In this lesson you will learn how to:
- Define a productive bare minimum.
- Make continued, daily progress when you’re busy.
- Design a systematic approach.
- Surpass your old, jive playing limitations.
- Develop the most important habit for getting results.
You should also know that you’ll love the results you get!
Really!
You’ll love ’em!
Your Primary Tool for Making A Successful Comeback
In this lesson you are going to design and customize your trumpet practice from the perspective of practicing every single day.
Sure, days off are fine, but if you want to make strides in your playing, you first need to get into the habit of daily practice. This is done by making a point to hit the horn…
Every.
Single.
Day.
Of course you already know how important practicing consistently is. You probably also know how easy it can be not to practice. And miss more than a day or two in a row and it’s a slippery slope to further procrastination and even throwing the towel in altogether.
But let’s make this your LAST comeback, you dig?
How Deliberately Establish the Habit of Daily Practice
Pick something.
Anything.
And commit to doing it every day for a pre-determined string of days.
That’s it!
You can do that!
The special power of having a “Daily,” particularly at the beginning, is not necessarily the benefits you get from playing the trumpet, but rather that after a few weeks you will not want to, or be able to stop practicing.
At this point, to the cringing of your neighbors, pets and loved ones, practicing the trumpet playing has become a regular part of your day. It means you’ll keep practicing even when there are a million reasons not to, and once that time has been carved out of the day it’s just a matter of continuing to learn and leverage your practice time.
Making time consistently and maintaining an organized practice routine have been an issue for me. The best thing that any player, and more importantly a comeback player can do is to do SOMETHING every day. Consistency is Key!
I also like the concept of the Daily…mostly the idea of keeping it simple and not stressing about what to do, just to do SOMETHING. I don’t have 2 hours to go through my lesson plan in Systematic Approach, Clarke, Irons, etc., so I am banking on my Daily to get me through this “dark time.”
It’s been a busy week, but I have been doing my “dailies” faithfully. I’m beginning to see the sneaky rationale behind this. I have found that since the horn is in my hand anyway, I may as well blow a little more! It’s also very satisfying to see how many days (everyday!) I have actually played the past week. I get the feeling that this is only the beginning, [and] it’s a good way to start. I’m chomping at the bit for more!
Since it’s so important to get in the habit of doing, let’s cover a few pointers that can help counterbalance your inner demons that hate getting shit done.
Keep it Comically Easy
When working to develop new habits, one of the most common mistakes people make is trying to overhaul their entire life overnight, but it’s time to face the facts:
If you haven’t practiced regularly for the past 10, 20 or 30 years, and think you’re about to devote two hours a day to practicing the trumpet.
More power to you!
For the rest of us, a full-blown, zero-to-sixty, massively ideal and comprehensive plan of absolute mastery just might lead to a little frustration – especially at first.
Not only do you want to give your chops plenty of time to ease back into regular playing, you may find that your concentration for practice will need some time to strengthen as well.
The “I Will Definitely Be Able To Do This” Scale
To design a Daily that you will do with consistency, a good rule of thumb is to choose something that you can confidently score a 9/10 on the “I Will DEFINITELY Be Able to Do This” scale.
The Daily is special. And your Daily is, and forever shall be, a bare minimum that is meant to accomplish one thing – get and keep you in the habit of practicing daily toward your goals. All you need to do is something, every day. Aiming for a score of 9/10 on the “I Will DEFINITELY Be Able To Do This” scale makes that pretty damn manageable;
-
- Even when you’re busy.
- Even when you don’t want to.
- Even when you don’t think you’re getting better.
A great place to start for getting your score up to a 9/10 is to think about the days when you’re exceptionally busy. Do you travel for work? Are you raising a family? Does life tend to constantly throw you curve balls?
Take a moment to imagine one of your busiest days, and then ask yourself, “what could I comfortably manage on that kind of day?”
That is enough.
Your Daily concept has been a revelation as I have attempted to maintain some semblance of a routine in the wake of kid #2. I don’t always get as much practice time in as I would like but I don’t view a busy day as a lost cause as I can get my Daily in and feel like I am progressing or at least maintaining.
Use Triggers
In recent years psychologists have proven that many of our daily habits happen not as isolated events, but rather as links in longer “habit-chains.”
Take a moment to consider what your daily life looks like. Are there routines that you run down in basically the same order each day? Do you have a morning order of events? Do you check the same websites in succession each time you open a browser? Drive the same routes to the same places even though there are alternatives? Do you tend to have the same reactions to the same events?
