Journal · Practice
Same Destination, Different Paths
Some musicians grow up inside the music. Others fall in love with a drum from the other side of the world. Each can arrive at deep musicianship — but not by walking the same road.
Musicianship has one law and many roads. The mileage must be gained — how you gain it is your path.
In order to attain a deep level of musicianship, one thing is for certain. You need to gain a high mileage — with the instrument, and with fellow musicians. There is simply no way to reach a high level without that mileage. It is literally the laws of nature at play: you need enough time exposed to the cycles, to the songs, to accompaniment, for the pathways to form in your brain and in your spirit.
Attaining that mileage, however, can be done in different ways.
If you are born into a family of musicians, or into a culture where music is all around you — where you find yourself listening, and then playing the drums, at community gatherings and family events — a great deal of the knowledge is absorbed simply through those experiences. Listening and playing from a young age teaches you all the things a metronome would never tell you. You are drinking directly from the cultural context. It is an amazing musical privilege.
These musicians often reach deep musicianship without ever needing to develop a strong practice discipline — simply because the music is made with other people. It is a communal thing, not a private thing learned inside a room.
And that is the catch. Practice discipline is not just a generator of metronome work — technique and the other “dry” elements. The practice can be a ceremony of curiosity and exploration: a constant engagement with the things that lie beyond your comfort zone and beyond your known territory — which is, in itself, an extremely fertile and potent place to be.
And so musicians who grow only on external stimulation often end up plateauing, stuck inside their comfort zone — usually the cultural style that surrounds them — without the ability to stretch the borders and innovate themselves into new places.
Those who want to keep evolving will have to find that independent space of exploration — the one that helps them break through the limitations of the culture around them.
Listening and playing from a young age teaches you all the things a metronome would never tell you.
On the other side, a person can fall in love with music — or with an instrument — at a later age, without the privilege of being surrounded by the culture. There are many stories like this: falling in love with a musical tradition from another part of the world through recordings and videos — falling in love with a drum, only to discover that not many people play it where you live.
In this case, you carry the responsibility to gain that mileage independently. You must create a routine that allows you to play regularly, so the laws of nature can do their work. For these players, the practice ceremony is not a luxury — it is everything. There is simply no other way to make enough progress.
But here is the important thing. The danger is that the practice routine will focus on technique alone, and lose the broader musical context. These players often end up with a bunch of finger rolls and zero knowledge of music. The routine wants to cover as many aspects of music as possible — because practicing only technique skips, entirely, the knowledge of playing with other people. And that ability is uncompromisingly crucial. It is the backbone of every musical culture. It simply cannot be ignored.
So what should you do if you don’t have fellow musicians to play with? At the beginning, play with the music itself. Try to immerse yourself in the music you are playing with, as if you are part of the band — play what you would play if this were a rehearsal. And as your abilities grow, eventually you will have to create that environment around you, or move yourself to it.
And a word about the teacher — because it belongs to every one of these paths. Much of what we are speaking about here — the broader context, the language, the map beyond your known territory — is exactly what a good teacher carries. If you grew up inside the culture, a teacher sharpens and stretches what the culture has already given you. And if you fell in love from afar, the teacher is often your closest living link to the tradition itself — the one who makes sure your routine covers the music, and not only the fingers.
And there is another path that deserves to be acknowledged. Some people fall in love with an instrument and do not see it as a communal thing at all. For them it is a self-exploration — a passion, a personal quest. That path exists, and it is a real one. In that case, you need to envision where you want that quest to take you — and make sure you are taking the right steps towards it.
Wherever you are on that spectrum, there is always a path waiting for you to walk on. Ask yourself, often, about the destination you envision — and make sure you are taking the right steps towards it.
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