To Be like Water, Take a Nap

0:57 What's good everybody?Welcome back to Love Music More.I am Scoobert Doobert here.Today I want to talk more about your brain.I want to talk about practice.Kind of the ways that, what am I talking about practice?That practice makes your body and your brainfundamentally different.And I think that the drums are the bestand most intense example of this.And I joked talking about,that we talk about practice, Allen Iverson thing

1:24 but I really think that there's a lot of parallelsbetween professional musicians and professional athletes.Not just the travel, not just the hotel roomsbut also the way that you practice with mind and body.So next week I think we're gonna releasean episode that I did with my buddy,Tommaso, incredible producer, drummerand we talked about the mechanics of learning the drums.And for me, it is the best example

1:52 of what learning an instrument really is.Because there is the mental componentof like I know what I want to do.Then there's the physical component of doing that thing.And then there's the mental componentof being skilled enough to understand where the delta was,where the gap between what you wanted to doversus what you did is.And that surprisingly can be the hardest part.It is simultaneously one of the ways

2:18 that I think that people are able to learn instrumentswhere if you don't know how bad you are,it's easier to play a lot when you're really bad.And it's one of the reasons why sometimes it's harderfor somebody that already has a good earto pick up an instrument.Because getting through that slog of the firstlike three, four months of just being badat whatever you're doing can kind of suckif you're hyper aware of it.

2:43 It's also the consideration of you cannot fixwhat you cannot recognize.And that's where a mentor or your ear kind of come in.So practice is constantly that expressionof getting as far into the danger zone,the place outside of your comfort zoneas you possibly can while still tryingto stay within the realms of what you understand.So for drums, I have a really good ear for drums.I program a lot of drums.

3:12 I've worked with a ton of amazing drummers.And then I sit down at the kit.I know exactly what I wanna play.I know how to compose for the drum kit.This is an interesting thing.Composers run into this all the timewhere they will maybe know a little bit of French hornand they'll know how to write a hellof a French horn part.But then it's like, okay, now play the partthat you had in your head, impossible.

3:34 It's a funny place to be.And it's kind of a crappy place to be.You really wanna get out of thatas much as you possibly can.And luckily I don't write for a full orchestra.I write for the pop ensemble.So like I wanna be able to play percussionand guitar and synthesizer and bass and drumsand maybe a few other little things.But like that's kind of the core, right?I wanna be able to sing.

3:53 So if I can do that, maybe saxophone,really bad saxophone, but if I can do that,then I'm happy and I kind of have the abilityto at least communicate with all of those musiciansat a higher level.For drums, I swear your entire bodylike needs to be rewired.Like if you've ever played pianoand tried to do two things with your two handsand then drums, obviously you have to do somethingwith all of your different limbs.

4:20 And it is brutally apparent when you're drifting,especially if you're playing along with a metronome,which is why a lot of younger musicianshate playing along with a metronomeand pretty much every professional musicianloves playing with a metronome.It's a measuring stick.It's a unforgiving tutor.And with drums, you aren't just trying to stay on beat.You are trying to determine the beat.

4:46 So the metronome is supposed to be playinglike a percussionist to you, not you to it.And that can be really hard too,especially for me, because I come from guitarwhere naturally like my place in the musicalkind of like layout is kick drum happensand then bass and guitar happen.It's like we're followers.We're not really supposed to be leadingwith a few exceptions, but very rarely

5:17 are we supposed to be the one that's hittingbefore the drums hit.So when you flip to the drummer chair,you're not only having to play with the clickin a different way.Like you have a different relationship to the metronome.You also have a different relationshipto the rest of the band, to the music itself.And you need to be confident enoughand quick enough and steady enoughthat that doesn't oscillate.

5:40 Like it's really hard too.This is still something that I have trouble withto be able to play something pretty much the same wayin the same groove for three minutes on endwithout randomly speeding up or slowing down at any point.Like on guitar, it's kind of cool to do that.It's kind of cool to have a little bit of swamp.In the drums, it can be, but for like most of the time

6:03 you want at the very least the option to be rock steady.That can be really hard.Same thing with bass.It can be really, really difficultto play the simplest thing,the steadiest possible way for four or five minutes straight.Like you'll start to cramp up.You'll start to have weird muscles that'll be engaged.Like just move your fingers.Feel all of the different just up and down.Feel all of the different little tendons

6:25 and muscles and things that are coordinatingyour hand, your forearm and your elbowall the way up to your shoulder.This is a whole set of little,like if you picture yourself like a marionette,things that you're having to trainand you're trying to get it so that your braincan influence your fingers, your fingerscan influence your brainand you don't really have to think about it anymore.

