🧠 What kind of player do you want to be?

Hey music maker!

Hope your weekend is off to a good start.

I had a thought this week during one of my practices that I want to share.

I used to be dishonest with myself about what "practice" meant.

My lazy approach was just to show up and play my instrument for ~30 minutes.

Sometimes that's good, especially when you're building the habit or reconnecting with the joy of playing. But in most cases, it was just me avoiding the harder work of actually improving.

Unfocused practice doesn't build skills efficiently. It usually just burns time.

You can spend years "practicing" and still feel like a beginner because you're not building toward anything specific. Just wandering.

Here's a better way.

I often talk about Kobe Bryant when it comes to skill building because he’s one of the best at doing it, and he was one of the most transparent with his process.

Kobe Bryant didn't become one of the greatest basketball players by accident.

He built a skill menu that started with shooting. Spent 6 months just learning how to shoot.

After that, he focused on creating his own shot. Then he went to the next fundamental and did this over the span of two years, and started catching up drastically to his peers.

This practice continued for him, of course.

He went on to study film, identify specific weaknesses, and create a list of exact skills he needed to develop. Then he'd work through that list one by one.

He explained his practice strategy:

"When I play, I'd play to my weaknesses. I always work on the things during those games that I was weak at—left hand, pull-up jump shot, post game. Right? So I have a strategy."

This went on for 20 years in his basketball career.

Notice how Kobe didn't have vague goals like "get better."

He had specific, nameable skills that he could isolate, drill, and check off.

I'm getting excited to hit my skill list just writing this email lol.

That's the difference between wandering and building.

I recently built my own skill inventories for bass and guitar.

The process is simple.

I went through my coursework and pulled out every technique, concept, and move I need to become the player I want to be.

I’m not interested in playing in a band and becoming a good performer. Or the most wanted session player in the industry. Just effective in songwriting and production.

For bass: I want to play grooves across styles with enough melodic ideas to write songs and record on tracks.

For guitar: I want to write songs, play rhythm parts, add simple lead lines, handle neo soul chords, and do some fingerstyle on both electric and acoustic.

Those identities shaped my lists. Every skill on there connects to one of those goals.

Some of these I'm close to checking off, like playing the root and fifth on bass at tempo while following a lead chart. Playing the box shape and simple moves like the 5 to 6. And on guitar, playing all the open chords and power chords cleanly on guitar.

Others are months away. But they're all named and building toward the player I'm becoming.

This is meta-learning in action.

Remember the meta-learning process started for me in Week 6. I spent hours mapping my curriculum before I started practicing. That was the diagnostic phase.

This is the next step: priming the brain.

When you read a book's table of contents before diving in, you're not wasting time. You're setting up mental frameworks. And now the brain knows what's coming and starts building connections before you even start reading.

Skill inventories do the same thing.

When I'm in a practice session, and I encounter a new technique, my brain already has a slot for it. "Oh, that's the rake I saw on the list."

I get more motivated and it clicks faster because I've already primed the system.

Clarity creates motivation. When you know exactly what you're building, practice stops feeling random. Every session has a target.

This changes everything about daily practice.

Instead of "practice bass for 30 minutes," I'm working on a specific item from my list. This week it's the 2-3 move. Next, I’ll focus on playing with the kick drum for several songs.

I’m building a real skill set instead of wandering and leaving growth up to chance.

And when I check off that first skill, it's not just satisfying. It's actual proof that the system works.

Most importantly, it’s proof that I'm becoming the player I said I wanted to be.

Confidence + clarity = unstoppable.