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Archives for May 2009

whiling away the hours

May 28, 2009 by krisis

(1) A few years ago I saw Malcolm Gladwell deliver a speech at the New Yorker Festival that is largely recapitulated in the second chapter of Outliers, called “The 10,000 Hour Rule.”

In it, Gladwell draws our attention to a data point converged upon by countless studies of experts in a variety of fields. He says, “In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.” He goes on to quote neurologist Daniel Levitin:

In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again. … It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.

Gladwell supports the rule using Mozart, Bill Gates, Bill Joy, and the Beatles as his examples. Not to say that their genius and success is purely a result of 10,000 hours of practice – the book as a whole explains other facets – just that it was an essential component of their expertise.

.

(2a) 10,000 hours is a long time.

If as a child starting at age five you had piano lessons two times a week (an hour each) and also practiced an hour a day, you would clock nine hours a week. 468 hours a year. 4,680 hours a decade.

If you kept that up until age 26 you’d finally have served your time.

(2b) 10,000 hours can go by before you know it.

Maybe you got into video games at age 11. You played them every night after homework and dinner, let’s say from 7:30 to 11:00 p.m. on most nights, plus extra on the weekend. That’s more than 25 hours a week. 1,300 plus a year.

You’d be a master by the time you started college. Most kids are.

(2c) Time is relative.

.

(3) In the car today Gina and I were singing in harmony to the amazing Hezekiah Jones album Hezekiah Says You’re A-OK, on the way to see his band split a bill with the equally fantastic Up the Chain.

“You know, Gina,” I said, breaking from my lead vocal, “I’ve been thinking about this 10,000 hour thing. Not everyone’s an expert at something. I mean, what do most people spend 10,000 hours doing by the time they’re 25? Watching teevee, I suppose.”

“More than likely,” she replied.

“But, think about me. I watched a lot of television, sure. Mostly, though, I read until I was old enough to write, and then I wrote and read. That’s what I spent my 10k on.”

(Perhaps she interjected, “Oh, I remember.”)

“And, you know, is it any surprise that I’m good at communications? I’m not an expert, but no wonder it’s my calling. I spent my whole life practicing for it.”

We sat and sang for a moment, contemplating that.

“What about you?”

Gina paused in her harmony. “Hmm, me?”

“Yeah. What did you spend 10,000 hours doing?”

“This. Listening to music. Singing harmony.”

“Really your whole life, right? Your mother singing, your father playing guitar…”

“Yeah, since I can remember.”

“Right. So, no matter how much I rehearse, you’ll always have the edge. It’ll always come easier to you, until I reach that threshold.”

“I suppose.”

We paused as the song wound down.

“What do you think Hezekiah spent 10,000 hours doing?”

We thought on that for a few moments, and then sang together to “Albert Hash.”

.

(4) We’re not all Mozart. I might not ever be Hezekiah Jones. But, we’ve all spent 10,000 hours doing something other than sleeping, and hopefully other than watching television. Maybe something incidental that we do out of necessity or habit. Driving? Social-networking? Cleaning? Taking care of children?

I’ve put in more than my share on communications – reading cereal boxes and trashy fantasy novels, writing stories at eight on my manual typewriter and almost nine years of blogs.

I got an early start on 10,000 hours of being Gina’s best friend, which I keep padding. I’m really good at that. More recently I’ve attained well-in-excess of 10,000 hours of being in love with Elise.

I hope eventually I’ll reach my 10,000th hour of serious focus on music. It’s a large piggy-bank of time to fill.

What about you? What have you spent your life mastering, intentionally or unintentionally?

Filed Under: betterment, elise, essays, habits, Philly, philly music, stories, teevee, thoughts, Year 09 Tagged With: gina, Hezekiah Jones

don’t fail me now

May 27, 2009 by krisis

The last forty-eight hours of my life.

At six o’clock on Monday I am playing guitar. I have been playing for hours, drilling songs against a metronome. The bridge of “Unengaged” for twenty minutes straight. I’ve worn through a callous for the first time in ages.

Later I rehearse piano and vocals equally as hard. I fall asleep reading Outliers in bed, which just two chapters in already has caused one blowup with E because I said if I had me as a child I’d call me a failure.

I don’t want to be a failure.

Tuesday I have a fun, frantic day at work – the kind where you realize at the end of the day that you never stopped to hang your coat. I start writing the second my ass is on the bus, and emerge almost three hours later with that last post.

I rehearse. Hard. Again. Trying not to fail. Despite my voice sounding brittle and inflexible due to the lack of a warm-up, I venture out to an open mic while E stays at home and works on freelance.

At the restaurant my first song is awesome; the room is quietly transfixed. (I’m not a failure?) Afterward I promptly break a string and become shy and faltering when I’m handed another guitar. I fuck up “Like a Virgin,” of all things, and promptly lose everyone’s attention.

Today I feel slightly beaten up (thank god I don’t drink at those things), on top of beating myself up. Still manage another frantic work day that barely includes a coat-hanging. On the way home I listen to my own voice on my iPod, which a lot of days is the only thing I can manage to do.

I’m listening to “Like a Virgin” from 2006 and thinking, This is awful. Why am i singing like that? (Of course, I wouldn’t make it ten seconds into “Like a Virgin” from 2001.)

Then I listen to a Trio from 2008 and realize, God, I really did get better.

