Bassist Greg Feingold shares some great advice for musicians hoping to improve. Enjoy this short visit with Greg and Jake Bergevin as they discuss motivation, practice habits and life philosophy.
Here's the Zoom interview with Jake and Greg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7EEFHzDHDA&feature=youtu.be
Some highlights include these points:
- It’s easy to play music with people who are better than you is easy. Find a way to play music with everyone and try to make it the best possible thing you can.
- Ray Brown - Three Dimensional - “You Are My Sunshine”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvgRJPUMScI
- 21 days to develop a habit - do a short amount every day!
- Practice early in your day so you don’t feel weighed down.
- “I don’t like really being bad at stuff. I don’t really know many people that do”.
- Set tiny goals
- Make one phone call everyday
- We are all in the same ocean, just different size boats.
Check out this related learning philosophy on wiki called Pompodoro Technique
Larissa Meyer's notes from this talk:
| Concept | Time Marker | My adoption of this concept |
| "Play music with everyone" | 1:45 | I should make an effort to play in person (socially distanced) with people outside of my section. |
| "Experience doesn't really matter once your on stage" | 2:30 | I should look into performing more, especially with other people, to improve my overall sense of collaboration and musicality. |
| "Addiction to practicing" | 3:20 | It is important view practice as a priviledge and stay motivated to play rather than an obstacle. |
| "Stay outside" | 6:40 | I definitely need to prioritize spending more time outside going on walks and enjoying nature instead of being cooped up doing work indoors 24/7. |
| "It takes 21 days for something to become a habit" | 8:00 | I plan to make a goal to practice for at least 21 days in a row, even for just 30 min, to form a more established habit of practicing. |
| "Walk away feeling like you could have done more" | 9:20 | I won't make practice sessions unbearably long but shorter so that I can stay focused and motivated with a clear goal of what I want to practice next time while looking forward to my next practice section. |
| "Create a rigid practice block" | 10:30 | I will create a more outlined practice schedule so that I can make sure to at least touch on all of the pieces/exercises I wanted to work on instead of getting caught up and distracted. |
| "Practice early in the day" | 11:10 | If I prioritize my practice before the afternoon, I won't feel weighed down and spend the day worrying about whether I'll have enough time. |
| "Set tiny goals" | 13:55 | I tend to overwhelm myself with big goals so it will probably be more effective to break down goals into small more realistic and less challenging pieces (not only regarding practice but other aspects of my life). |
| "Make a phone call a day" | 15:41 | Though a lot of people my age, including myself, rely on texting, I think it's important to be able to hear each others voices so I plan to focus more of my communication through phone calls or video calls instead of just texting. |
| "We're all in the same ocean, but the boats are different sizes" | 17:01 | I just thought this was a cool quote, seeing as a lot of people say "we're all in the same boat" which sort of downplay the experiences of individuals who may be facing more extreme struggles/hardships. hardships. |
