Unchained Melody.

I saw a video of a guy busking on Facebook. I posted it as a video of the day on our Audio Works Facebook page.

He's clearly a talented singer and it's crazy to see so many people walking by and not taking notice. Do they not understand his talent? Or is the bar so high that it doesn't turn heads? I'm not sure.

After watching the video of subway busker Mike Yung's beautiful rendition of "Unchained Melody" James invites Mike to Los Angeles to recreate the viral clip.

Anyway, I noticed today that he had a spot on James Corden's TV show and he has recorded the track. He even brought Reggie Watt's to tears, which is totally understandable when you hear his voice.

I'm going to take more notice of buskers (I usually don't), there's talented people everywhere and we're all better of for it.

Speak to you Friday,

- Josh

image found here

Alcohol borrows happiness from tomorrow

Afternoon guys, here it is. Friday 14th October top five. It's my consolidated list of all things awesome this week. Feel free to share it around with whomever you think appropriate!

Here we go;

1) Video of the week;

Stiff Little Fingers - Alternative Ulster.

2) Track of the week;

letlive. - Over Being Under

3) Quote of the week;

"Alcohol borrows happiness from tomorrow." - Anon.

"I think I've reached the point where I'm borrowing happiness from next month." - Reddit user.

4) Article of the week;

Neil Gaiman - Make Good Art.

5) Gig of the week;

Chromatic Live at Borja, 14th October.

Speak to you Monday,

Josh

(blog image found HERE.)

Stop listening to music.

I recently went camping for the night with a friend and it was great fun. We left at 2pm and got back at 8.30am the following day.

We didn't listen to any music at all, the only noise was conversation. I can't remember the last time I did that. I usually have music on in the studio constantly, and when I'm at home i'm usually listening to podcasts, while I'm walking i'm listening to podcasts, when I'm at the gym there's music on. The only silence I have is while sleeping, and I live in town so silence is hard to come by.

I noticed how much more I thought about stuff. I understand how some people don't like to be left alone with their thoughts, but I realised that I rarely am, and it can be very beneficial. Being forced to think about problems or issues and not having any distractions can really help you work out a solution, or at least give it more thought than you can usually.

When I got into work on Sunday morning, the music went straight back on again, and i certainly paid more attention to it, rather than being that constant background noise. I actively 'listened' to it.

So, I learnt something new, I'm going to take time off from music and headphones every now and then. I'll appreciate the quiet time, but also the music when I come back to it.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Speak to you Friday,

Josh

(image found HERE)

How to make 50 podcast episodes.

We're fast approaching episode 50 of The Audio Works Podcast and I'm not quite sure how that happened. It's actually the second attempt at running a podcast, the first one was more of a live session with a chat after, but the process of setting up, recording a session, then recording a podcast was way too time consuming. It took a team of three of us and about 6 hours of work, it wasn't sustainable.

The second time around I made it simple. I bought a mic and literally met up with folks and recorded our conversation. So much more mobile and fast, and only required myself to produce.

The Audio Works Podcast

With any small town you soon find out that everyone knows everyone. Particularly in different scenes, wether that's music, rugby, fitness. These circles are small so you inevitably meet everyone involved.

If you're not involved in these scenes it's easy to not know of their existence at all. I knew that if I simply recorded some conversations with the plethora of interesting people in this town, it would make for interesting listening.

We've had musicians, doctors, business owners, exercise coaches, all sorts of diverse, successful and driven people and on hearing their attitudes and achievements I have pushed myself a little further, which is an excellent bi-product of communicating with them. Northampton is culturally rich, and this podcast is the tip of the iceberg.

So, feel free to give the podcast a listen, and maybe look at some of the guests work too. Let them know where you heard about them and I'm sure they'd love to talk to you.

Thanks for reading (and listening), and please leave a comment if you have any questions or opinions.

Speak to you Friday,

Josh.

If you really want to make it, be insane.

I was fortunate enough to see a covers band on Saturday that had been together for over 20 years. It was a reunion gig so they have had breaks throughout that time. It made me think about what current bands will be doing in 20 years time.

It's safe to assume that most members of covers bands started out playing original music. They then make the transition to make some extra money, or carry on playing music without the hassle of writing new material/chasing gigs.

The music industry, certainly regionally is a difficult nut to crack. It seems that you have three options

1. Get a record deal and get paid to play original music.
2. Play in a covers/function band and get up to a couple hundred a weekend.
3. Perform your own original music, often for no more than petrol money.

Arguably, if you're doing it for the music then the money and fame doesn't matter. In reality it does, it costs money to be a musician, there's equipment, travel, rehearsal, recording and the hundreds of hours it takes to run a bands online presence. Unless you are already financially well off you need to be generating money to even be able to continue to do it.

The deciding factor is usually time. If you don't have the passion/love/stubbornness to carry on long after people have told you to quit you probably aren't going to make it (unless you got signed of your first single).

Any successful person will tell you that it's trial and error. It's true for other ventures too, be that technology (Steve Jobs) SEE VIDEO BELOW, Media (Gary Veynerchuk) or music (Anvil). If you keep going you well get there, or at least your significantly more likely to 'make it' if you don't quit.

I'm still in the trial and error phase but here's to hoping we're all going to get there.

Speak to you Friday,

Josh

(image found here.)

Doing nothing will get you nothing.

I was having a chat with a good friend of mine that has started a business overseas and he's doing well. We started discussing what happens if a venture doesn't reach the goals we have for them and how would we know if it's time to close the doors.

We came to the conclusion that it could be any time, wether that's not making enough money, having to work too many hours, or just not enjoying it. This also applies to being in a band.

