Practice, Perfection, and Professionalism

“Perfection is unattainable. But if we strive for perfection we may achieve excellence.”

-Vince Lombardi (I think)

So, as a musician, I’m always practicing, and there’s that saying “practice makes perfect” which is totally not true, but practice does make you better. So I’m on the journey of chasing perfection, which I know I’ll never get, but the things I know I’ll learn on the journey make it worth it. Now I always watch videos of “professionals” playing, and their picking is so clean and creative and it seems perfect from my perspective, but from their perspective they might be having an off day, playing sloppily or boring lines, but they’re at such a level that their off days are better than my best days. It’s like my flexibility, on an off day, without warming up, I can place my palms flat on the floor next to my feet with my legs straight, while other people might warm up and still not touch their toes.

One of my current goals is to sound like a professional musician. And I’m not sure what that means exactly, but listening to myself playing there’s just a level of precision and awesomeness that’s not there. And I have a hunch that probably part of the reason is that I never (or very rarely anyway) get to play with others, which means there’s no accountability with my timing, dynamics, taste, or even being in tune. These are all things that I have to try to keep straight by myself, but there’s no obvious consequence if I don’t. If I drop a beat playing by myself, no one notices (except maybe me). If I drop a beat playing with someone, it’s immediately noticeable and trainwrecking. And clean tone is still something I find difficult, when I play through a solo on guitar, up to half the notes might get muted, and I don’t really know why. Same on mandolin. On the banjo I’m a bit better, but still not where I want to be. And on fiddle, when I’m playing I’ll think I sound good, but then I go watch the video back (I film myself a lot) and I notice things like weak bowing, scratchy string crossings, and bad intonation.

Maybe I’m expecting too much of myself for the time I’ve been playing, or maybe I’m being too strict cuz it’s myself. But i doubt it’s that second one, cuz I am able to look honestly at my picking and can tell when someone is better than me, or if I’m better than them, and I’m not afraid to point out errors in others performances, I just might be more polite than if I’m looking in a mirror.

Either way, I’m working on sounding more professional, cuz I assume that’s a prerequisite for being one? Or maybe you don’t sound that way till after you are one. Anyway, I probably should be practicing rather than typing….

Now I’m going to go workout, cuz you don’t get superhuman flexibility by sitting around watching TV (good thing I don’t have one of those)

“The harder you try to think of a good quote, the harder it gets to find one”

-Gunnar