There Is No Substitute For Experience

As I write this post, it is late December 2014, and I have just been asked one of the hardest questions I’ve ever been asked. I am currently playing in a theatre show. After one of the shows, I was on my way into town for some food, when a young boy, aged maybe eleven or twelve, approached me and said: “you were the bass player in the show just now, right?” I told him that I was. He told me that he’s just started playing bass in his school band. “I really enjoy it”, he said, “but I get quite nervous before we do concerts. How long will it be before I stop getting nervous?”. This question stopped me in my tracks completely. I understood where he was coming from. We’ve all had nerves at one point or another, so I was able to give a stock, but true, answer along the lines of “just keep practicing and try not to think about it. The more you play and get experience the better you’ll be able to handle your nerves”. But I was genuinely struck by how big a question this was. I don’t really get nervous now when I perform. I thought “well I’m quite experienced now” but I stopped myself and began to realise that I don’t always have prior experience of some of the gigs I do. Surely I should be nervous then. Also, how could I class myself as experienced when I haven’t done some of those gigs before? But most curiously of all, why am I able to reap the benefits of experience (not suffering from nerves to name one) when I haven’t done a particular gig before? This, all of a sudden, felt bizarre. What do people actually gain from experience?

Whilst I was waiting for my food, I began to think about it. Surely I should start by analysing the experiences that have taught me the most. After quite a bit of thinking one came to mind: the first time I went to a jam night in London. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, these are nights hosted by a small group of musicians (the house band) and are open to other musicians to come and play songs with the house band or other people who attend. Jam nights can be very strange places at times. If you know the people who are regulars, then they can become some of the most friendly places you’ll ever go to, but if you don’t know anyone (I knew no one at this point) then they can also be some of the most daunting.

A friend had told me about a night that was on near Liverpool Street station every second Wednesday. It was a jazz night and because my jazz repertoire was very poor at the time I was nervous about getting up to play. “What if they call a song I don’t know”, I used to say to my friend. He would usually reply “then you’ll know what to learn for next time”. This particular time I sat it out and just watched. I won’t lie about it: I was terrified just watching some of these musicians. They seemed to know every song you could name. It didn’t matter what key, what version, what arrangement, they could play it. I spent the whole night asking people “what song was that? Who’s it by?”. I took note of all these songs and decided to take my friends advice. Surely if I went away and learnt these songs then next time I could come back, ask to play one of them and give a better impression of myself. So that’s what I did. I took this list of twenty or so tunes I had made home and began to learn them. Two weeks later I got a text from my friend “Hey, do you fancy going to that jazz night again?”. I replied saying I wouldn’t go. I told him I was still learning the songs from the last one but next time I would be there. Another two weeks went by and I got the same text. What was my response? “Oh hey man, maybe not this time. I can walk through the changes ok but I’m still not happy with my solos on them. Let’s go next time”. This went on and on until five months had passed and I’d still not been back to play. However, the next time I was asked it would be different. I knew all those songs, I could improvise over the chord changes and I could play all the melodies. The next time I was there I would be bullet proof. And before long, I got the same text from my friend. “See you there at nine”, I responded.

We met at the jam. We watched the house band play. Again they were brilliant, and around half past ten the night was opened up for other musicians to come up on stage and play. Usually there aren’t that many bass players at these kind of nights so I took my chance and got straight onto the stage. The saxophonist greeted me and asked “what shall we play?”. I replied (trying to act like this was a regular thing for me) with one of the tunes I had spent months learning. “Let’s play Spain”…..a very tired look came across the sax players face “let’s do something else. We’ve been playing that solidly for months now”. Ok, don’t worry, I thought. Let’s try another one. “Caravan?” Same response. I went through all the songs I had learnt: Oleo, Impressions, Tenor Madness, as well as all the others from my list. They all got turned down for the same reason. Eventually I ran out of songs. I simply didn’t know anymore. “Oh I’ve got an idea”, said the drummer, “How about Moments Notice?”. They all agreed. I didn’t know it but a chord chart was put in front of me, the song was counted off and we started. In short, it was a total train wreck. I didn’t know the song and I had no idea what I was doing. I just about got through it and then quickly left the stage.

How did this happen? I spent ages learning some songs only to get down to this jazz night and no one wanted to play them. My first thought was how different this was to my practice. When I practiced I spent time working through the chord changes, often at a slow tempo, thinking about how I could navigate the song or coming up with short lines I could slot into the song at certain points. I was able to properly prepare myself for playing the songs. At this jam night, I had none of that. It was a baptism of fire in many ways. But my first thought was that I should’ve been much better. Had I not just spent five months practicing jazz? Why was I unable to play this one song when I had spent so much time and energy on learning how to play jazz?

