Reddit reviews Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within, Book & Includes Online Downloadable code

Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner

If you're into meditation (or wouldn't mind giving it a shot!), this book combines meditation with performing and practicing music beautifully. It won't get religious on you. It focuses on the state of mind that Kenny (and many others) believe provides the greatest freedom of expression while playing music.

Great read. Helped me quite a bit :)

First of all, for technique/practice, consistency in the woodshed is key. My daily routine is very repetitive, to the point that it is incredibly boring. But the improvement is so amazing, that I'm still excited to do it every day. I also kill the monotony with something to occupy my mind, usually either a sitcom or reading material, once I had the routine down.

[This is my daily routine], which takes about 90 minutes if you go nonstop, at the tempos marked (which will take some time to work up).

Secondly, your performance anxiety should be addressed. My professor in college had a required course for the whole tuba/euphonium studio called "Performance Anxiety: Understanding and Coping."

I had some mild anxiety then, but the class helped. The class was almost 20 years ago, but here's the largest takeaways:

• Perform as often as you can in front of an audience. If you have a weekly student recital class like larger schools of music do, sign up as often as you can prepare something. Start with easier solos, and work your way up.
  
  
• Read these books, which were the required reading of the class:
  
• • The Inner Game of Tennis (There is a music version, but consensus is that this is still far superior)
    
• • Effortless Mastery: Liberating the Master Musician Within
    
• • Zen in the Art of Archery (Very short read, can be done in the same day)
    
    Two of the three texts are not music books, but are read by students of just about every single discipline and apply it to their area of study. They will take years to understand on new levels, but you should be able to get some immediate results and understanding of your situation.
    
    As I got older, I've found the best way to quiet those nerves is to overprepare for anything. My teachers used to say "an amatuer practices 'til he gets it right; a professional practices 'til he can't get it wrong." When I'm in a position where I know I cannot screw something up, I actually enjoy the performance, butterflies and all. And I've been in some very high stress situations, with fewer train wrecks each year. This takes some massive time management, but it definitely helps. I usually set a goal to be "performance ready" a few weeks out, so I can do some very picky polishing of the performance.
    
    This is a lot more than I thought I'd say on the matter, but there should be a lot here to help. Happy shedding!
    
    Edit: After perusing the other comments, it looks like you might have a difficult professor. Sounds like you should sit down and decide if he's helping or hindering your progress. To be candid, I never really think of a trombone player being very good for tuba students. Maybe some pedagogy, but there's enough differences in the two instruments to warrant a specialist at the collegiate level. Great euphonium players can teach tuba, just as my best teacher was a tuba player, but they both doubled strongly on the other instrument. Unless your professor can be considered a professional tuba player to some extent, you might need to find a different school to finish your education.

Don't give up man. There's many ways to improve.


1.) My best advice, is find a good teacher that you like and feel comfortable around. Once you do you'll really begin to improve and like your sound.


2.) If you can't find a teacher there's plenty of online resources


3.) This is probably the best and hardest way to improve; it's very slow but the pay off is amazing. Transcribe everything. Start with the Beatles or CCR and transcribe simple chord songs and slowly (I mean after several months of doing this) move on to harder material.
This method is not recommended as it's hard, but it'll make you damn good.


Don't give up bro, I've played guitar for 5 years. I sucked for the first two, was mediocre the last 2 years and it's only recently that I've begun to get good. Just like anyone can learn algebra or learn to read anyone can play guitar.

Two Books to Recommend (On the Mental Aspect of Music):

Effortless Mastery - Liberating the Master Musician Within
by Kenny Werner. This book is simply awesome.

• Download it here (It's a safe download, I uploaded it myself. Shhh!)
  
  Zen Guitar - Philip Sudo
  
  
  don't click me! :)
  
  
• Even more awesome, it not only changed how I view music but also my life. This is personally better than Effortless Mastery, as what you read in the book not only affects your music mindset but spreads into your life. Buy It
  
  Two Final Tips
  
  

1. Just get into the habit of practicing, even if it's only for 5mins everyday. Make sure it's at the same time.
   
   
   
2. There's a cycle. Practice -> Improvement -> Motivation -> Practice -> Improvement - Motivation ->
   
   
   Occasionally you'll hit walls or plateaus at which point, watch Crossroads or listen to Zeppelin and remind yourself why you started playing, then go and practice.
   (-> = leads to)

Don't give up!

Go to a good teacher. Good music teachers can identify your weak spots, teach you more effective practice habits, and show you techniques that will raise your game.

It is likely that there are fundamental guitar skills that you never learned. The lack of those skills probably hold you back. Once you have strong fundamentals, learning to play songs is much easier.

Also, pick up this book which teaches a whole new way to think about musical improvement.

Effortless Mastery is a book on meditation for musicians that was recommended on a recent discussion forum thread along with some other books and techniques.

