I remember I was practicing a lot at Berklee College of Music. Like, really, a lot. 10, 12 hours a day. I Always had to rush in the late evening to make sure I wouldn’t miss the last train to get to my girlfriend. It was right then that I printed the drum set into my DNA. I was more than obsessed, I was possessed! All day long I was thinking in variation of drums, drums, drums.
I would be on the kit almost all the time and still lament that I didn’t do enough. I would come to my teachers and complain that I wasn’t sure I could do the assignments they had given me. Of course, I could, just not up to the impossible standards I had. Yes, because the more crazy you feed, the more crazy you become, if you catch my drift.
In a sense, though, I was right: I could have done a better job at practicing. Just like that French Vibe player.
He was more than a phenomenon, to me he was a reference. The very one I still try to attain today.
That guy would practice with a clock. Should he stop for any reason, he would slam the clock and stop it in the same movement. He would do 8 hours per day. On the clock! And he would practice desperately slow. I think I already describe how he was going about it in another blog so I won’t do it again. I am not sure, as I am thinking about it now, how I felt about the guy at the time. Envious? Yes, definitely, I wanted to be like him. Curious? Yes, because that was weird. Mad? Absolutely, how dare he come to the great school of Berklee and show us all how studying should be done. There was nobody else so discipline so, rigorous, so magnificent, so efficient in his practice. Yes, I was mad.
He filled his eight hours per day by going slow, by accepting that he would have to repeat a motion 500 times in order to be able to do it in his sleep. It was brilliantly simple!
Ok, new resolution: watch me now, off I go, I’m going to do 8 hours of practice. But wait, I can’t because of reason A, B, C, D… I’ll be lucky to squeeze 3 hours. Oh well, I’ll do some practice, and live with the shame of knowing I haven’t done enough.