6:47 Same thing with the professional athlete.Like when they're running drillsthe reason why they're doing drills and footworkand NBA players are greatbecause you'll see them do a very complex setof dribble move, pivot, reverse, fall away, shoot.Like all of that and then you thinkabout all the little tiny fast twitch musclesthat have to be involved in order to go forward,go backwards, pause, turn, elevate, shoot.

7:17 Like that is a whole body momentum kind of crazy thingthat they're training their body to doand they start very slowand they work their way up very fastand then the next thing you knowthey're doing in a game in full speedwithout thinking about itand we're trying to do the exact same thingwith music on guitar, it's much more like subtlebut on drums it's a great way to look at it

7:39 because it's like the loudest possible exampleof you are hitting a physical thingwith another physical thing,like the mechanics of a drumstickto still not great at itbut the way to get something so rigid to be fluidand to be able to make it so that you can do less workbecause you're using momentum and repetitionto your benefit.All of that stuff is so easy to conceptualizeand so hard to do

8:09 and my biggest secret, the thing that's helped me the mostis taking napsand this is something I have not had enough timeto do recentlybut I look forward to the day where I will againwhere if you can practice even for 30 minutesjust shedding the exact same thinglike practice one thing for 30 minutesthen go take a nap and then go practice it againfor another like 15 minutesthe, I don't know what goes on in your brain

8:37 but something especially with mind body connectionlike those neurons or whatever's gotta haveyou know, grown in thereit really happens during sleepand the people that I knowthat take the most naps are NFL and NBA playersthey take so many napsbut I think this is whyis they'll wake up in the morningthey'll do drills, they'll work out, they'll take a napand they'll go and they'll do something else

9:00 and they'll take a nap and then it's game timebut those naps, I think LeBron takeslike two or three naps a daybut those naps are the secret to the longevityand the secret to really getting a conceptinto your brainin the same way like if you're studying for a testnaps can be amazing ways, even short napsto just crystallize and connect thingswhere if you just grind it on something for another hour

9:25 versus took an hour of sleepafter grinding on it enoughI think that the person that sleeps is gonna do betterand I'm not just talking about like get your eight hoursI'm talking about like really considering sleepand napping as part of the training processbecause if you can practice, nap, practice, sleepyou're gonna wake up the next morningyou're going to be way better at itthan if you just grind it all day

9:52 and I don't quite know whybut there's something really magical to itespecially in the mind-body connection stuffmight not be the same for like rote memorizationor other things that just are a function of timebut if you need to internalize somethingif you need to become not just someonethat plays the drums but to become a drummerthe only way to do that is day after day after daybut I would reframe it

10:18 it's sleep after sleep after sleepand you need to signal to your brainin the same way that like working out does thiswhere working out lifting weightsis not necessarily just lift all the timeand then you'll be strongit's you need to signal to your bodythat you need it to gain muscleand so you're like the bodybuilding people that I knowlisten to some podcastseven though I'm not very strong but yeah I try

10:47 but they talk about it like dosingI guess maybe that's their steroid socketbut they talk about it in terms ofthese workouts aren't necessarily the thingthat makes you strongit is the recovery in betweenand the message that you're sending to your bodythat you need it to get strongand I very much find the same parallels in musicit is not necessarily the act of practicingit is the act of telling your body

11:15 you better figure this outthis is very important to meand then giving it the ability through sleepto figure it outyou keep dosing ityou keep telling it hey noI really really need to be able to play 16th notesat 170 BPMI really really need to be able to do thatover timeit's not just a matter of when you get betterit's easier to kind of like shortcutor figure something out quicker

11:44 but just even like the act of figuring outis a thing that you can practiceand in the beginningI think that's one of the best waysto overcome frustrationwhere if you're just trying to brute for somethingyou're not going with the flowthere's this thing called Wu Weilike be like waterand I think that with musical practiceyou need to have the intentionalityand the focus and the logic and the framework

12:15 you also need to have the oppositethe yin and the yang kind of thingof how do I let it come to meand my best answergo take a napif you want to listen to my musicmaybe relax a little bit before you fall asleepand go to scoobertdoobert.pizzaif you enjoyed this podcastI invite you to share it with your friendsrated five starsand I'll see you next weekI think that we're going to be talking with Tommaso

12:39 and we'll pick up this conversationfrom the eyes of a drummerthat's a lot better than I amhope you enjoy thisand I will see you next week