On June 22, 2009, I started the 10,000 hours of practice project. 365 days into it, here are the stats and some reflections after the break on a year of monitoring my practice.
Read on for reviews of the five books below, including the possible discovery of an historical artifact and a fun music listening test!
The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, by Edward Tufte Priceless, by William Poundstone Brain Rules, by John Medina The Ethics of Authenticity, by Charles Taylor Virtual Music, by David Cope
I’ve recently returned from a visit to Vermont to see my sister and her family and to teach taiko at Robinson Elementary School in Starksboro. The kids did a great job — in 4 hours they learned the basics of rhythm and “kuchishouga”, the verbal teaching system for Japanese music. They came up with a fun little dance as you’ll see in the video above.
I got to see my sister teach one of her high school classes which proved for me a much-needed refresher course on the basic English sentence types. Thank you, Nicki!
I met with an inspiring farmer, Michael, who is raising three cows for his own food and talked to him about using the skins for taiko. Taiko skins are the one non-vegan thing I consume. I’m horrified by the torture that animals undergo in the commercial beef industry so I’ve been searching for a source of skins that allows me to verify the cows have been raised ethically. Michael plans to slaughter his animals in about six weeks and doesn’t have any plans to use two of the three skins. I now have a lot to learn about preparing skins, but hopefully I can find a way to put these cows’ skins to good use.
And last but not least, my brother-in-law, Dan and I, along with his close friend Brent, made maple syrup from scratch! Strangely, the experience felt somehow Japanese to me; the connection to nature and the season, working at a relaxed pace in the quaint, hand-made shed (called a sugar shack) with the sweet smell of the syrup. It was wonderful!
Thank you to all these friends in Vermont. I’ve returned to LA feeling energized… and a bit sticky!
For the next 10 days, I will average more than two hours of concentrated, taiko practice per day.
My shamisen teacher was in town last week (videos coming soon!) for 10 days of non-stop nagauta, the music of Kabuki. While I made huge strides in my shamisen playing, I’ve neglected my daily taiko practice. See the pitiful amount of purple (personal practice) toward the end of the graph below? How sad! Working toward my goal of 10,000 hours of practice, I’m trying to average at least an hour a day. So I’ve got a bit of catching up to do.
Due to the way I calculate my practice time, two hours is actually more like four hours at the drums. And because I have appointments over the next week, I’ll have to aim for more than four hours most days to keep my average up. I’m stating this publicly with the hopes it’ll help me stay on track.
If you see me between now and Feb 2, tell me to stop chatting/skateboarding/whatever and to get drumming. If anyone else wants to practice, let me know! Strength in numbers!
At the beginning of the month I participated in Pilgrim School’s “Golden Week”, an intense week of Japanese culture classes for students kindergarten through high school.
JATV visited my class and did a short segment on the whole program. More after the break…
I assembled a set of Five Fish preamps for Shoji and they turned out really well! The preamps sound fantastic and thanks to the high quality of the kit and the great support offered by Five Fish, the build process was very enjoyable. Here’s a time-lapse video of the construction! Photos and a review of the kit follows the break…
It’s been a little over a year since I committed myself to publishing things in blog format… and what a treat it’s been! Thank you to everyone for the encouraging comments and feedback!
