by Minim
There are basically two kinds of musicians, I call them coasters and climbers.
The majority of musicians are coasters. A coaster is somebody who has reached a certain level of proficiency and stays there. At some stage in their lives they put in a tremendous amount of work to get to a certain level and they strived to improve through dedicated practice.
However, somewhere along the line they stopped practising seriously and started to coast on the ability that they already had. It doesn't mean that they gave up music, on the contrary, there are many professional musicians who would fall into this category. A coaster may still play regularly, but he no longer practises.
With this in mind, It's important to define the term 'practice'. Practice is the process by which we learn how to do things that we cannot currently do. If you're not working on something you cannot do, then it's not practice - it's playing.Coasters may spend time with their instruments when they're not performing, but that time is spent doing the things that they already know how to do. It's also important to realise that coasters may play to a very high standard. Just because they've stopped advancing as musicians, it doesn't mean that the level they have reached is not advanced.
Teachers, and particularly classroom teachers, are often perfect examples of coasters. They will certainly played to a high standard to get their music degree, but the demands of the teaching profession have pushed their own musical development to one side. They may play every day, but the material that they are playing is likely to be well within their musical capabilities. They may have to learn new music from time to time, but again it's unlikely to be of a standard that will stretch them musically, merely unfamiliar. Many teachers reached the zenith of their musical abilities during their college years and will never play to that standard again.
This is not meant to denigrate teachers in any way. The skills required to be a great teacher are not necessarily the same as those required to be a great player and given the amount of time a dedicated teacher devotes to his/her students, it's not surprising that personal practice is less of a priority. I am merely using them as an example of musicians who play to a high standard, but are not improving.
There are also many seasoned professional players who fall into this category; they may not touch their instruments from one gig to the next and if they're not playing in public, they're not playing at all. Again, they may play to a high standard, but they're not going to get any better.
It's not hard to find coasters if you want examples. Think about your local jazz scene - and particularly some of the guys who've been on that scene for a while. Are they getting better? Can you hear new things in their playing or are they essentially producing the same sounds over and again? I'll lay odds the majority are coasters.By contrast, climbers are on a path of continuous development. They are never content to rest on their laurels and strive through dedicated practice to evolve as players and musicians. No matter how good they may be, there are always things that they are working on and areas that they are actively trying to improve.
Sonny Rollins is a great example of a climber. Despite that fact that he had already recorded Saxophone Colossus, Tenor Madness and Way out West by the end of the sixties, Sonny felt that he wasn't musically where he wanted to be. As a result, he went into seclusion and for two years he did little else but practise and study musical theory and composition. Throughout his musical career he has played bebop, free jazz, fusion and anything else that has taken his musical imagination. He has continued to evolve and learn. As he pointed out in an interview with George Goodman in Atlantic Monthly:
"There are people who want to hear the way I sounded on Saxophone Colossus. You don't go back over the same ground and stay creative."
Sonny Rollins will be 81 this year and still personifies the passion and dedication to his art that has characterised his career. In the same interview he sums up his attitude to life and music as he enters his ninth decade.
"I don't smoke, I don't drink, I don't have hobbies, because music is everything for the remaining time I have on this earth."
Climbers like Rollins are the exception rather than the norm in music. Many musicians look at players like Sonny and John Coltrane and Charlie Parker and turn into coasters because they are intimidated by tales of them practising 8-10 hours a day.
Incidentally, I heard a great anecdote about John Coltrane's dedication to practice yesterday. Apparently musicians who knew him used to say if you walked past his apartment and the lights were on, it meant he was practising: If the lights were off, it meant he had a gig!
It's pretty easy to be intimidated by the greats, and it's also pretty easy to fall into the trap of thinking that unless you can do 8 hours of practice every day then you're not going to get anywhere. However, it's important to realise that you don't have to be putting in hours and hours every day if you want to improve. It's not about how long you practice, but how often.
The first step in improving as a player is deciding that you're going to. Once you decide you're going to be a climber for the rest of your musical life then the actions are obvious. You might only get 15 minutes a day to practice, but if you spend those 15 minutes working on something you can't do, and stick with it for as long as it takes until you can do it, every day you'll go to bed a better player than you were when you woke up.
It's so easy to fall into coasting, especially if you've already reached a certain level of musical competence. The challenge we all face as musicians is continuously to push ourselves to become more. Some of us will accept that challenge but most of us won't and that's OK. The world is going to carry on spinning either way.
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