Last night I saw a concert put on by Chris Botti and his ensemble. Prior to three days ago, I had not heard the man's name. I love all kinds of music and jazz is not necessarily at the top of my list. Nevertheless, I was blown away.
I played drums as a kid and one of the things that always struck me about drums is that people either can play or not. Lessons and practice develop the inherent talent, but not everyone has it in them to play. I have it in me to play.
The drummer in this group is Billy Kilson. I saw Billy do things with drums that I did not know was possible to do with drums. He is by far the best drummer I've ever seen or heard and I am a connoisseur of drummers.
At the end of the show, Chris spoke to a young musician in the audience who was learning to play the trumpet. His message to parents was this: the internet, playstation and guitar hero are not paths to greatness. Nurturing a child's capacity for "joyful repetition" is a path to greatness. It takes a long time to master anything and the only real way to stick with something is if I enjoy it.
The band is in its sixth straight year of doing 300 shows per year and yet every member of the group was full of joy.
Repetition usually means boredom for most people but this group was about as for away from bored as you can get.
It might be true that the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result", but it's also the definition of practice. True masters are those people who figure out how to enjoy practicing something.
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