Failure Is The New L.A...

Have you worked on your FAIL today?

Sure, alot of times it is the best that succeed. But you know what I find? Most of the "best" are really just the most persistent that kept at it until they were perceived by the rest of the world as the "best". Thomas Edison was the best...and he was also the most persistent...and he was one of the biggest failures ever...he failed thousands of times...and you know what he said when asked how it felt to fail at something over 10,000 times?

"I didn't fail 10,000 times, I simply discovered 10,000 ways that it wouldn't work."

So he was the best...and the most persistent...but I guess if you look at it in that light (no pun intended) he was also a FAILURE.

Hmmmm...

I think this pertains to drumming and music in the biggest way...

What else are we doing with our practice time? We find something that we are failing at (i.e. single strokes, funk grooves, stick twirling...you know, the important stuff...) and then we set about fixing the FAIL.

Do you know how long it took me to play 5 over 4 smoothly? MONTHS! And what was the payoff you might ask? When I started I had no clue...I just knew I had heard something in my head, couldn't play it, and that needed to be fixed. After I established that I could in fact play 5 over 4, it was only then that I realized what it had done for me. All of a sudden my subdivisions were coming easier to me...the ones we use all of the time... My independence was going through the roof...my thinking was more precise and accurate...

I've used 5 over 4 in a playing situation maybe four times in the 5 years since I learned how to play it...but who cares. I took something that I FAILED at and turned it into something that I was good at...only after I did that could I see the applications available to me for using it. Do you think that Edison knew all of the applications for the light bulb when he made it? Absolutely not! He just thought it would be cool to have some safe light once the sun went down!

We all too often see failure as a negative, and I'm suggesting that you start to view that word in the positive category. Once you FAIL you know what needs work...

ALMOST EVERY GREAT SUCCESS IN LIFE WAS PRECEEDED BY A FAILURE.

If you know of one that wasn't, please enlighten me.

You don't really have to be the best..you just have to be the most persistent. Persistence takes alot more time...and patience...and planning...and waiting...and work...

Being the best is hard too, but give me a decent player with lots of FAIL in their past and a killer work ethic anyday over a GREAT one with a lackluster approach to life, a lethargic nature, and no FAIL.

So go ahead...why don't you go FAIL at something today? It would be alot more interesting and productive than spitting out some garbage you've been rehearsing for the past 4 years...to be the best you have to make yourself the worst...you have to push yourself to the places you haven't been...

YOU HAVE TO GET BETTER AT YOUR FAIL!!!

I've got a few new rudiments that I need to go FAIL at for a while actually...