trumpet blower88,
You Wrote:
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I jump all around the Arban’s book, but never really "master" anything.
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This is something from Kenny Werner’s Book "Effortless Mastery - Liberating the Master Musician Within" (Paraphrased):
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"How often do we practice a piece of literature somewhat superficially before moving on to the next piece and then wonder why our playing is stagnating instead of moving forward. Wouldn't it be better to stay with a piece long enough until it was fully mastered before moving on to the next piece? What if it would take a year before that piece was fully mastered? Would it be "wasted" time? In fact, the level to which we would have internalized that information would be so grounded in the subconscious, that it would be impossible NOT to progress as a player. At that point we would be so demanding of ourselves that everything we performed would need to rise to the level of preparation of this one piece and future growth would occur more quickly."
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That’s a very important concept! Keep it in mind the next time to find yourself wanting to stray from something that finally starting to penetrate and become more familiar to you. That familiarization is what you are looking for.
Consider this (also from the Werner book)...There is a huge difference between something being "difficult" versus something being "unfamiliar". If you consider a certain phrase to be difficult, it will always be difficult (even if you can eventually play it well). If you consider all music to be easy, then a particularly challenging phrase is simply unfamiliar. That powerful idea is very freeing!
He mentions an example that sums up this idea: There is a jazz standard with a difficult bridge that is in E Major. "Why should [it be difficult]? Is one less talented in E Major? Less creative? Is E major a harder key? Or is it just
less familiar?"
I love this quote from Don Jacoby, "if you practice something 100 times you kinda get the sound in your ear --- if you practice it 200 times, you get a little familiar with it --- and, if you do it 300 times, you get kinda friendly with it. If you were my student, I wouldn’t settle for anything less than being married to it!!!"
The masters are simply extremely familiar with what they play!