Shakazulu

Life purpose mastery/time management

6 posts in this topic

They say whatever you wish to master should be practiced for atleast four hours daily- 80/20 principle states eighty percent of results is from twenty percent effort 

im on the road to mastering songwriting, so in my four hour practice I balance songwriting and theory e.g: 2 hours song writing, 1 hour studying rhyme theory, another studying the motion of lyrics. My focus is on the important skills that produce results. I do this system three times a week. Is writing songs for four hours considered real " practice " 

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What are other songwriters doing? I feel like if your practice is aligned with theirs or similar to it, it would be considered real practice. 

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@Shakazulu

When it comes to mastery, you want to be way more serious about your practice, than with anything else. I think, being very serious is at the core of what qualifies an activity as a practice.

Think of it like this, if you want to master sushi making, just making sushi for 4h a day wouldn't be considered real practice. A sushi apprentice usually spends at least 1 year just practicing to wash and boil the rice. Nothing else. Then another year of learning how to sharpen the knives, then another year of preparing and cutting all the ingrdients. It might take him over 3 years, before he will assemble his first sushi.

The trick is to break your practice down as much as possible. If you really want to master something, it is very important, that you give yourself the space and time to investigate every little minutia of your craft. Get into the specifics and grind it out.

So in a sense your 2h +1h + 1h approach seems like a great start, but really push your to get into those details. Don't just spend 2h with general songwriting, but maybe spend 2h experimenting how changing one single chord from major to minor affects the energy and tension in the first part of the chorus of your song. Or spend 2h just messing and experimenting with the speed of a single part of your song. You get the point. Take nothing for granted, experiment with everything and really grind out the details.

I am mastering playing the drums and sometimes I practice a single rhythm at 30bpm for over 30min (not to brag), without stopping or changing, focusing on absolute consistency and accuracy. My point is: practice is about pushing the limits of your skill and your ability to concentrate. Pushing your limits is the only way, you will get better. If your practice feels easy, your not really practicing. ;)

A word on theory: learning the theory is also about learning to apply the theory as effortlessly as possible. You want to be able to not have to think about the theory while you're using is. This is especially important for domains like art and music that are more right brain emotional type of activities. Music, that is based totally on the application of music theory sounds like theory. It won't be moving people emotionally. Yet knowing the theory and being able to apply it is important. And what's even more important is to know, when you should forget about the theory. ;)

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@Slade definitely gonna do some more research and build something better, thanks 

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@TimStr holy shit, you've given me a whole different perspective on training. I thank you. Your system sounds quite impressive, hats off. Btw- do you believe in synethesia? (Sound and colours ) 

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@Shakazulu

I think, there are two types of synesthesia:

The first one is purely methaphorical. Talking about melodies and harmonies as having a certain colour to discribe the feeling that one associates with them. I think, this is somewhat  common among musicians to talk about music like that.

The second one is the experiential obliteration of the difference between sound of color, so that one sees a sound as a certain shade or colour. I have never experienced this personally, but I heard, that this can be achieved by using certain psychedelics like the 2C-x family of phenetylamines.

https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Synaesthesia

I would love to experience this some time. Having your physical senses blend together must be one of the greatest mindfucks possible. :D

Edited by TimStr

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