There’s this idea floating around that it takes about 10,000 hours of practicing something to become an expert. I’m not sure I agree with that but my own take on getting good at something is that you need to be more than a little obsessive about practice. This was a lesson I had to relearn when I got my dobro and attended one or two CBA music camps. When I was younger and playing my instruments for symphonic and jazz bands I would sit down to practice and 6 hours later look up to wonder “where did the time go”. In that obsessive play zone there is no sense of time, no sense of effort, just making music. One of the things I like to point out to my friends is that one reason our kids get good, so quick is that obsession, the thing that doesn’t seem like an obsession to them, is a natural state of mind. During high school one of my brothers would shoot hoops 12 hours a day, another would work on his cars seemingly nonstop for weeks (so much so the insurance company started insisting he get a commercial insurance policy), and my thing was music. We all got pretty good at what it was that we were doing, but we didn’t really think about how much time we were putting in.
Now that I’m a little older, my sense of time is much different and as much as I like losing myself in a long practice session, I just don’t have the hours available to do it on a regular basis. I think that some of us older learners also have to relearn how to immerse ourselves into that practice zone, where everything is blocked out, and we exist for those few hours just to make music. I actually have a routine to get into that zone. I start with scales, all kinds of scales, major scales, minor scales, up and across the neck, slow scales, fast scales, folding scales, easy scales, hard convoluted scales, and when I look up, an hour or two has gone. Only then do I go on to practice my tunes. As strange as it might seem, it takes so much focus to play those scales that I just slip away into the zone. So what does this have to do with music camp? Well, nothing and everything. Camp is a wonderful social experience and we get to make life-long friends and musical partners, but look around and you will see folks quietly, off in a corner, picking, oblivious to everything around them…in that zone where for just a few minutes the only thing that exists is the music. Wonderful.
The music camp registration countdown has reached “0” and if you haven’t registered you are behind schedule. The next countdown is for June 12…when music camp begins. Be sure to check out the music camp website http://cbamusiccamp.com for new information.
And we would like to remind you that you can give CBA Music Camp as a gift for Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Graduation, Birthdays Valentine’s Day, and even April Fool’s Day. Check it out at our web site.
Keep the batteries fresh in your tuners, keep your strings clean and polished, and keep your picks close at hand because we’re agonna be kicking up some sand come June 12.
