It has been suggested that each of us is the answer to some problem that exists in the world. And in solving this problem and reshaping the world in some personally meaningful way, we are most likely to find success and personal satisfaction.
Indeed, this is how a headhunter would coach you to present yourself in an interview. You are not there to find out if the employer likes you or not, or if they think you could do the job or not. You are there to describe the specific problem you see the company having, and offer to solve this particular problem with your unique vision and set of skills and abilities. A much more confidant stance, no?
So this raises an interesting question. What problems in the world are musicians uniquely qualified to solve?
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Did you know that if you eliminate one can of soda per day from your diet and change nothing else, you will have lost about 15 lbs. by this time next year?
Or that if every household in the US replaced one 60-watt light bulb with a CFL bulb, the energy saved would power all the homes in Delaware and Rhode Island?
That’s nice, but what’s your point?
My point is that tiny changes, over time (or multiplied by large numbers) can lead to some pretty big results. Indeed, it is often the seemingly insignificant or trivial details that separate good from great.
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How much time per day we should spend practicing for optimal performance is a popular point of discussion. But when was the last time you had a conversation with another musician about how much time per day we should spend sleeping for optimal performance?
According to sleep researchers such as James Maas of Cornell University, optimal mental and physical performance is not going to happen when we are in a sleep-deprived state. In other words, we are failing to tap into our potential, and unable to play or perform at the level we are capable of reaching, if we are not getting enough sleep. And believe it or not, the vast majority of us would be classified as sleep-deprived. In fact, most of us don’t even know what it feels like to be fully awake.
So how many hours does the average person need to be capable of peak performance?
I’ll tell you in a minute, but first, how can we tell if we are sleep deprived or not?
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Trick question! As far as I’m concerned, we are all natural performers (and no, that’s not me being corny and overly optimistic).
Wait – stop rolling your eyes, stay with me for a moment. Observe a young child. Pay attention to how uninhibited they are. Ever notice how freely they express themselves without fear of saying the wrong thing, or doing the wrong thing? Case in point, my four-year old can’t carry a tune, but hams it up like a rock star and actually asks me to capture his performances on video.
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In Part I of this post, I suggested that we owe it to ourselves and our audiences to be able to answer the question “Why should someone pay to hear me play?” I also intimated that we are all capable of answering this question, finding our niche, and becoming “irreplaceable.” Naturally, that leads us to the question of how…
