intentional: done on purpose. deliberate.

M U S I C
It’s always nice to come back to my cozy little home online and journal about the goings on in my artistic world. It’s even more exciting to return after a short absence from posting (not!!). If I hadn’t been so hard at work with my music, I might be inclined to call myself a slacker, but the truth is, whenever I fail to maintain my presence on this site, it’s largely because I’m busting my hump, doing things that indie musicians do like, finding gigs, playing gigs, rehearsing, songwriting, experimenting(with other people in non-sexual ways) and last but not least, visualizing/conceptualizing videos and shows..

It’s a non-stop process if you’re serious, and I’m smack-dab in the middle of it. Loving every minute, grateful and expecting more. So this brings me to the point for this post, and that is this: the scope of this blog is ever-evolving, and growing daily- as I am artistically. I’m in a period of detoxing in my daily life and I plan to kind of attribute this direction to my blog posts for the time being. After all the reason for this blog is to chronicle my life as a musician who creates, and takes action in the business and creative sides of my art with “intention.”

To recap, by “intention” I mean, taking deliberate, purposeful steps toward the life of your dreams as a musician. It’s called having a plan, and revisiting the plan to make sure you stay on track, regularly.

You see, my reason for this blog and making intention the main scope was because like many creative minded individuals, I’m notorious for dreaming and creating first and thinking business later. So many of us creatives leave the business side up to “chance” and focus on the fact that we’re good at what we do, and hope that is enough. This site is a way to ensure that I give attention to both areas of my brain (left and right) to carve out the artistic life of my dreams. You can too!

Scope: In business I intend to make moves that yield the results I desire that correlate directly to the goals I have set for myself as a professional musician. Creatively, I “intend” make music that is true to myself and not geared toward a specific genre, or what the current trend might be.

So far, you’ll notice that my approach to the business side of being an indie musician has been covered in previous posts on practicing, and goal setting, but I want to start posting resources that I find useful as an intentional musician as well. So stay tuned for my next post that will be the first of the series “Tools of the Trade” – Useful Resources for Intentional Musicians. See you back here, a lot sooner this time. I promise. -cecili

This famous quote illustrates a critically important absolute in the life of the intentional musician (and arguably artists in general): “Get in touch with your artistic vulnerability. “

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again because the message is timeless- as humans mistakes are inevitable.

We learn from them.

Don’t be afraid to make them.

Don’t be afraid to get messy.

Yes, the ultimate goal is to strive for seamlessness of performance, and the least amount of mistakes as possible. However, the worst mistake you can make and one that you cant come back from,  is to not try at all, for fear of failure; or to lie to yourself that you’re “waiting” for the right time, for when you “get better.”

The time is now!  Learn while doing. It goes without saying that if you’ve never picked up a guitar you may not want to schedule a show with that in your repertoire, but you can organize a guitar meetup group or participate in shows on a smaller scale with your guitar skills perhaps jamming with a band that may be interested in having you contribute some accents that you can accomodate at your current skill level.

Yes i do practice what I preach. I learned this from a very talented actor friend of mine (and Yale Drama School Grad) while I was spending way too much time daydreaming about being a successful singer/songwriter (and actress wink, wink) working as a waitress in NYC. Slowly over time, I would reposition my dreams into reality by walking through the fear and out of my comfort zone.

In order to be successful we must get comfortable with being uncomfortable. What have you learned about yourself in relation to your own comfort zone?  The subject of comfort zones fascinates me and never gets old from an artistic standpoint. I’m currently writing a blog series (the “Own Your Zone”) focusing on specifically how I did it, and I will be posting it here, exclusively very soon. In the meantime, Cheers to a New Year of triumphing over our comfort zones!! Salut!

As musicians we are all constant works-in-progress. Picture your favorite musical moments from even the most gifted of musicians/artists alike and I guarantee you at some point one of them will admit that during one of those times, they felt they were not performing to the best of their capabilities.

