🧠...4 sources of musical belief

Hey music maker!

Hope you're having a good weekend so far.

I've been thinking about why some practice sessions feel easy to start and others feel like pulling teeth.

Getting into the practice room can really be a drag sometimes.

You know you need to spend time with your instrument, but suddenly you find five things that need to happen first. That’s when I usually remember that I need to check my email or schedule a dental appointment.

A lot of times that's just procrastination.

It's fear kind of revealing itself and taking over your mind right when you know you need to get your practice session in.

I've been reading this book called Practice Mind for Everyone, and one of the concepts that resonated with me is self-efficacy.

It's your belief in your ability to succeed at a specific task.

The book quotes psychologist Albert Bandura, who has spent decades studying this. What he found was that people with low self-efficacy avoid hard stuff, give up faster, and practice less effectively.

But people with high self-efficacy see challenges as things to master and recover quickly from mistakes.

The part that matters most is that self-efficacy isn't something you're born with. You build it through specific actions.

Bandura identified four sources.

I'm going to walk through all four because they've been helping me with my bass practice lately.

Source 1: Mastery experiences

Before I tackle anything new in my practice session, I just play some bass lines I like. Maybe a line from an Earth, Wind & Fire song. Or a new technique that I learned a few sessions ago.

Usually nothing too structured. Just having fun with the instrument for a few minutes.

I used to jump straight into 'practice mode' and go right into the stuff I'm supposed to work on. That's not a horrible approach, especially when time is limited or you have strong motivation that day.

But when I know it's going to be challenging, practice feels more like a chore.

Now I let myself remember why I picked up the bass in the first place. Because it's fun.

It’s a sneaky little trick, but it takes my brain from "Here's another thing I have to do" to "I get to play music today."

Bandura calls this mastery experiences. This helps build belief by reminding yourself that you can actually play this instrument.

Small wins, even fun ones, really stack up.

Source 2: Vicarious experiences

This one is about watching people like you succeed.

Not looking at the virtuosos or professionals with 20 years under their belts. People at your level or maybe just a few steps ahead.

I learned this from Bandura's research on student recitals. When students saw their peers succeed, it raised their belief that they could also succeed. Not because they were inspired in some vague way, but because they saw someone similar to them do the thing they were trying to do.

Similar to young children. They seem to move faster in skill acquisition when a peer is doing it. I tried teaching my children how to use a swing. They ultimately learned at school on the playground.

Finding a community of self-taught musicians is key, or even just a friend who is also working on learning an instrument.

That’s the advantage that kids have, they have built-in peer groups year-round.

Source 3: Verbal persuasion

I just came back from Nashville, where I spent some time working.

One of the things I love about being in that environment is that I'm around working music professionals who have absorbed the culture of Nashville— both the creativity and the music business.

The individuals that I’ve been around display a lot of positivity and hard work constantly. It's been reshaping how I approach my own music, my confidence levels, and where I need to get better.

That's a big contrast to when I was living in Philadelphia.

Philly has a rich history in music, but I saw fewer people actually breaking into the industry there. I found myself around more individuals who were just going through the motions— not really doing the things that moved the needle in the direction I was trying to grow.

Bandura's research backs this up. Positive feedback and encouragement from the people around you strengthen your belief in your ability to succeed.

The words around you shape the beliefs inside you.

If you're surrounded by people who complain, make excuses, or dismiss your goals, that's going to kill your energy for practice sessions and growth.

I know because it killed mine for years.

Be intentional about who you surround yourself with.

Source 4: Emotional and physiological states

Last week, I was working on a straight 1/8ths pattern at 106 BPM for a record.

My plucking hand couldn't keep up. My tone got softer when I moved to the A string.

I could feel myself getting frustrated. And that frustration made me interpret what was happening as "I'm not good enough to do this."

This made me come back to Bandura’s advice: It's not the struggle itself that kills your belief. It's how you interpret the struggle.

So I reframed it with this view "My hands aren't ready yet" instead of "I'm not good enough." Then I dropped the tempo to 80 BPM and focused on playing it clean.

Two days later, I could play it better at 106.

I just changed how I interpreted the difficulty.

Bandura calls these emotional and physiological states. Your feelings about the task shape your belief in your ability to do the task.

Change the feeling, to change the belief.