AriKoinuma.com

Well, there are many advices out there for us musicians — do this, do that, sort of thing.  They all focus on the techniques, the little tricks you can do to sell more CDs or bring more people to the show or build your fanbase.

And they can be useful. I’ve read them and I tried some of them, sure.

But these last couple of years, I started realizing how much of the foundation I was missing.  I was looking for tips on roofing, when I hadn’t dug the proper foundation.

Let me explain.  As a guitar player who started playing in the late 80s, I was initially influenced by very technical playing of that era.  To be a good rock/metal guitarist meant that I was supposed to be able to pull off flashy techniques.

So I spent a lot of time trying to play fast.  Because if fast wasn’t there, I wasn’t a good guitarist.  I scoured and tried practice tips that supposedly helped me get faster, fast.

15 years later, I am a guitarist who can’t play very fast and who can’t play very slow — well, all right, I’m not bad — but I am nowhere near where I thought I could be.

In my pursuit of speed, I failed to realize how important it is to build a solid house.  There were some licks I learned to play fast, but I couldn’t modify them or apply them — they were just habits of my hand.

This last year or so, I finally realized that if I want to really play fast, then I better be able to play softly well first.  Like learning how to hold down the strings with the very tip of my fingers (it gives me the most expressive control), instead of pushing the strings down carelessly, letting my fingers fall wherever they do.

The same thing happened with my singing.  I was trying to sing high, and I sounded terrible.  My high range expanded, once I stopped trying to reach out there and focused more on notes within my range.

Ironic, isn’t it?

There’s a Japanese saying “if you want to go fast, go around.”  Don’t look for shortcuts, but take the long way.

That’s the lesson I’m having to learn.  The long way actually is the fast way. Because shortcuts either fail to help you get there or even if you do, you won’t stay there.

So, as a musician, I am digging deep to identify and isolate my core.   Instead of employing every technique that supposedly produce success, I’m going to figure out who I am and what I have to offer, first.

After all, what good is a haphazardly put-together roof without any foundation?

I’ve been running a poll to see what the perceived obstacles people are facing in their music career pursuit. Is it luck? Is it the industry? Is it the competition?

Well, I’ll give away the answer here. The biggest obstacle between you and your success is YOU.

That’s right.  You’re the only one standing in your way.  Or to put it another way, if you figure out how to get out of your own way and unleash the real, unrestrained you, you will succeed.  You won’t be able to prevent your success.

Does that sound all abstract and new-agey?   Would you rather I discuss the proven-and-tested technique to win 1000 fans instantly? (continue reading…)