🧠 the boring practice is the shortcut

Hey music maker!

I had my first in-person guitar lesson yesterday.

My instructor has been playing for 20 years.

He teaches daily, performs in cover bands, and has seen every type of beginner walk through his door. So I walked in mentally prepared to get a laundry list of bad habits to correct.

I expected him to correct my left-hand grip, pick holding method, posture, and walk me through basic concepts I should already know.

He didn't have to.

His first reaction was surprise. He told me he expected to spend the first chunk of our time fixing fundamentals.

Instead, he said my left hand was comfortable. My grip was fine, and I looked relaxed.

Then he watched me strum.

He noticed I was putting too much effort into my strumming arm. Too much forearm, and not enough wrist.

He explained that relying on your forearm leads to fatigue fast and an inconsistent sound.

So we worked on it.

He gave me a 16th-note strumming exercise. Accent the one, then the e, then the and, then the a. Switching every measure.

I picked it up fast. He was surprised again.

Here's what I want you to notice: I did not walk into that lesson with a vault of impressive techniques.

For months I'd been following course instruction focused purely on fundamentals for about 15 minutes a day. And that was enough to surprise a 20-year veteran.

Most people chase the wrong thing.

When you hear a great guitar song, your ear naturally goes to the exciting moments like fast runs or complex voicings.

The stuff that makes you think, "I could never do that."

So when you sit down to practice, that's what you chase.

And you get overwhelmed fast because you can't keep up with the pace of your own expectations. Eventually you stall out.

I've been there.

For years, I would try to learn the complex things first. I couldn't keep up and I'd fall off.

What kept me in the game this time was just focusing on simple things within my reach each day.

Keeping it simple!

This is what Harv, Justin Bieber's music director and producer on "Peaches," described after moving from the live-performance world into production.

Harv is an incredible multi-instrumentalist. He can play the complex stuff.

But in the studio, he learned to strip it all back.

"In producing, less is more. Being a musician, more is better."

The visual he uses: a 10-finger chord versus a 3-finger triad. One impresses other musicians in the room. The other makes 95% of listeners feel connected to the music.

"You really got to kind of dumb yourself down just a baby hair just to make it make sense…The other 95% doesn't understand everything you just played.

They just want to feel something."

Harv isn't saying simplicity is good because he can't do complexity. He's saying simplicity is good because he can do complexity and learned that it has a proper time and place to be flexed.

The pattern holds everywhere.

When I started learning to cook, I picked up a book from America's Test Kitchen that focused entirely on fundamentals instead smoking a brisket or baking sourdough bread.

The boring stuff: principles roasting, searing, and the different types of pots and pans.

The things that show up in almost every cooking scenario.

I drilled those first.

Two weeks ago, my family flew home from an exhausting trip.

Everyone was tired. Kids were cranky. My wife was ready to order Chipotle.

Before we got home, I pulled over at a grocery store and grabbed a few ingredients.

At home, I combined what I bought with what I knew was in the pantry and fridge, and made dinner for five in 20 minutes.

Everyone ate.

They asked for more and even asked me to make it again.

I pulled that off under stress and fatigue because the fundamentals were so drilled they had become instinct

Apply that fundamental first thinking to your music.

In full disclosure...

I still feel the knee-jerk reaction to rush through the full curriculum of something like guitar.

The temptation to play a bunch of different things so I feel productive, instead of sitting with one boring exercise until it actually sticks.

Cycling through a dozen different things feels like progress but it usually isn't.

When I force myself to stay with the same exercise, two to three days in a row, revisiting it daily instead of rushing to the next thing — the progress is clear.

I can hear the difference. And I'm always glad I did it.

The practice that got me ready for that guitar lesson was not complicated. Roughly 15 minutes a day, done consistently. That was it.

Ask yourself…What are the fundamentals for your thing?

Whether it's production, songwriting, or your instrument of choice — identify them, drill them, and come back to them tomorrow.

The boring stuff is the shortcut.