There are a number of books on the subject of practicing piano, check out the three in "Frequently Bought Together": http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/156224003X/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Here are some tips:

1. Enjoy yourself. It's a hobby, so enjoyment will help you stay committed.
   
2. Consistency is key. It's better to practice 20 minutes a day than 2 hours the day before the lesson.
   
3. Focus hard. Try not to "zone out," try to set a goal for yourself, something to improve upon, and stick to it. That could be a particular mesaure, a section, etc.
   
4. Break it down. Don't just play pieces over and over. Play the hardest parts, play them slowly, play them hands separately. Sing them out loud. tap the rhythms. Use a metronome. Always, break things down and think about things more simply. When you start layering the "simple" things together, you get a beautiful tapestry which could never have been made by not focusing in/breaking things down.
   
5. Be healthy. Don't hate yourself, don't pick pieces you hate, don't hate the piano. If you are hating what you doing, take a break and find an approach that you don't hate.
   
6. Ergonomics - make sure your set up is optimal. I am still making adjustments after 15 years, so every once in a while think about seat height, seat distance from keys, curl of fingers, etc.
   
   I could go on forever with tips, but get started and bring questions to an experienced teacher. They will guide you through all of this. And, in the end, if you love the music, many of these things will come together due to your desire to do the music justice.

Kenny's famous book is "Effortless Mastery"

(Me: not a trumpet player, but had same thoughts). Going pro means a lot of things besides having beautiful technique and repertoire. You might invited to a band for live sound, logistics and recording studio skills, or you might end up like most pros i know that teach privates or at a college/high schools and do other work (repairs, manufacturer's rep, run retail shops etc). So you have to think about what it takes to make a living.

Here's some books for you to read and think about as far as your playing tho

Kenny Werner, http://www.amazon.com/Effortless-Mastery-Liberating-Master-Musician/dp/156224003X

Sterner: http://www.amazon.com/The-Practicing-Mind-Developing-Discipline/dp/1608680908

Bruser: http://artofpracticing.com/book/ (Gerald Klicksteins' book is also good, i remember)

Link if anyone is interested

Check out the book Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner. It's great for what you're describing.

It's about using meditation and relaxation techniques to play freely and without tension. It comes with a guided meditation CD as well.

https://www.amazon.com/Effortless-Mastery-Liberating-Master-Musician/dp/156224003X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1484436144&sr=1-1&keywords=effortless+mastery

This may not be completely applicable to your situation, but I've seen this book recommended when musicians mention getting stuck in a rut, feeling inadequate, etc.:

http://www.amazon.com/Effortless-Mastery-Liberating-Master-Musician/dp/156224003X

I haven't read it myself, so I can't give any opinion on it.

I highly recommend the book: Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner. Highly recommend. Highly. And the meditations are great. A game changer, I’d say. I’m no shill or anything. I really love that book and the first meditation especially. It got me into meditation. Love that dude.

You should check this book out:

http://www.amazon.com/Effortless-Mastery-Liberating-Master-Musician/dp/156224003X

Its changed my life in a pretty significant way.

Then you need to take a breath and stop trying to make something happen. The ideal for me is to reach a mental state that's a lot like meditation, and that can't happen as long as there is all this pent up energy/thought/expectation about your performance. Getting rid of this anxiety takes practice, as it's a perfectly normal human response to get upset that things aren't going as well as you'd like them to, but once you are able to consciously let it go, you can take a bad show or set or song, forget about it, and not have it affect everything else downstream.

I highly recommend Effortless Mastery by Kenny Warner. It's been a long time since I read it, but it helped me clear out my mindset about the significance that I would attach to good gigs and bad ones.

This book is an entire book dealing with a lot of the fears and problems we have as musicians and songwriters, and gives information to help get past it.

Ah then a book probably isn't what you want :-)

There are some links & tips in the /r/guitarlessons FAQ that might help, but I think it's mostly a matter of doing it a lot, learning from how others do it (by listening / copying) and slowly expanding your vocabulary...

[EDIT: I kind of want to say this, though: you don't have to figure out how to improvise. If you can get past the anxiety that's bound up with playing guitar and just play, it's the most natural thing in the world. Kenny Werner's book is very good, and in fact you can get a lot of the gist of it (without some of the New Age / Buddhist stuff that may or may not appeal to you) from this video.]

Your welcome! Glad it helped. The relaxation thing is something most drummers don't want to hear because it seemingly has nothing to do with music. It also makes people feel weird or self-conscious. But it absolutely works.
There are several books on the subject that really helped me. https://www.amazon.com/Psycho-Cybernetics-New-More-Living-Life/dp/0671700758

https://www.amazon.com/Effortless-Mastery-Liberating-Master-Musician/dp/156224003X

https://www.amazon.com/Inner-Game-Music-Barry-Green/dp/0385231261

One other thing I wanted to mention is the concept of dancing and drumming. There is a direct connection between the two. In Bob Moses book Drum Wisdom, he states that it behooves all drummer to dance. I tell tell students, if you're embarrassed about dancing in front of people go in your bedroom, shut the door, and dance. Again, this makes people feel weird, but it works. You don't have to be a good dancer. You just have to learn to relax and move with the music.