I am not a failure.

I get home and am kissed goodbye as E heads out to front her band at the Khyber. Another hour of writing.

Filed Under: betterment, bloggish, corporate, day in the life, elise, guitar, Philly, philly music, self-critique, singing, thoughts

The Gospel of Network Agnosticism

May 26, 2009 by krisis

Being “Network Agnostic” is a practice I’ve been preaching over the past few months as my business and personal lives converge on social networking.

It’s a simple concept: don’t let the technology dictate your content, and make sure your content adapts across multiple technologies.

While the concept is simple, the ensuing conversation is huge. How worried should an individual be about the permanence of their social network content? How responsible is a marketer to keep their business connected with users across a host of different networks?

Here are a few thoughts on the matter. [Read more…] about The Gospel of Network Agnosticism

Filed Under: branding, critique, essays, Twitter, Year 09

Making Music Work: An Introduction

May 25, 2009 by krisis

After a few months of worrying about the big events in my life more than my music, I decided to spend the past week focusing on my musical life.

Well, that and American Idol. (Hey, at least it’s thematically connected!)

Here’s a list of what I did:

  • Installed backend software on my band’s webpage
  • Worked on a new layout in Photoshop
  • Ordered new recording hardware
  • Uploaded videos
  • Talked to Gina about band strategy for the upcoming months
  • Listened to some new recordings for changes to EQ
  • Scheduled a rehearsal with a drummer
  • Changed my guitar strings
  • Networked with other musicians
  • Practiced piano with a metronome
  • Played through 20 or 30 cover songs looking for a new one

Do you notice anything missing from that list?

If you said, “playing your original music,” you’d be right.

Now, imagine if I was on a record label … or on American Idol. I certainly wouldn’t be doing any design, or working with software or hardware. Someone else would probably help me steer my strategy and mixing. Hell, I probably wouldn’t even have to change my own guitar strings, and I could hire someone to play piano for me!

If I was a major label musician the only thing on the list I would have definitely done for myself is the last thing – choosing cover songs. And, you know, maybe I would have fit in some practice time on my own songs.

Clearly, being an independent musician isn’t easy. Not only do you have to learn how to make compelling music, you have to take care of all of the other facets of being a musician on your own or with your bandmates. You don’t have anyone to do those things for you. You either do it yourself or make do without it.

This post is the start of a new CK feature aimed at sharing knowledge with other indie musicians to make all of those non-musical tasks easier to understand and achieve. I’m not an expert in the field, but I’m a rare Type-A musician that loves the process of making music as much as the music itself, and I’m happy to talk about what I’ve learned so far.

Whether you’re a musician gigging around town or just someone thinking about writing a song, you can help me get this series started. Is there something you can’t figure out how to do? What do you wish you had some help with? And, how often would you be interested in reading about this stuff?

Filed Under: Making Music Work

Grudge Match

May 18, 2009 by krisis

My friend Rob Baniewicz (of killer improv comedy duo Meg & Rob) shared an article from the Onion A/V Club Q&A titled “Lifetime Grudges.”

The article caught my interest because it’s about lifelong, subjective, sometimes irrational grudges that people develop against artists. Many of the Onion’s regular contributors shared their personal grudge matches, from Sofia Coppola to U2.

Surely you’ve done it. A movie star whose weird mouth-shape you just can’t get past? A musician whose utterly terrible new album forces you to lose faith? The reason doesn’t matter so much. just that they’ve jumped your personal shark permanently, never to return to your good graces.

A few spring to my mind immediately. Alanis Morissette – by her fourth US record she had entirely quit writing catchy, interesting music, so I gave up. Chuck Palahniuk – wrote too many overly-convenient, repetitive books for me to care that he might eventually get better. Jason Mraz – I found his songwriting schtick underhwhelming from the first second I heard him.

The grudge article is an interesting counterpoint to something else that has been on my mind lately: permanent “must-buy” policies. Lifetime subscriptions, let’s call them.

Surely you have these too – an unflinching desire to consume everything by a specific artist. I’ll buy any song by Garbage, watch any movie by David Fincher, and love any print by Mucha, no questions asked. It’s a form of brand-loyalty – these artists appeal to some aspect of your personal aesthetic, and you’ll support them forever for it.

Who is your #1 Grudge, and why? What about your most major undying, devoted subscription? Could the grudge ever (re)earn your trust? Could the subscription ever fall from the pedestal?

Filed Under: flicks, thoughts, weblinks Tagged With: Garbage

Hindsight

May 15, 2009 by krisis

Can I just put something in perspective for a moment?

My free time has been devoted to event planning on at least a weekly basis since November of 2007. That’s one and a half years of constant event planning.

We spent two months planning our engagement party. Then wedding planning started in the background of planning LP’s There’s a Stage on My Lawn for last May (coming on the heels of my major advertising event at work, which I adore).

Then wedding planning was in the forefront while I background assisted on LP’s Summer Mixer. Towards the end of wedding planning was honeymoon planning, as well as the beginnings of planning LP’s BYM Fest. And, since the wedding it’s been lots of BYM Fest (plus my major advertising event at work, which I still adore).

So, as of Sunday I will be NOT planning an event for the first time in eighteen months.

Wow.

Filed Under: corporate, Engagement, lyndzapalooza, thoughts

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