I Drove Away: (new track with MP3)

Friday was one of those nights when nothing was going right and I didn't want to talk to anyone. So after going to Eastman to record some improvised piano over a click track, I came home and locked myself in my room to see what I could do with it. First I spent about an hour trying to figure why my beat software wasn't working right. (I think it's working now, but I still don't totally know what happened)  But around 10pm things started rolling.

Perhaps I'm making this sound too dramatic. But the music that came out was intriguing. And in less than 24 hours (including sleep) the track went from not existing at all, to being completely recorded and mixed. How's that for progress? If I didn't have a job, you might think that I could write and record an album from scratch in just two weeks. Crazier things have been done, I suppose.

As for the track itself, it is too moody. It is piano-driven, and with any piano-driven pop track you run the risk of the "cheesy factor."  I'm not sure why this is.  The piano is one of the most beloved instruments ever, but when not used correctly, can sound cheesier than other instruments might sound when playing the same chords. So I tried to mitigate the "cheesy factor" by creating strange electronic dissonances and using Mammut to create a menacing soundscape in the introduction and conclusion. Since the introduction and conclusion are played in free time without a click track, it was a bit tricky to overdub instruments on top. You might notice rhythmic inconsistencies as a result. Just try not to be bothered.

Here it is:

On Free Throw Percentage and Franz Liszt

        

People who know me know that my favorite sport is basketball. I've recently begun going to a court near my house and one day I was practicing my free throws and I thought about the process behind it. A few things came to mind:

1. There is very little variability in the task of shooting free throws. The height of the basket never changes, and the distance from free throw line to the basket never changes. The weight of the ball may vary slightly from case to case, but in an ideal world, this would not be so.
2. Due to the task having so little variability, it would seem that deliberate practice would improve one's effectiveness. Inversely, if the rules suddenly changed and stated that the free throw line must move arbitrarily between shots, then one could hypothesize that it would now be more difficult to practice the task of free throw shooting because the new variable would make the task less repeatable.
3. Free throw shooting is not a task which requires or benefits from creative thinking. In other words, there are no shortcuts to becoming a good free throw shooter, except deliberate practice.
4. You are only competing against yourself. There is no defense on free throw attempts, and it is impossible for the other team to somehow outmaneuver you into becoming a worse free throw shooter.¹
5. For some reason, free throw percentage varies greatly among professional basketball players. Shaquille O'Neal converted approximately 50% of his free throws,² whereas Ray Allen has a free throw percentage around 90%. Most players fall somewhere in between.

Now there seems to be a disconnect between item 5 and the premises that are established in items 1 through 4. Item 5 suggests that it is clearly possible for a person to shoot a free throw percentage of 90%, and items 2 and 3 would seem to imply that the best way to get there is through deliberate practice. Shaq no doubt could have improved his team's effectiveness considerably if he had put in the deliberate practice required to master the task of free throw shooting. So how do you explain his poor percentage? Perhaps Shaq considered his own value as a player to be so high that his poor free throw shooting was inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.³ (This would certainly shed some light on his defiant reaction: “I make them when they count.”⁴

It might be better instead to consider marginal players who are also poor free throw shooters. For some players, free throw percentage could mean the difference between staying in the league and washing out for being too big of a liability to ever make it into the game in clutch situations. Or put more succinctly, it could be the difference between being a millionaire and not being one. And if one can become better at free throws simply by practicing them more, and not by some other factor outside of one's control (such as height), then it stands to reason that no marginal players should be poor free throw shooters because the risks of poor free throw shooting are too high from a career standpoint. But for some reason, such players do exist. Louis Amundson is a good example, who has only started seven games in a seven year career, while scoring just 4.0 points per game and shooting an abysmal 45.5% from the line.⁵ Poor free throw percentage is a serious liability for Amundson, and it would seem that this would be the element of his game it would be easiest to improve. So why doesn't he? After all, as far as basketball-related tasks go, free throw shooting is less complex and more repeatable than, say, figuring out how to drive to the hoop against a seven-foot-tall human being (a task which clearly fails item 4 above).

To highlight this problem, consider an example from the musical world. A couple of years ago I saw the Philadelphia Orchestra perform Piano Concerto No. 2 by Franz Liszt. The name of the soloist escapes me now. I'm sure I could find out his name if I did enough Googling, but for the sake of this post, I actually prefer to leave him anonymous as a subtle commentary on the lack of respect we give to classical musicians. Needless to say, the performance was totally lights out. I cannot think of another musical performance I have heard that had such speed and precision. This leads me to another set of points, which parallel the ones I laid out above.

1. There is very little variability in the task of performing Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2. The score never changes. Any variability is actually introduced by the performer for the sake of artistic interpretation. But any musician knows that artistic interpretation is best applied when you already have complete command of the piece on a technical level. Furthermore the level of precision required to memorize and reproduce an entire piano concerto would seem to be higher than the level of precision required to make, say, 80% of one's free throws.
2. There is not really any debate that deliberate practice increases one's effectiveness at performing a piano concerto. Just like the example of the moving free throw line, the concerto would be more difficult to master if, for some reason, the notes written on the page changed before every performance. Repeatability is key.
3. Playing a piano concerto does benefit from creative thinking, but mostly in the area of artistic interpretation. There are no real shortcuts to learning the piece on a technical level. Deliberate practice cannot be avoided.
4. You are only competing against yourself. There are no factors working against you trying to trick you into giving a worse performance.⁶

The ability to play a piano concerto varies greatly among those who play keyboard, and even among those who play professionally.

