In a casual conversation with my sensei, (a touring professional) a small epiphany occurred to me which I probably already knew. We both decided to learn Russ Barenberg's tune, A Pleasant Beggar, at the same time. It took me a day and a half to learn the notes and struggle through both the A and B parts with lots of hesitation and fits and starts, and playing it at about 50 bpm with 16th notes. Now that may be only a couple or three hours of practice for me. So I call him up the next day and he says "yea I got it". What do you mean "you got it" I say back to him. Russ plays it a couple of times at 80 bpm, then bumps it up to 110, again playing 16th notes. And you got it? Yea he says. How in the h... do you get it in one day? He says "well I played it 200 times" How long did that take I asked. Five hours he says. So you sat down at one go for five hours straight and learned to play this at speed. Well he says I took a couple of rest breaks. I'll play it another two hundred and I'll never get it wrong he tells me.
Pete Wernick told us one time that the difference between an amateur and a professional is that an amateur practices a tune until he gets it right, and a professional practices it until he can't get it wrong.
So I sit down with my usual practice regimen and play it 200 times while doing some other exercises as well. It took four days. But he was right, I can now play it along with Russ. So the realization hits me of how much time and work it takes to really play fluidly and confidently. It's the difference between playing notes and playing music. I'm sure this varies somewhat depending on innate talent etc. Anyway that's my recent revelation. The difference for me between one hour of practice and three isn't arithmetic, it's exponential.
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