There are so many ways to drop seeds. There are many ways to practice. BTW dandelions aren’t necessarily considered weeds in Japan.

If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you may know that I have hundreds of dollars in learning how to play guitar books.  I’ve been accumulating them for years, but not really using them.   I’ve also barely played guitar and I’ve stayed a beginner.  But I keep reading (and now writing) about the power of five minutes of daily practice.  (Thank you Khatzumoto, The Little Book of Talent, Talent is Overrated, Steve Chandler.  Love you guys. Muahhhh!)   Hey, what’s five minutes?  Even if I am tired, I can keep the mental wheels a little more greased and not lose the physical memory that’s important for playing an instrument.

But I still have those piles of guitar books.  I decided that I would go ahead and spend some time with them but just pulverize them into small digestible bits and see what happens.   Each morning, I find a two minute chunk of knowledge and record it into my samurai mind notebook.  (It’s just a notebook but it sounds cooler, doesn’t it?)  I decided to start with Theory for the Contemporary Guitarist because it seems like something that I could study when I am away from the guitar.

I am studying this slooooooowly.   But my philosophy is that by doing it a little digestible chunk, one little seed, at a time, I am doing a heck of a lot more than just letting the books gather dust.  Maybe in fifty years, I will get to The Advancing Guitarist.  For example, from March 14 to April 9th I studied one diagram of the fretboard and how it is notated.   Each day, I took one fret and wrote down either the notes or how they are notated musically.  Because it is in my notebook, and I use spaced repetition, I am actually going back to those facts repeatedly.

My method is simultaneously haphazard and methodical.  Sometimes I just glance at the notes on a particular fret, but I figure I am staying in the musical conversation.  The other day, I was watching a Jamplay lesson and found myself thinking, “he’s playing it in A.  What are the notes around there?) This is a thought that I wouldn’t have had without a little morning “seed pushing.”

But push needs to come to play.   After I go home and pick up the guitar and target a skill or tune for five or more minutes, I find that there is a guitar around my neck.   I give myself time to play, explore, and just fart around on the guitar.  Sometimes I use the new knowledge, sometimes I don’t.   But there is a little less dust on my guitar and guitar books.

Drop the seeds, plant the seeds, and play.

Time Limits are Actually Your Friend. Image from Jim at unprofound.com.

Somewhere across the work of Steve Chandler, I came across a saying, “You have three hours to live.  Two of them are gone.”   Of course, that “hour” could be another fifty years and I wish you a healthy and wonderful life.  This  could lead you to be depressed , panic or wake up to all the possibilities of the moment to create and learn.  I do all three just to cover my bases. 🙂

It’s funny that I woke up to the possibilities of time right as my children were born.  When I come home after an intense day of work, I do bath-time, help with dinner, read stories, change diapers blah, blah, blah.    I don’t come home and wonder how I will entertain myself.   Instead, I do what Toni Morrison did when she had small children.  I have become a morning samurai.  I leave the house an hour early and write, study Japanese and music, and cook other stuff up in my mad labs.   Having less time “to myself” put those hours at a premium so I value that time more.  You have three hours to live and two of them are gone.

A little Japanese math helped me on my way.   I am re-reading  “Each Day Thirty Minutes:  55 Study Techniques to Win in Life” or  「１日３０分」を続けなさい！人性勝利の勉強法５５　Learn to Win 古市幸雄　by Furuichi Yukio.  One of the simple but powerful things that stuck with me is about the power of steady small efforts.   He talks about avoiding becoming a “three day monk.”  (I was introduced to this phrase originally by alljapaneseallthetime.com). This is a Japanese idiom for someone who holes themselves up to study (cram) for long periods, usually after avoiding study.   That kind of studying leads to internal resistance to the idea of study, the idea that study is onerous, hard, and boring.  However,  thirty minutes a day adds up quickly, both in time, connections, results, and a generally positive attitude to learning.  This is more than a theory to me now.  I’ve learned and done so much more than when I used to be a “three day monk”:   WordPress, blog writing, reading Japanese, and now, in drips and drops, music.

Time limits don’t mean it’s time to panic and rush but rather that it’s time to “bring it home.” Image:  unprofound.com.

You have three hours to live and two of them are gone.  I was on the Jamplay website (awesome website for guitar–sign up through me and help a brother out).  Someone recommended a lecture by Kenny Werner, a jazz pianist.    This lecture is amazing and I plan on watching it more regularly.  It’s about how to become a better musician, but I think you could substitute any skill into what he is talking about, especially the importance of not hating yourself in the process of getting better.  Yet again, a difference voice talking about the power of the small and how even five minutes of practice can make a difference:

If you say ‘ I’m going to practice for 2 hours’ – then you don’t practice at all, because you’re waiting for 2 hours to come up. If you say ‘I’m going to practice for 5 minutes,” you’ll practice a lot.  Everytime you start for 5 minutes, before you know it is 45 minutes. So then you start to expect 45 minutes, and then you’re not practicing again. This is part of the reverse psychology.  So if you start saying, ‘there are many 5 minutes opportunities in my life, let me focus what I’m going to practice . . . It’ll feel good, because you’ll finally start to feel that you’re not a hostage to the external events in your life. You’re not alone.  We all empower the environment to affect us and it always will, but how much of it affects us is up to how we train ourselves.  Five minutes is always your way ‘in’, so instead of not practicing ( because of whatever excuse etc), practice 5 minutes.  You will be amazed and pleased with yourself, that now these things that come up in your life　are not blocking something you got going, something you got started. Everytime you do it, that 5 minutes is usually 10 or 15. 　So you are functioning, even in the face of resistance. ….Kenny Werner,  Jazz Pianist

You have three hours to live.  Two of them are gone.  Practice. Play.  Repeat.