How do YOU have fun wile learning?

[Luke]

@toogdog I’m so glad you are listening to and enjoying the book! Yes, you have summed up the book well:

@toogdog

If you’re afraid to play bad, you’ll never play good!

And ridding ourselves of the fear of playing bad is difficult if we are kidding ourselves that we don’t actually have the fear. Sometimes fear is subconscious. For me personally, those guided meditations were helpful at one part in my journey.

@dominico what a freaking fantastic post my harmonica brother. Thank you so much for sharing what you are working on. Very cool stuff!

I found this to be an exceptionally practical tip for all of us when it comes to practicing:

@dominico

I do the hard stuff first, because when concentration fatigue sets in you’re less likely to get productive results by putting hard stuff later in a practice session.

I also love that you do things in short bursts.

My metronome app on my phone has a built in timer, which I generally have set for 5m.

Every time the metronome stop, it’s like someone checking in with me: What are you doing man? You wanna go another 5 on that? Wanna shift gears?

This is really helpful for me. Otherwise sometimes I go down rabbit holes and lose track of time (of course, rabbit trails ain’t always bad! Sometimes you get to explore some cool Wonderlands going down rabbit holes. )

I love that you conclude your practice sessions with jamming along with a jam track. So smart. I don’t know why I have such a hard time including that - I need to do more of it. And I always have a blast when I do it!!

@wproct - I highly recommend trying playing WHILE you are walking! One of the BEST ways to practice for so many reasons:

I Tried Walking & Practicing Harmonica for 14 Days

[Practice While Walking] I’m a huge advocate for developing a great sense of time. NOTHING can take your harmonica playing to the next level like working on RHYTHM, and specifically working on increasing: Your ability to play more “in the pocket,” Your ability to phrase things in creative and compelling ways I’ve always thought (and taught) there are 3 ways to develop these skills: Jamming with people who have a great sense of time Playing along wi…

@fallonsteve291 Yes, yes, yes! You have hit the nail on the head here:

@fallonsteve291

Play, play, play. Have fun and really dig into the major pentatonic scale and blues scale, i mean know them like you know ya wife!

I subscribe to Shane Sager’s sub stack. (Shane has been on tour with Sting for the last 5 years.) One of his recent articles had a quotes:

“It’s rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what might be a basic skill set.”

That inspired me to really work on my minor pentatonic and blues scales. For me right now, specifically in 2nd position on my Parrott-tuned harmonicas (I bought 7 from Joe Spiers tuned this way.) I noticed that for me playing -5 6 -7 is really foreign because I never really did that very often before getting the Parrott-tuned harps. I’m looking forward to seeing if getting to a new level of mastery with these scales opens up more expressiveness at my gig this Friday.

@RussSkyman so cool you’re reading Effortless Mastery! Good stuff man! I’m not 100% with all the Eastern mysticism, but I’m definitely 100% with all the relaxation and letting go!!!

@Hogie.Harmonica sounds like you’re on the cusp of a breakthrough. Between breaking them down to the smallest first component, and then making it SUPER-acheivable (how about 3m/day?)

Interesting your comment on “skills that have no glamour.” Glamour, of course is in the eye of the beholder. The harmonica community does seem to be infatuated with overblows, lol, and with playing lots of fast notes. But often times chords, and draw bends produce something much more pleasing for most people to hear than do fast notes and overblows, lol.

But I think ALL technique, in the LONG run has glamour - in the sense that it WILL INCREASE YOUR EXPRESSIVENESS on the instrument. It will make your playing more glorious.

I applaud you for what you are doing, my friend. Very cool pivot. The timing is kind of ironic, but that’s what it means to be an ARTIST: you HAVE to follow your INSPRATION. Period. Keep up the good work.