I’ve burned past my 10,000 hours of practice on the saxophone. Now I’m practicing turning and have found that a lot of things I’ve learned from practicing music are just as valuable at the lathe; here are a few.
Noodling around is productive practice time. We can discover weird and wonderfull things when we are not trying to make a finished piece…. When was the last time you chucked something up and just turned for the sake of seeing what comes…?
If I have any chance of finding something uniquely my own in woodturning, I’m not likely going to discover it by thinking and planning: I’ll stumble onto it by cutting wood and watching closely for what happens — noodling.
Practice more than you perform. When I’m turning, I’m alone physically, but in my mind I usually have a gallery of ghosts with me: my Dad, all the great turners whose work I admire, and especially my Mom who is an inspirational artist of unlimited media. When I find myself turning in front of this audience, I just don’t do nearly the quality of work that I do when I imagine that I might show them my piece when it’s done. This approach also helps me go more slowly.
Lastly, the famous jazz drummer Art Blakey used to tell his students, “Don’t practice when you don’t want to!”
As apocryphal as it sounds, sometimes the best way to be productive is to step away from the work. Don’t berate yourself when you hear that inner voice say, “time for a break.” You can always come back when you’re hungry for it.
Noodling around is productive practice time. We can discover weird and wonderfull things when we are not trying to make a finished piece…. When was the last time you chucked something up and just turned for the sake of seeing what comes…?
If I have any chance of finding something uniquely my own in woodturning, I’m not likely going to discover it by thinking and planning: I’ll stumble onto it by cutting wood and watching closely for what happens — noodling.
Practice more than you perform. When I’m turning, I’m alone physically, but in my mind I usually have a gallery of ghosts with me: my Dad, all the great turners whose work I admire, and especially my Mom who is an inspirational artist of unlimited media. When I find myself turning in front of this audience, I just don’t do nearly the quality of work that I do when I imagine that I might show them my piece when it’s done. This approach also helps me go more slowly.
Lastly, the famous jazz drummer Art Blakey used to tell his students, “Don’t practice when you don’t want to!”
As apocryphal as it sounds, sometimes the best way to be productive is to step away from the work. Don’t berate yourself when you hear that inner voice say, “time for a break.” You can always come back when you’re hungry for it.
