It’s a story I’ve told countless times so I guess it’s somewhat interesting.
In my freshman year at Cal State Northridge I had no idea one was expected to practice. I asked my teacher then, Ron Borczon, “do I really need to practice 3 hours a day?” There I was, young and clueless but Ron liked teaching me.
Two of my teachers from Taiwan, Wei-Ren Chuang and Pablo Chow-Yu Hsu, explained to me the importance of basic techincal routines, so that is what I did. Segovia scales, Pujol slurs, every possible left & right hand permutations, etc. The metronome started at 60, and I sub-divided it in every way I could imagine, from whole notes all the way up to, after a while, 32nd notes. The setting on the metronome would not change for a week, sometimes three. CSUN was a great place to practice–it’s like what my friend, Matt Dunlap (guitarist) said of Tallahassee, “There’s nothing to do here except… get better.” I practiced for an hour or two in a dark practice room. I closed my eyes and felt my mind resting as the time went by.
Before long came some inspiration in my life–yes, a beautiful girl from Honduras who lived healthily motivated me to try something very, very different. I started getting up at 4 a.m. to practice technique. Half awake, I stumbled into the large walk-in closet, closed the door, sat on the carpet, turned on the metronome and got right to it. I would practice without break until 7 a.m., sometimes 7:30, when I would finally get some breakfast then walk to my 9 a.m. harmony class with the brilliant George Heussenstamm. With three hours of practicing already behind me, I easily had days where I practiced for 8 hours and played and rehearsed for 3-4 more hours. I did this for 2 semesters.
I got better very steadily but the girl went for someone else. Can’t have ‘em all.
