How Watching Wimbledon Helped me Learn a Jazz Standard.

Whether we think about it or not most of the things we do in our day to day activity are formed out of habit. From the moment we get out of bed (putting on our slippers) walking to the bathroom (grab phone check emails) Brushing our teeth (squeezing the tube from the top arrrrrggg!) ok you get the picture, it's not hard to see that these things are what makes us... US.

 

A while ago I was wondering why certain aspects of my playing had fallen by the wayside, never really developing or even showing up when I play live. I had formed the "habit" of trying to do too much, never really sticking with ONE THING.

One week I would be diligently going through my Jazz chord solo repertoire, the next week I'd be hitting the Country playing and so on. I knew I had to try and GET INTO THE HABIT of doingJUST ONE THING! Until that ONE THING became part of me, it wasn't KNOWLEDGE, like the chords to a tune you know really well.  I once spent the whole summer watching Wimbledon and playing the chords to "Stella By Starlight".Here the "habit" was Wimbledon

I was starting to wonder how I could use habits to ingrain other things whenI heard a Podcast By Tim Ferriss, where he talked about a TED talk by BJ Fog. I watched it and suddenly everything became clear.

 

After I watched this lecture I was amazed at how easy it was to form new habits by ATTACHING THEM to the habits I had already formed. An example that I give to my students is: Opening the Guitar case .I usually have my Pick stuck between the strings (another small habit I had formed over the years). As soon as I take the pick out of the strings I run a Diminished Arpeggio. So the link here is

    1    Take pick out of Guitar strings

    2    Play a Diminished Arpeggio.

I did this EVERY TIME for about a month!.

Your habit could be something totally different, have a think of something you want to improve and ATTACH it to another habit.