It’s an inevitable facet of the human existence, and a necessary hurdle to jump early on in your artistic career. Plain and simple. We cant be “on” everyday. On the flipside, there are things we CAN do to eliminate this truth from ever obstructing our creative improvement ever again.

It’s similar to the adage of “doing the best you can,” and in the unavoidable events where things still go awry, it means cultivating a resilience that comes from being experienced enough that your “mistakes” are good ones- or not noticeably mistakes at all. Yes it’s a relative subject depending on personal taste and area of expertise. (ie: singing vs playing guitar) There will always be someone that thinks a band is garbage, but a strong stance is usually an indicator that a band has something of value in the area of talent to offer someone else.

The point is, we will always make mistakes. View a mistake is a defined area for you to focus more attention on in your practice,and therefore not really a mistake at all. Not to mention, the argument exists that your inexperienced approach toward areas of less familiarity in your craft offers congruent opportunities for innovation in your craft. (Yes I’m an optimist!)

Now understand that when it comes to practice it’s not a battle of quality vs quantity.. but a healthy balance of each that form a solid foundation upon which you can build your dream creative yield.

An all too familiar example (and reminder that we all need to step up our live performance game) is discussed in Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” in reference to the Beatles’ playing 1200 shows before achieving their success. It’s an obvious example of the benefits of frequency of practice and we can all assume that this quantity of work was a major factor in the Beatles’ success in becoming major.

On the other hand, Paul McCartney himself somewhat argued that although true, Gladwell’s research for success’ recipe alone isn’t necessarily a guarantee by stating, “there were an awful lot of bands that were out in Hamburg who put in 10,000 hours and didn’t make it, so it’s not a cast iron theory. I think, however, when you look at a group who has been successful… I think you always will find that amount of work in the background. But I don’t think it’s a rule that if you do that amount of work, you’re going to be as successful as the Beatles.”

Through McCartney’s first-hand account of the subject of Gladwell’s actual case study, we learn that rote action practice is not enough to achieve best results.

A common misconception among “lazy” practicers is to “practice” things at which you are already accomplishing successfully. For example, playing the same riffs and fills that we’ve already mastered. It’s incredibly rewarding to hear the vocalizations, and notes that you can execute well and are comfortable with-but what about the ugly ones? The underlying gold along our road to success in practice is in the ugly bits-our mistakes.

Taking things a step further, maybe the Beatles’ formula for practice led to success by virtue of getting a lot of their “practice” time in during live shows due to their rigorous gigging schedule. Maybe in addition to the frequency of playing,  they were able to detach from worrying about making mistakes during shows, and able to let it all hang out.

It’s an important idea to grasp, since from that example, so many musicians have automatically mined that 10,000+ hours is the key to the career of their dreams. While not entirely false, more fleshing out is needed in order to get close. Here are a few tips to help you figure out  how to proceed in foggier areas of your practice routine, and generate optimum results.

1. This one’s easy! Practice the ugly bits. – You know that part where your stomach turns when you try it? That’s it!

2. 1 up your practice routine- Get an audience. – Invite a colleague in music to join you in your practice routine, create a mastermind or meetup group in an area you want to improve or in or that you’re most uncomfortable with.

3. On the fly – Improv a song at your next show. Do something musically that is unplanned, unrehearsed or freestyle. -  Mistakes may come, hopefully only u will know (and the know it all musicians in your audience) but the rewards in confidence, and freedom will be most profitable overall.

4. Analyze your next practice session and notice what tasks/actions you are drawn to and what you are less thrilled about doing and why. Then change areas of focus to insure proper attention is given to areas according to level of mastery greatest to smallest.

5. Devise a plan for your practice. Don’t just wander through your practice time. Construct a plan, focusing on repetitive tasks/actions first with a set amount of time for each. Perform your more creative open ended, improvisational tasks that may take longer afterward.