Dave's story

I provide the following mini history of my life so that students looking for insight into practicing have a frame of reference from which they can relate to. Not all students are the same, and of course my way of practicing is just that, my way, but I am sure that there are many who could use the techniques I so painstakingly learned on my own and save themselves some time and aggravation in their pursuit of a musical career. The following story will pertain mostly to students of roughly college age with aspirations of being professional musicians. Later on I will get into the technical details of practicing that I think are relevant for all musicians, so feel free to skip this part if you'd like. (I'd also like to mention in advance that for the pianist who has been playing since they were a really young child, or who got into Julliard, or has won competitions, etc., this is not for you. You are who I wanted to be in college and why my insecurities were so bad that I couldn't get my head on straight for so many years. Sorry to disappoint you, there are no miracle techniques here to make you the next Herbie Hancock, just good old practical advice that you probably learned when you were five and have since forgotten.) 

I played piano for about a year when I was 8. I hated it. My mom made me do it and I fought her tooth and nail the entire time. She was pretty tough, so I still had to take lessons for a while no matter how nasty I got about it, but eventually she let me quite. I'm not sure how much I retained from that time period (I'm sure it wasn't much) but without it I'm positive that the rest of this wouldn't be possible. (Thanks Mum) The short story is that early in my sophomore year of high school I started piano lessons again with an old stride pianist by the name of Roland Belisle. Rollie was fortunate enough to have studied with the great Fats Waller for a short time before Fats passed away. He was a consummate musician, having complete mastery of the piano, the violin and classical percussion. Rollie was a lot of fun to be around, had great stories, and was a wealth of knowledge, but I did very little in the way of practicing at that time, so the majority of what he taught me was lost, at least as far as the piano was concerned. I did however learn a lot about what it meant to be a true musician in that Rollie might have been the happiest man I've ever met. He loved music and made sure that it was clear to everyone around him how lucky we all were to have something this beautiful in our lives. There was no arrogance or pettiness in him, so his happiness was quite contagious. When I come across the miserable musician (you know the kind) I can't help but think of Rollie and wonder how he'd regard them. 

After three years of high school piano, during which I practiced very little, I was in no shape to audition at any school, but I was interested in music enough that I made sure whatever college I went to had a music program. Fortunately for me I landed in my back-up school, Temple University, and started my career path in the English department. During this time I took piano lessons on the side, and somehow ended up in an audition at the end of my freshman year. Thankfully, the department had lost most of it's piano players that year because of graduation or just students dropping out, and they were so desperate to fill the position that they let me in. I honestly had no right being there when I look back on my classmates of the time, but somehow there I was. Many years later I was told that I was let in because they thought I had potential, and I guess they were right. I spent the next four years waking up every single morning wondering if I had made a mistake. I never seemed to improve as fast as my classmates, I was terrified of playing at my lessons, my ensembles and during classes, and I was doing great in every class that had nothing to do with music. I had no reason to be a music major other than the fact that I loved listening to music. I'm not one to chalk things up to fate, so I'm just going to admit that I just didn't have the guts to quit doing what I was doing. I eventually graduated; I guess I was good enough to fake my way through. I was now in the real world, and instead of having the confidence inspired by everything I had learned in college, I instead felt even worse. I knew nothing. I could play a basic rock gig, maybe. Jazz was still a total struggle for me, and classical music was beyond anything I could imagine. My fingers were slow, my ear was very average, and I had virtually no repertoire. The only thing I had going for me was that I had landed a gig in a funk cover band with some guys my age. I absolutely loved the music, and I found that I was capable of playing it for the most part. 

As luck would have it, soon after I joined the group they started getting a lot of gigs. They didn't pay great, but enough that I only needed a part time job to survive. It was a ton of fun, and I learned a lot about the music business and the real world doing that gig, but that is a story for another time. So I was making some money, but not a lot. I could keep my apartment, but I couldn't be frivolous, especially during the summer when private teaching and odd jobs dried up. So I found myself one summer with some extra time on my hands but without enough cash to do anything. I was still incredibly insecure about my playing, and rightfully so; I still couldn't play much, especially considering the amount of theoretically knowledge that I had from college. So one day I sat down and started to really practice my scales, and just like always, I hated it. But I knew that I had to keep going; I was far enough along in my music "career" that I there was no turning back. I was scared that at some point someone would figure out how bad I was and call me out on it. This had to be done, or otherwise I would just have to quit. So I fought myself and practiced scales as much as I could handle. The problem was that in order to truly learn them, I had to slow down, but when I slowed down I was bored. When I was bored I couldn't practice enough times to make any headway. This went on for weeks. Then one day I was so sick of it that I turned my piano towards the TV and turned on the first bad movie that I could find. I figured since it was so easy to play slow, that I could just let my hands do the work while my brain did something else. And against all odds (and any advice I've gotten before or since) it worked. I played scales for two hours straight that day, and the next, and for most of the rest of the summer. It was during this time that I started to develop what has since become the foundation of my practicing regiment. Ironically, I can't imagine watching TV while I practice now, and in no way do I endorse that particular element of my story. What I have since learned is that I developed many bad habits in my technique during this time because I was not paying enough attention to my hands, and I eventually had to overcome that obstacle as well. But for all the things that were wrong with what I was doing, one thing became clear: practicing takes an amazing amount of repetition.