Notes from the Field

I just saw the movie Whiplash, and it inspired a couple of reactions I think are relevant to us in the community of mandolinners.

The movie is about being pushed beyond your expectations into the realm of excellence, and asks the question how much pushing is useful and how much pressure is just over the top and damaging. The basic idea is that the two worst words for inspiring excellence are “good job”, as it encourages complacence, and real genius is not going to give up or be intimidated by an overbearing instructor or director, or conversely, if you push too hard and lose a student, that student likely did not have the internal drive to be brilliant anyway, (because you were able to beat them).

All that however, is beside the point, as far as I am concerned. For the overwhelming majority of us it would never be appropriate to use the kind of humiliation and intimidation shown in the movie because while we all want to be better, very very few of us are bordering on the kind of brilliance worth being pushed over in that way. And those with that kind of talent and drive, who would benefit from being pushed, are likely not wasting their time reading this.

Something else caught my imagination, however, that I think is worth thinking about. This movie fosters the myth (I think it is a myth) that musical brilliance comes entirely from woodshedding. That all you have to do to get better is practice more.

Yes we have to practice, and practice more. But I think most of the greats and near greats got better through a combination of practicing more and playing with other musicians more. I don’t read many biographies of great musicians, and maybe I should, but I would be surprised to find anyone, in any genre of music, that got gigantically great solely by practicing alone and listening to recordings. Especially in conservatory I bet that in addition to the normal private instructions, lectures, band or orchestra work, and the hours of practice time, that students are all the time jamming with each other and working out music together as peers and coming together in leaderless informal ensembles, meeting up with other musicians and getting inspired and learning what is possible and bouncing ideas off each other. Please correct me if I am way off on this.

I don’t think “go home and practice more” makes you great, or even good, all by itself. Of course it is needed. And perhaps needs to be emphasized because for most folks playing with others is the fun part, and practicing at home alone is less fun. But still, especially in things like jazz and blues and rock, where the brilliance involves being creative in perfect response to the energy of the moment created by the other musicians, I don’t think you can become great or even all that good without playing with others often and learning the language of that interaction by doing it.

I know in the realm of mere mortals, it is universally acknowledged by music teachers that those most likely to “stick with it” are those that play regularly with others. I have heard this independently over and over again. Whether it’s a jam or session, or a band, or duet partner, playing with others regularly puts the fire in our desire to get better, at the very least, and often provides beneficial musical experiences not easily found anywhere else. I know I can often tell a musician who does not play with others regularly, because, in my experience, they are more likely to swerve momentarily out of the rhythm or to unconsciously speed up or unconsciously show down the hard parts. Also they are often underdeveloped when it comes to the ability to listen and react appropriately to the playing of others.

But I am getting side tracked. My point is the movie Whiplash portrays the myth that one can obtain musical genius just by going home and practicing hard. And while one of the central dramas of the movie is looking inward to find the drive and motivation to push oneself to the stratosphere, I think that kind of loner hero practice model is more appropriate in athletic endeavors (other than team sports of course) and not so much the whole story in musical endeavors.