Graham English
Songwriter, Recording Artist, and Blogging Musician
Songwriter, Recording Artist, and Blogging Musician
Rescue time is an application that has become very important to my weekly GTD review. It’s helping me put some metrics to my writing goals. Read on…
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. Read on…
The Collaborative Piano Blog started 31 days to better practicing on October 1st. I’m only just finding it but so far it looks like some really good advice. It would probably go well with my schedule to turbocharge your practicing.
Topics covered: The pleasure of finding things out, Richard Feynman, Dr. Kurt Fischer, dynamic skill theory, developmental levels, adult learning, ear training, and much more…
Most repetitive tasks are energy sucks. Opening the same web pages every day, clicking our way around the cybersphere, answering the same questions to our customers, all of these tasks are relatively low-value and cumulatively add up to a large chunk of our lives. The 80/20 rule tells us that 20% of the things we [...]
Topics covered: Learning absolute pitch, your motives, absolute pitch disinformation, motivation to learn absolute pitch, and more.
My previous attempt at a time-tracking script worked well for a while. But I wanted something that was self-contained so I could share it with my friends and coworkers. I also wanted to cut down on key strokes.
I’m into systems. I love figuring out how to get from point A to point B and then optimizing the process as efficiently as possible. Better yet, I love being able to turn a system on and not have to think about it again.
This is one of those systems. I’m an entrepreneur. I don’t have [...]
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 straining.” And I can understand why if it’s something that you feel forced [...]
Given enough time, it’s inevitable that you will figure out what you are hearing. But what about knowing what you hear in the moment? For this, you must practice speed.
You can practice speed whenever you hear a song on the radio, when you’re at your instrument, or just in your head. The key is to [...]
In this series, I’ll do my best to help you understand what it takes to be an excellent musician and give you as many techniques as I can to take you to the top.
You’re about to see two sides of me. One side is called tough love. That side of me is here to challenge [...]
Here’s the story. About two years ago I was at a Halloween party and it was off the hook. The dance floor was packed and I was tearing it up. You know, back in the day, I was a pretty good break dancer. So when the dance circle formed, I was first to glide into [...]
There is a common misconception that “things” can be boring. You may find doing your taxes boring. But some people find it riveting. Therefore, we can’t say that doing taxes is boring. “It” is not boring. Then what part of that sentence or thought is boring? It is the person doing the thinking that is [...]
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 musicians. Yet only rarely, according to Gladwell, do child musical prodigies manage to make the [...]
…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 need to find those things that you are weak at and that [...]
Topics covered: The art and craft of absolute pitch hearing.
Joe Hyams author of Zen in the Martial Arts tells us what a dojo is:
A dojo is a miniature cosmos where we make contact with ourselves–our fears, anxieties, reactions and habits. it is an arena of confined conflict where we confront an opponent who is not an opponent but rather a partner engaged in helping [...]
Learning to hear with absolute pitch requires both talent and tenacity. Little talent? Tenacity can help get you there. But if you lack tenacity, then you won’t even have the desire to learn. But focus on the reasons why you want to hear with absolute pitch and you will develop the muscles of tenacity and [...]
From Mind Hacks:
All abilities are skills; practice something and your brain will devote more resources to it.
Brain scanning of musicians has shown that they have larger cortical representations of the body parts they use to play their instruments in their sensory areas — more neurons devoted to finger movements among guitarists, more neurons devoted to [...]
Sit in a public place where you can see and hear other people interacting (restaurants or coffee shops are perfect). Watch their interactions and try to determine from their nonverbal communication the subject matter of their interactions. Does the interaction change over time? What behavior are they displaying? Is it loving, angry irritated, flirtatious, or [...]
about grahamI'm a songwriter and recording artist who sings, plays keyboards, and explores the vast world of sound hoping to find some magical moments along the way. I'm also a Mac geek.
If Heroes needed a new superhero, it would be Montage Man. He can speed things up and add a catchy tune. 1 day ago
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