It wasn’t until I got home did I start to realise what the problem was. “How was the jam?”, asked my flat mate when I arrived home. I responded: “Nothing like my practice”. I froze as I said this. It truly was nothing like my practice. I didn’t know the song, I had no time to prepare and my first run through was at a really fast tempo. In almost every way I could think of, the jam was totally different to the preparation I had done beforehand. No wonder I didn’t play well. My practice didn’t actually prepare me for what I’d experienced.

Clearly there is an issue here. The question I began to ask myself was whether or not doing any practice at home would actually prepare me properly for doing performances. I started to realise that just doing “bedroom practice” doesn’t actually give me everything I need, because in some way, shape or form, “bedroom practice” usually assumes a perfect performance scenario. By this I mean that it assumes that the performance will take place under exactly the same conditions as the practice leading up to it. For example, in the situation above, I assumed that these other musicians would only want to play the small selection of songs that I knew. My practice hadn’t considered that they might be bored of those songs and want to play something else which is exactly what happened on the performance. After realising this I started to notice that this “perfect scenario” assumption cropped up nearly every time I practiced at home, no matter what I was working on. If I wanted to practice sight reading, I would always assume I would have a music stand (not the case on some gigs), I would always assume that it would be properly lit (not the case on many gigs), I would always play through at roughly 70bpm, which is unrealistic, as music can be at any tempo. These aren’t the only examples, but there is no way I could possibly list them all. In short, I was too attached to practicing within my own perfect scenario and it usually made my practice flawed in some way. So, why was I doing it? My practice seemed to lack so much genuine context that all of a sudden I felt it wasn’t much use at all.

After I had thought through my experience at the jam, I saw that it had pointed out so many things I didn’t understand. But I had found a new kind of practice. I started to wonder if it would it be better to try and view performances, in part, as a kind of practice. However this wasn’t possible because, at that moment in time, I wasn’t really doing many gigs. If I only ever did that, I would hardly ever do any practice. I decided to split the difference. I would still practice at home but I wanted to make sure that, for the time I spent working on songs, I was as unprepared as possible.

The next day I got up, pulled out my real book (book of jazz songs or “standards”), chose a song I’d never heard, found a recording, pressed play and started to play through along to the record. It was difficult, but I loved it. It was so much more engaging than just mindlessly running scales all day. It also started to highlight a lot of the same problems that the jam night did: I found it hard to navigate quick chord changes and I struggled to follow the form of the song. However, rather than spending time fixing these problems and finding a perfect way to play the song, I moved straight onto the next recording and started to play. I continued this process of playing through a new song once then moving onto another one for a few hours, until I took a break for lunch. Whilst I was eating, I started to think. Whether I was trying to find a bass line, take a solo or comp through the chords, I was always having the same problems with every song I played. I decided to focus on just one, playing walking bass through quick chord changes. It was, however, really hard to decide what to do. The whole point of my new practice routine was to be totally unprepared. It would defeat the point of my new routine to spend time figuring out some prepared lines to get through the songs or to look at the song and learn it. Without properly deciding on how to approach this aspect of bass playing, I went back to practice. Surprisingly, I actually found it a little easier this time. I was still playing songs I hadn’t seen before and I was still as unprepared as I was during the morning session, but what was making it easier for me? The answer? I had gained, a very small amount of, experience. The gained experience wasn’t telling me exactly what I should do, though. It was just informing me of what was likely to come my way during the time I spent playing these songs, namely, quick chord changes. This was a very important realisation for me. It continues to be so too. From that day onwards, I began to think that perhaps many people have a misconception about what experience really is. It’s not something that always tells you exactly what you should do next. In my case, I still had no idea how to get through those chord changes, but what experience did help me to do was to keep calm and approach the situation rationally. This is still something that is true for me to this day, and I hope many more days to come. Let me put it another way.

Imagine I am a chef. I’ve been working in the kitchen of a top-level restaurant for twenty years. There’s no doubt that I am an experienced cook, but I still haven’t made every single dish under the sun. It would be impossible for me to have done so. Suppose I’ve been asked to cook from a recipe that is in a style I’ve never made before. The key thing to grasp here is that my experience won’t tell me exactly how to make it; I’ve never done it before. How could it? My experience will, however, help me avoid making basic errors of technique or judgment. It will help me make a very informed and plausible attempt at cooking the dish. Sure, I may not have cooked this particular dish before, but I will have had experience with cooking equipment, cooking methods and using and mixing ingredients together. If it was a stir fry, for example, then experience would tell me to make sure the pan was incredibly hot before starting. If it was a trifle dessert, then experience would tell me not to add beef just because it’s something I’ve done well before. Despite me having never added beef to a trifle, my experience would help me to avoid making a school-boy error: it would tell me that it’s something I shouldn’t do, not unless I wanted a job as Rachel Green on Friends. The same thing is true for music. The experienced musician doesn’t know how to play every song in existence, but if you put a song that he’s never heard in front of him, then he would be able to keep a cool head, properly analyse the task and think about the situation he’s in rationally, rather than just throwing out a bunch of things he doesn’t really understand and hoping that they work. Whether you want to perform, teach, write or program, there really is no substitute for what experience can give you.

