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1,000-Hour/5,000-Hour Model For Songwriting Success

May 20, 2008 By Graham English

The concept is this: To be a good, competent songwriter, it will take 1,000 hours of practice. If you want to be a great songwriter, it will take 5,000 hours. Winners are made, not born. So forget about talent. Talent is a gift for … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: deliberate practice, expertise, inspiration, motivation, peak performance, Practice, Songwriting, talent

Applying The 80-20 Rule To Your Songwriting

March 22, 2007 By Graham English

I'm finding more and more that what stops songwriters from finishing songs isn't a lack of good ideas but a misdirection of songwriting focus. Based on the comments I receive, musicians are spending more time on tasks that do little to move the song … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: 80/20 rule, copyright, deliberate practice, GTD, lyric writing, melody, Songwriting, songwriting process, songwriting tips, time-management, writing lyrics

Ear Training or Listening Practice?

March 15, 2007 By Graham English

You can make ear training something you do once in a while or you can make it part of who you are. That's the difference between ear training and a listening practice. Ear training has often been half-jokingly, half-seriously referred to as "ear … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: deliberate practice, Ear Training, ear training exercises, EarTrainingHacks, exercises, listening, listening practice, listening skills, musical vocabulary, Practice, Practicing, unconditional listening

Precocious Predictions – Debunking The Mozart Myth

October 21, 2006 By Graham English

This article by Eric Wargo was inspired by an address Malcolm Gladwell gave at this year's Association for Psychological Science Convention. To be a prodigy in music, for example, is to be a mimic, to reproduce what you hear from grown-up … [Read more...]

Filed Under: LifeHacks, Prose Tagged With: deliberate practice, Malcolm Gladwell, Mozart, Practice, practice schedule, prodigy

Experts on Expertise — Practice Makes Perfect

October 8, 2006 By Graham English

...the key to dramatic improvement in any field is -- that's right -- practice. But, it has to be what Ericsson calls "deliberate practice." "A lot of people like to do things that they're already good at, but what deliberate practice says is you … [Read more...]

Filed Under: LifeHacks, Music Education, Prose Tagged With: deliberate practice, expertise, Practice, practice schedule

Turbocharge Your Practicing

July 13, 2006 By Graham English

A practice schedule is an important part of your musical development. My sax teacher, Nathan Davis, used to tell me, "Go without practicing one day, and you know. Go without practicing two days, your friends will know. Go without three days, and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Music Education, Prose Tagged With: arpeggios, breathing, confidence, deliberate practice, goals, GTD, harmonics, LifeHacks, musical development, MusicHacks, Nathan Davis, overtones, Practice, practice schedule, Practicing, saxophone, technique

How To Be An Expert

March 5, 2006 By Graham English

From: How to be an expert The only thing standing between you-as-amateur and you-as-expert is dedication. All that talk about prodigies? We could all be prodigies (or nearly so) if we just put in the time and focused. At least that's what the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: LifeHacks, Music Education, Prose Tagged With: Absolute Pitch, Absolute Pitch Power, brain, challenge, deliberate practice, expertise, flow, genius, MusicHacks, passion, peak performance, performance, Practice, Psychology

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Graham is a singer/songwriter and jazz-trained keyboard player, music producer and studio musician, best-selling author of Logic Pro X For Dummies, and serial entrepreneur.

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