Work Ethic In Practice

Like a broken record repeating the same phrase over and over again, when given the opportunity, I will continue to emphasize the importance of practice… practice… practice… practice, because it’s imperative for improvement and mastery of one’s instrument(s). There’s no substitute if you want to give a great performance. That’s especially true when performing with others. There’s a work ethic in practice. Yes, of course, practice is hard work. It’s mostly work. Not always fun. Not “play.” Work. Perhaps most important in teaching music, and when you’re drilling the concept of practice into a young student, you’re giving them what will be the foundation for a strong work ethic. An ingrained and strong work ethic almost always guarantees success — in anything.

As a private music teacher who also performs, either as a solo artist or in a group, I often encounter one particular annoying issue with too many students, as well as with some of my fellow musicians; and that is, the obvious lack of a meaningful work ethic in practice, or otherwise.

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From the teacher side of the issue, it is frustrating to no end when a student shows up and admits they haven’t practiced — sometimes with chagrin, other times, with absolutely no remorse — for I know that not only can I not perform to my best if a student has not practiced what I’ve taught them, but their previous lesson was, for all intents and purposes, wasted. Sometimes, the inability to practice is unavoidable when life gets in the way. Sometimes is one thing. All the time is quite another. I know that parents, or even older students, will look to me as if it is my fault they or their child has not improved, even though I am not in charge of their practice. I’m a good teacher, but I’m not that good — I simply cannot work miracles.

As annoying, frustrating, and even heartbreaking it can be for me when a student’s fullest musical potential cannot be attained due to their own sabotage, whether it be over-scheduling or flat out laziness, students not practicing as much as I’d like them to comes with the territory. All I can do is continue to impress upon them the importance of practice, highly praise them when they do practice; and when they don’t, do my level best to limit my “importance of practice” lectures to only five or ten torturous minutes. I always hope my lectures will be remembered fondly as my student achieves their dreams, whatever those may be, and not with regret that they failed to heed my encouragement to work hard developing their practice habit.

From the performer side of the practice issue, there is nothing more embarrassing than giving a marginal performance because I didn’t prepare well enough. I’m not perfect by any means, and sometimes, yes, I’ve thought I was prepared enough for a gig, but sadly found I was not during my performance. The absolute worst time to find out you’re not ready is in the middle of a gig. Performance jitters, which can cause me to make mistakes, are mostly overcome by adequate practice. In those rare instances I blew it, the only person I can blame is myself, and apologize profusely to my patrons — and continue to improve my own work ethic in practice.

When performing with others, however, it’s an entirely different story. What annoys me to no end is when I encounter a “musician” who thinks they’re too good to practice or rehearse for an upcoming performance. So-called musicians who think they’re too amazing for words, that running through a song a couple times is enough, especially for a paying gig, infuriate me. It actually doesn’t matter to me if the gig is paying or not, because a bad performance is ultimately reflective upon all of the performers. Not only that, but non–paying gigs often lead to paying gigs, making preparation extremely important for future success. And it doesn’t matter a wit if I practice to perfection if one or more of my band mates take a laissez-faire attitude toward the upcoming performance. Worse yet are musicians who tell me to email them charts and they’ll just meet me a few minutes before the gig to go over any tricky “stuff.” I’ve played with some amazing musicians in my life, and have stumbled into outrageously awesome unrehearsed jam sessions; but overall? No practice/rehearsal can be a recipe for disaster at worst, a mediocre performance at best.

Over the years, I’ve played with several amateur musicians, who, in their middle–age years, bemoaned how they never made it big and hated having to play little rinky dink local gigs. Those are the very people who 1) hated rehearsing and therefore usually wouldn’t, 2) if they actually showed up for a rehearsal, they didn’t want to work out details on specific songs;  3) bitched about how they weren’t getting paid enough (or anything) to spend time their valuable time rehearsing; and my “favorite” 4) thought they played far better after a couple of beers or cocktails. Did their attitude and lack of a work ethic in practice prevent them from “making it,” or did not “making it” ruin their overall work ethic? Because that’s what it comes down to, right? Work ethics. Practice is work. Rehearsal, while it can be lots of fun, is also work. Playing should be fun, thus “playing.” Not being properly rehearsed, however, can turn playing into a drag that seems to go on forever.

I’m not saying there aren’t musicians who have the chops to sit in on a performance and kill it without rehearsing at all, because there are. I know some. I’ve played with them. It was awesome and impressive. No, I’m referring to the people who believe rehearsal and practice are beneath them, or not worthy of their valuable time; when in fact, they are very people who need to practice — a lot.

From my perspective as a music teacher, here are possible messages that are sent to me when a student doesn’t practice for their lesson — unless it’s a really good reason:

• I don’t respect my teacher, or I don’t think she knows what she’s talking about, so I don’t need to practice.
• I don’t respect the process of learning to play music.
• I don’t respect my parents who want me to be a well–rounded person; or,
• they (older students) or their parents (younger students) are okay with throwing money at me to hangout with, or babysit their child for thirty minutes; last, but not least,
• I’m lazy, and I only want to do what comes easily to me.

Again, it comes with the territory in teaching, but can hopefully be overcome over time.

As a performer, however, when a fellow musician balks at rehearsing or hasn’t even bothered to practice the songs to be played before the rehearsal, they’re showing me, whoever else is playing, and their future audience their arrogance, and quite frankly, their contempt. They’re disrespecting the people or establishment who hired them, disrespecting the musicians with whom they’re playing, and disrespecting the music and even themselves. Playing with such people stresses me out and puts undue pressure on the event in general, which almost never goes without a hitch.

In the end, great musicians, unless they’re extremely gifted, practice a lot. Even “okay” musicians practice, especially when they’re going to play with other musicians. When you see a really tight band in concert, you can pretty much guarantee they put significant rehearsal time in, in addition to the “practice” they gain from actually playing through their concert schedule. The later you see them in the schedule, the tighter they’ll be. The tightness of a band does not happen by just showing up the night of the performance with charts you got via email, nor does the mastery of an instrument.

And so, like a broken record, let me repeat for perhaps the millionth time, and certainly not the last: practice… practice… practice… practice… practice… practice is work. Hard work breeds success.