing and maintaining a professional performance career. As we all know, there are basically three kinds of careers for acoustic/folk/traditional musicians; some do only one of the following,Continue reading “The Right Stuff: Creating and Maintaining a Professional Career”

I heard an interesting comment recently by a motivational speaker. He said, “Information is not transformation”. I wanted to cheer. It was a very concise way to express a concept I’ve always tried to make sure my students know. We live in the information age, and are often under the delusion that what we knowContinue reading “What is Musical Success?”

This is a continuation of the list of Good Practice Habits:  Good Practice Habit #7 –  Eliminating String Noise: Many musicians ignore string noise, but correcting it can bring a piece of music to new levels of excellence. Not all stringed instruments are conducive to eliminating certain string noises, but most are. There are severalContinue reading “Effective Practice Part 3 – More Good Practice Habits”

This is a continuation of last week’s blog. Good Habit #6: Purposely Overcoming Trouble Spots “Trouble spots” are where something always goes wrong in the same part of the tune. Many musicians ignore trouble spots, thinking they’ll just go away eventually (sort of like avoiding going to the dentist for tooth pain). Usually they justContinue reading “Effective Practice, Part 2”

Good Practice Habit #1: Focus We’ve all heard the term “getting in the zone”, and we all have a different idea of what that means, but we know it refers to being in a state of mind that allows us to accomplish a task at hand. I’ll call it “focus”. Focus is a quiet stateContinue reading “Effective Practice”