Research suggests that as much as 50% of our waking behavior is habitual! This means that we can consider ourselves largely will-less animatrons walking the same habitual tracks each day.
This realization implies that we can program ourselves into becoming will-less trumpet-playing practice machines!
Realizing these little paths your day travels along puts you in the extraordinary position to open up your life and stick something new in there without as much resistance. When you find something you already do pretty much everyday and turn that event into a reminder to complete your Daily, you’re in good shape.
For example, if you put the coffee on every morning you could use that as a cue to perform your Daily while the coffee brews. Or once the coffee is done, you can sit down and enjoy it while performing your Daily.
Structured Flexibility
At the end of the day your Daily is about manufacturing a series of small wins that add up to big changes in your playing and mindset over time. The idea of scoring a 9/10 on the “I Will DEFINITELY be Able to Do This” scale is to pick something that guarantees success, because once you’re on a roll, you’re on a roll.
But the crazy thing is, even with the simplest Dailies, there will come a time when you’re that busy, that tired, and just plain that over it! So to help ease the transition into daily practice, try structuring in some flexibility, or options to your Daily.
For example, if you travel a lot, and it is not practical for you to play the trumpet every day, you can have “Plan A,” where you perform your chosen exercise on the horn, and “Plan B” where you perform the exercise on the mouthpiece.
Something I’ve used with success in the past on the days that I really don’t want to practice is allowing just one minute, or one note, or one second of concentrated effort toward my Daily as enough from time to time to keep the ball rolling and stay on track.
It might seem silly, but every so often it can be very helpful to lower the bar to “win.”
Always remember:
Environmental Tweaks / Shape the Path
Ever notice how, for the most part, people walk on the sidewalks?
It’s pretty freaky when you start taking a look around you and see some of the ways that subtle environmental designs direct the masses like herds of cattle.
As disturbing as it can be, the good news is we can use these directors in our favor!
By creating physical reminders you can actually “shape the path”and make getting your Daily in that much easier. Say you have a daily commute. You can easily keep a spare mouthpiece on the dash of your car. Is your practicing best done before leaving the house in the morning? Put your trumpet case in front of the door, or on top of your shoes, or sleep with it next to you in bed.
You get the idea.
Any little tweak to remind you to knock out your Daily before the rest of the day zaps your time, energy and soul is great.
But be warned! This doesn’t always work. To give you an example, while some folks do have success by leaving their trumpet out on a stand so they can walk by and occasionally blow a few notes, even that might not be enough. My trombone has been sitting on a stand in plain sight for months. Rather than motivating me to play it, it’s more just become a part of the feng shui.
(Didn’t Work)
(Didn’t Work)
(Not Working)
This sad, lonely, orange trombone teaches us that reminders can be a great tool – as long as you don’t purposefully ignore them. Without the context of a plan; the what’s, how’s and when’s, a reminder is just something else to procrastinate on.
Your Are Lazy And That’s OK.
Speaking of procrastination, one last thing to mention before designing your Daily is that you are a human, and as such, procrastination and lethargy course through your veins like the Rhine cuts through the expanses of Western Europe.
OK. Maybe that was a little weird, but saying something like, “Tomorrow I will do X, right after I do Y, and even though I probably won’t want to, I’m going to do it anyways,” can work out like gang-busters when it comes to doing the work.
James’ Super-Awesome Trumpet Mastery Plan (November)
Tomorrow, right after I drink enough caffeine to kill a whale, I will play all 12 major scales. I PROBABLY WON’T WANT TO! I’LL DO IT ANYWAYS! 😀 !!!
Design and Perform Your First Daily
Perform Your Daily And Then:
- Print The Ultimate Practice Tracker
- Watch the following video to integrate your Daily into The Ultimate Practice Tracker!
That Was Huge!
You now have the first part of your Practice Plan in motion!
From here, you are free to do nothing else but perform this Daily for as long as you like – literally until the day you die* if you like.
*Possibly while performing your Daily!
Take a moment to feel really good about your first steps toward maintaining a systematic routine for improving your playing.
Great job! 😀
—–
Once you’re feeling fresh, Lesson 3 covers the 5-Point Mechanics Checklist that makes sure your embouchure and other playing habits are on track!
I’m Ready for the 5-Point Mechanics Checklist! ->
Please Share Your Daily in the Comments Below!