Gaining experience, however, is often a difficult thing to do and it’s certainly never a truly comfortable process. Sadly it does involve taking your fair share of knocks along the way, but it is worth doing. Also, the more you do it, the easier it becomes to allow yourself to be humbled by situations where you aren’t comfortable. Recently, I was doing an orchestral gig, playing Persian music. Whilst I do have experience of playing with orchestras, I had never listened to, let alone played, Persian music, and during the first rehearsal, it wasn’t too long until this showed. The conductor came to me and said: “the notes are all correct but it doesn’t quite feel right”. I remember my thoughts exactly at the time. For a split second, the reflex of “he can’t be right, I’m a great bass player etc” went through my head. But then experience kicked in and I thought “actually, I’ve been in this position before with other people; this conductor plays this music all the time and I’ve never done it; his opinion is rooted in knowledge and experience, mine is rooted in nothing; I should take his advice”. The conductor was also a bass player and was able to demonstrate what he wanted and also suggested some listening to me. Yes it was a bit of a knock to my pride not to come in and nail it first time but, in all honesty, I’m glad I didn’t because this experience highlighted something to me that I could improve on and that’s what really counts. This is really a big part of how I get better.

At this point, I want to make something very clear. I’m not suggesting for a minute that “bedroom practice” is pointless. It isn’t. I have learnt a huge amount practicing this way and I’m sure there will be more things to come. However, the experience I just mentioned and several others besides have helped me realise that “bedroom practice” and a performance are two totally different things. If I want something that I’ve practiced at home to come out on stage, then I have to expect it not to work at first. I have to accept that I’ll go through a phase of using a particular lick, for example, completely tastelessly or perhaps even trying to use it and see it fall apart completely before it becomes a useable part of my playing. I have to take the knocks, I have to be honest about the fact I need to be humbled in that respect and in many ways, above all, I have to be honest to others about the experience I do and don’t have. If I’m not, it may blind me to gaining more experience which will help me in the future but also, if I do go and run my mouth off about being the greatest sight reader, the quickest technician or best improviser when I’m not, then sooner or later I’ll be asked, in one way or another, to prove it. And if I can’t, I will let a lot of people down. One of the hardest things I have learnt to do during my career is knowing when to admit that I don’t know something. It has been very tempting on so many occasions for me to give a false impression of my ability, knowledge or intelligence. In other words, to say that I have experience that I really do not. However, I also can’t let this exact same reason become an excuse for me not to go out and gain more experience in the first place. To clarify, I’m not saying that because a musician lacks some experience, they will never get called for anything. Everyone has to start somewhere, after all, and, yes, a lot of the time the best work does go to the most experienced players, but by always telling yourself that you shouldn’t start until you’re ready, or that you’re not prepared enough, you’re denying yourself the chance of landing any kind of opportunity. When I was at the jazz night, granted, I wasn’t the best or the most experienced jazz musician in the room. And, no, I didn’t land any major gig, because of my playing that night. But the point is I was at least there and willing to take in as much as I could. That was the reason I made such an important realisation, a realisation I would never have made at home, no matter how much I practiced in my bedroom.

The point is you do yourself a real disservice if you avoid gaining experience. We’ve all had moments saying things like: “I won’t take that gig until I feel ready; I’ll stay home and practice for a year then go and do it”. In truth, it is impossible to prepare completely for every new experience precisely because, since the experience is new to us, there will be some aspect of it that we haven’t considered. How can we possibly be completely prepared? This is true at any stage of your career. Even for a seasoned and experienced musician, having experience doesn’t mean that they always know what to do. Sometimes, their experience may only tell them what they shouldn’t do. And, experience doesn’t always mean that something has happened to them before. If it did then they couldn’t truly be experienced until they had done everything there is to do which, of course, no one ever will. I have always felt that waiting until I know what to do in every situation, what notes to chose in every style or what bass to bring to every gig, actually stops me from progressing because it’s impossible to always have the answer. It’s a balancing act. Yes, it is important to spend time on your own, in your bedroom or living room, studying things that are totally alien to you. After all, if you spent every night gigging then the chances are you wouldn’t be playing different songs at every single gig and you may switch off. After five months, those songs may not present any new challenges, like they originally did. They would no longer provide you with the chance to learn something new. Bedroom practice is important, but without experience, it will only get you so far.

Anyway, I’m now back at theatre. We’ve just been told we have five minutes before the start of the next show. We only have five shows left of the run, and after this is finished, I have a run of gigs coming up with a jazz trio. I haven’t played jazz for a while. I should go practice, right?

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