Something I learned to do as a musician was the idea of “deliberate practice.”

What this meant for me—like when I was learning a concert snare drum solo—was to take individual measures or a small group of measures, and turn them into exercises.

Examples:

• A difficult passage that had a hard dynamic transition or sudden change
• A complicated rhythm I needed to drill before I could play it

I would take these passages, slow them down, get them perfect, and work my way up to “normal” playing speed. Then I would add back in the music that surrounded these difficult sections.

This is how I was able to learn difficult music.

There’s a lesson to be learned here for every aspect of life.

Doing the things you can already do easily won’t make you any better at anything.

You’d got to practice the hard parts until you can get them right.

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