It is good to consider an important difference between music, which is open to interpretation, and sports, which are mostly judged by absolutes. Louis Amundson almost certainly increases his market value if he improves his basketball skills. On the other hand, if the keyboardist from Maroon 5 were to acquire the skill necessary to play Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2, would that increase his market value? Probably not.⁷

Now if someone were to say “I will pay you $10 million one year from now if you either learned to play Liszt flawlessly or shoot free throws above 80%,” which would you choose? To me the answer seems obvious.⁸ So then is Louis Amundson just a lazy idiot, or is there more that goes into it than deliberate practice? Could we all learn to shoot as well as Ray Allen if we had the time and dedication? I do not know.

And then consider the examples moving free throw line and the piano piece that changes before every performance. Ray Allen is relatively a very good shooter from every spot on the floor. If the free throw line were to move before every shot, Allen's individual percentage might change, but the fact that he is a far better shooter than Shaq would likely not change. Similarly, a constantly changing piano piece would be more difficult to perform in an absolute sense, but a trained soloist will always be able to play it better than an untrained musician.

This all goes to show that specific skills do not exist in isolation. One does not become a great piano soloist by only playing Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2 over and over again, but by playing a wide repertoire of difficult and expressive music. Ray Allen is a great free throw shooter because he is also a great three-point shooter and a great mid-range shooter. It is difficult to draw a one-to-one correlation between the time practicing a very specific task and effectiveness at that same task. This is because skills complement each other, and practice at one task could affect one's effectiveness at a similar task. So is Louis Amundson's free throw percentage low because he is not willing to practice that particular task, or is it because he is relatively bad at scoring in general, and his free throw percentage is just an expression of that? Either way, 45.5% is REALLY bad.

1 Though I'm sure players have found ways to out-psych opponents into missing free throws.^↩
2 The Wikipedia article for “Hack-a-Shaq” is unsurprisingly quite amusing.^↩
3 Does anyone know if this is really true? I'm legitimately curious.^↩
4 I've been told that all free throws count for one point regardless of game situation.^↩
5 On good days I can shoot nearly 50% from the line, and I'm going to law school, so I see no reason why someone making millions of dollars should not be able to shoot greater than 50%.^↩
6 Unless you count music critics. It's been said, “why do you need a license to drive a bus, but not to ruin people's lives?”^↩
7 Though I hope I'm wrong.^↩
8 And I consider myself much more of a musician than a basketball player.^↩

Hats Off to Paul Hofmann

So I just went to Kilbourn Hall at the Eastman School of Music and watched the jazz pianist Paul Hofmann give a truly remarkable concert featuring a number of guests who make up some of the best jazz musicians you will find anywhere.  Paul played a program made up entirely of the music of Keith Jarrett, not an easy task for any musician, and he knocked it out of the park.

Paul Hofmann was my piano teacher for four years while I studied at the University of Rochester, and I have to say I really lucked out. The Eastman School of Music is part of the University of Rochester, and even though I never could have dreamed of making it into Eastman myself, my status as a student at the University of Rochester allowed me to take advantage of many of the opportunities the Eastman School had to offer.  So in other words, I got to experience a piece of Eastman without having to be "Eastman material."  And from Day 1, I also felt like I was out of my league, that I was surrounded by genius the minute I stepped off the Red Line bus, and nothing I could do would ever match up.

And in most ways, I was absolutely correct. Everyone who goes to that school is on a different planet of musical excellence and that really can't be disputed.  In a way I had the most frustrating position of all, because I possessed musical knowledge myself, but only enough knowledge to realize why I'd never be as good as the rest of the people I saw walking around.

Despite my lack of confidence, I soaked up a great deal from Paul and my other teachers, Chris Petit and Michael Unger for organ, and Michaela Eremiasova and Elizabeth Kelly for composition.  But part of me looks back and says with one nagging thought:  "I wish I could have been a better student."  I wish I could have practiced a little harder, picked their brains a little more, and absorbed even just one more piece of musical inspiration. As an undergraduate perhaps I did stretch myself a little thin, being a double major frequently taking over 20 credit hours, while also managing a full plate of extra-curricular and volunteer activities.  Even within the music major I lacked focus, bouncing back and forth between piano, organ, and composition.  I do believe I made the most of time in college, but after seeing Paul's concert part of me wishes I had had the discipline to lock myself in a practice room for four hours a day and come out a genius.  But even if I had somehow conjured up the discipline, the fact of the matter is that I never was going to have the time, unless I had sacrificed other aspects of my undergraduate experience that meant a great deal to me.

Even two years after graduation, I still attend Eastman concerts frequently, and it is one of the things I will miss most about Rochester. There have been times when I walked out thinking "Why even bother doing music myself? I'll never be at their level!"  But at the same time the amateur brings forth a unique perspective to the mix.  When music isn't your life, it frees you up to think in a different space.  When there are no expectations to live up to, there is more potential for unique results.

