Springtime Practice: 4 Items You Need To Play Electric Guitar On Your Patio

It can be a true thrill to play tunes using your favorite electric guitar in the world. It can be especially exciting to play outdoors under the gentle glow of the sun’s rays. If you want to play your beloved electric guitar on your residential patio, then you need to invest in all of these things.

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Garage Band: 5 Unique Places to Have Band Practice

Almost every band, whether famous or just starting out, understands the struggle of finding and maintaining adequate rehearsal space. When the money and relationships necessary for a band to thrive are all but non-existent, a little creativity may help the band stay afloat.

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The Self Storage Band - Practice Pads on the Cheap

Aspiring young musicians have been getting the dreaded practice space boot ever since the first commercially available guitar amplifier was produced by Fender in 1947. For bands that are passionate about their music and have the drive to spend hours practicing their skills, nothing is more demoralizing than having no place to play. And to add insult to injury the cost of a specially designed practice space is often out of reach, especially for hobbyist musicians.

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Neuroscience Vs Talent?

I am a big advocate of the notion that anything is possible. I honestly believe that if I fully understanding what needs to be done and if I desperately want to achieve it, I will. 

But, unlike most “self help” doctrine that promotes a quick fix for almost everything, my belief is that real and lasting change requires time for repeated action, time for the brain to rewire for the job!

Many will retort sharply at this notion claiming that they are a product of their inherited genes and that they can no more change their brain as change their eye colour. But we may not be completely at the mercy of our biological make-up after all.

Neuroscientists have challenged the ‘hard-wired brain’ theory, suggesting instead that the human brain is extraordinarily plastic - a rather astute philosopher known as Buddha said the same many years before! It has been known for some time that in exceptional cases, victims of extreme brain trauma have regained function as a result of the brain “rewiring” and reallocating neurons.

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10,000 Hours of Practice Makes Perfect?

How much should you practice? In This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, Daniel Levitan writes about the ten-thousand-hours theory, which proposes that 10,000 hours of practice is required to become a world-class expert in any field: basketball, ice skating, chess, or the viola.

This idea was further popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his 2008 book Outliers: The Story of Success. Gladwell points to examples including Bill Joy, Bill Gates, and the Beatles, while Levitan counts up the hours to Mozart’s Symphony No. 1, which he composed at age 8.

Is there such a thing as “talent”?

In a study cited by Gladwell, violinists at Berlin’s Academy of Music were divided into three groups: the “stars”, who had the potential to become world-class soloists; the students who were merely “good”; and a third group who did not intend to ever play professionally, the “teachers.”

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Of Unicycles and Songwriting

Unicycles seem magic. Somehow a stick with a wheel on it being used as a means of transportation seems inefficient. But it works. A good friend of mine decided to take up unicycling as a hobby (?) a year back and now regularly commutes to work on it. He wants to start a unicycle crew and roll around town clowning on those with two or more wheels.

Yeah.

To an outsider, unicycles seem magic. But really it doesn’t take anything more than practice and strong knee pads. It’s a skill. Sure, you can read articles on unicycling, watch youtube videos of professionals in action, or purchase “super high-quality” unicycle accessories to try and get better. But it’s a skill. You get better at unicycling by unicycling.

The same goes for songwriting.

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