So I exist in one of the following realities:
1. I have the best of both worlds. I was able to learn from the best while still maintaining the unique perspective of an amateur.  So despite my lack of technical skill, I can tap into musical ideas the professionals would never bother with.
2. I have the worst of both worlds.  My own level of musical skill will never exceed the level of an amateur, but I've seen the very best first-hand. So therefore I'm doomed to a life of never living up to what I know is really good.



Let's think positive thoughts.

"My Own:" the new track from out of nowhere (MP3 streaming)

Today I woke up and build a track from the ground up, with no planning prior to today. I started out with a couple of speech samples that were then gargled, reversed, and "mammutized." Combined with a kick and snare, they formed the basis of the drum track. A couple of synthesizer overdubs later, and here it is:



But now there is a problem. The tracklist for the album "Hydrogen" is already set. Even though most of the album is yet to be recorded, it's "written in my head" so to speak, and this new track I recorded today doesn't fit inside the tracklist I have already set. This new track is menacing, but sterile, whereas I intend "Hydrogen" as an album to be a little more warm, and a little more personable. So now what do I do?

Studio Outtakes: Part 1

So I just did some recording and for some reason I had a very serious case of the giggles. Not sure why, but here is the documentation:

"Sing Free:" the track that insisted on re-writing itself (with MP3 sample)

"Sing Free" is the first track from the album "Hydrogen" I began recording, and it's the track that was giving me the most hell. Perhaps that is because I was trying too hard; trying to make the beats too aggressive, trying to sing too high, trying to drown the whole thing in too much electricity.

So after a month of ignoring the half-completed track and letting it sit on my hard drive, I decided to turn it totally upside-down. I've heard other musicians say they sometimes like the results they get when they totally strip everything down, so that's what I did. And here is a snippet:


This snippet is far from perfect from a performance standpoint, but in a way I think that's part of its appeal. When I originally thought to record "Hydrogen" I said to myself "this is the album that will be more perfect and precise than anything I have done before."  This turned out to be nonsense. Of course, nothing is ever perfect unless it is generated completely by computer (and that right there can present its own set of problems).  So what I now realize is that "Hydrogen" will be appealing for the mixture of the organic and the exact, and hopefully I will be a skilled enough musician to keep up with the exact. So far it's been a tad questionable.

Another issue I've been having recently also emerged here. For some reason, my singing voice always tends to record better and richer when I'm playing guitar along with it instead of overdubbing the voice over a pre-recorded track. I still haven't figured out why this is so. It could have to do with feeling more connected to the rhythm of the piece, but that is all speculation. As a general studio rule, vocals should usually be overdubbed and not recorded live with other instruments, so I'm breaking that rule here for the sake of getting a recording that sounds "real," whatever that means.

The Inspiration Problem

When I was in school I took composition lessons from a really wonderful composer named Michaela Eremiasova.  One of the first pieces of musical wisdom she gave me was her belief that one's supposed lack of inspiration was a problem that could be overcome simply by hard work. If you don't like the ideas you're coming up with, continue to write anyway, because you won't get anywhere by sitting around and waiting to be inspired.

No one likes to hear this, but it really is good news.  Why?  Because when you take this principle to its natural conclusion, you can make the argument that all of our assumptions about the concept of "inspiration" might be thrown out the window.  If Michaela is correct, and I believe she may be, then excellence is something that is far more attainable than any of us realize because we don't want to admit to ourselves that it will likely take a great deal of effort to get there.

In popular imagination, there tends to be a desire to see "inspiration" not as something that can be acquired, but as a gift bestowed upon its recipients by the cosmic forces of the universe.  This is comforting for a great many people because it says "if you're not a genius, that's really ok."  And, of course, it is perfectly ok to not be a genius or an inspired person in most areas.

But this view also allows us to let ourselves off the hook.  The film, Amadeus, is one example I can think of that really promotes the idea of God-given inspiration.  In the film, the character Antonio Salieri cannot understand why God would withhold the gifts of musical inspiration from such a loyal servant as himself, and instead grant them to a scoundrel such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  The film, while great entertainment, hangs its entire narrative on what may be a flawed premise: Mozart is inspired, Salieri is not, and there is nothing anyone can do to change that.

Of course, Mozart did possess a great deal of natural musical talent, but some have argued that it was just the result of deliberate practice undertaken from a very early age.  That's not to say that practicing 10 hours a day will turn a person into an inspiration machine, but it certainly helps your chances.  Composers are creative people, and you cannot just churn out greatness, but the more deliberate practice you have under your belt, the greater your arsenal of musical language.  We all lack inspiration at times, but if we have a solid foundation, we can somehow manage to fill in those gaps.

Could we all be great at something if we really wanted to?  It's hard to say, but what I do know is that if you take something by the horns, you're more likely to get where you want to go.  We don't like being told that we need to work through the problem.  It's much easier to stand back and wait for the light bulb to turn on, but most of the time, the problem doesn't go away on its own.