I've had some experience of band break-ups and it's not very nice, it has so many similarities to a couples relationship and also business.

We invest time, money and sweat into projects that are heading in one direction, but that changes over time, even more so when you're working with other people. The chances that you'll all want the same thing for the life of the project is slim. Sometimes you grow apart, but sometimes it's not mutual.

Every band has a crisis of confidence from time to time. There is no formula to guarantee a record deal. You have to try what you can and hope for the best, some people are not comfortable with this uncertainty and that's understandable.

Providing you are enjoying the process the outcome doesn't matter. I think that's the point of most things. It's nice to get what you want but often the real achievement and happiness is in the process of working for it.

Nothing will come of nothing. - William Shakespeare

Speak to you Friday,

Josh.

p.s. Save this email address josh@audio-works.co.uk as I've had several people mention that they're missing the e-mails as they're getting filtered out.

p.p.s The image on this post is of my rad dad in his first band.

Practice makes progress.

Practice makes progress

A good friend of mine and fantastic musician in his own right, Mark Ski commented that on a photo I posted on Instagram a year or two ago. I hadn't heard it before and it really stuck in my head.

We're fortunate to get many different types of bands at Audio Works. We also get varying abilities, from people with no experience, to lifetime musicians. This does mean that some of the rooms sound like a well oiled professional group and some like an after-school jam, BUT THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THIS PLACE IS FOR. I love the fact that people have the drive to come and expose their weaknesses and work on them, it's great to hear the improvements. 

It translates to all walks of life too. Wether you're beginning a get fit programme, removing sugar from your diet, learning a language or have just become a new parent every second you practice something, you're learning and therefore making progress.

Tim Ferriss, someone that I mention almost on a daily basis has a great tool for learning, it's called 'The Four Hour Chef'. The book uses cooking as a vehicle to teach you different learning methods, which you can then apply to any other subject. It's helped me and hundreds of thousand of others, you can actually download the torrent of the book and bonus info for free, HERE. The hard copy is significantly more useful, particularly when trying out the suggested recipes.

So practice something and make some progress. Feel free to share some links to what you're working on at the moment in the comments.

Speak to you Friday.

 

Life on the Road

I went to see David Brent: Life On The Road on Friday. Now, I'm a crazy mental fan so I've been excited about this for months and at 12:25 on the 19th August, I bloody watched it.

It's extremely difficult to write a comedic song without it sounding like a limerick. The fact that Ricky Gervais used Andy Burrows and friends probably helps. The tracks themselves are really good, very catchy, well produced and expertly written. The jokes keep coming and there's lots of rewards for loyal fans too.

I think the film would work as a stand alone piece, but it's difficult to say from my perspective as I'm well aware of all the previous Brent.

I'd also thoroughly recommend watching the film if you're a musician. So many of the scenes were familiar to me, I wont give too much away, but if you've ever been in a band or performed live you'll feel some of the pain and frustration that's portrayed on screen.

So go and watch it, it's the only film i've seen where everyone in the cinema was laughing together, the music is decent too.

Speak to you Friday,

Josh

Image found HERE.

You don't deserve it.

An acquaintance of mine had some creative success and I thought;

"You don't deserve it."

This raises a couple of issues. Firstly, why don't they deserve it? and secondly, who am I to decide who's worthy?

It made me really think about why I had that reaction, was it jealousy? Fear? Regret? Maybe all of them. I know it's a negative reaction and not something that's going to lead to a positive change in my life. I think it's a common reaction however, we hear of someone doing something desirable and we want it for ourselves, we then judge others based on that.

I think the correct reaction is 'good for you'. We don't really think that they should have it taken away, we really mean 'I want that too'. and there's no reason why we can't achieve whatever they have. Arguably, if we were on their track, if we had worked on the same things they had for the same time we'd probably have it too. We can all be successful, it's not them or us.

So, in summary, I need to be less selfish, we're all on our own paths and we can all get where we want to with time and work. I hope that's true and I think I believe it, the alternative is we're all going nowhere and it's a colossal waste of time, (in that case we better make it fun along the way).

Speak to you Friday,

- Josh.

image found HERE.

I'm sorry you feel that way.

I went to see Bostonian comic Bill Burr this weekend at the Eventim Apollo. I've seen him before and he's always hilarious. The ability to enthral a theatre full of people with just words amazes me, I struggle to tell one short anecdote to two friends.

Now, you always get hecklers, loud whistlers and chronic toilet breakers, and I find it difficult to ignore them and enjoy the show.

When it started I noticed that we had a guy a few seats away that maniacally laughed at the set-ups, not the punchlines, and rocked violently in his chair while whaling out these ill-timed laughs, he also took 4 toilet breaks meaning we had to get out our seats every twenty minutes or so. We also had a guy with an impressive wolf whistle, seriously, this thing was LOUD. It would have been more impressive if it hadn't been 12 inches from my ear.

Now, as this was happening I was very conscious that I shouldn't let other peoples behaviour affect mine or my enjoyment of the show, after all they're enjoying it in their own way too. Also, I really like Bill Burr, his Monday Morning Podcast is so entertaining, his new TV show F is For Family is also great (season 2 is being finished as I write this) and his appearances in Breaking Bad, New Girl and Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee are excellent.

It's the same with loud talkers at music gigs. It is difficult to not judge others by your standards, but when they are breaking the social norms (respecting the performers and fellow audience members) it's difficult to ignore. Admittedly, I don't know what the answer is here, whether you should have a word with them or ignore them and focus on the show, both are pretty crapy things to be made to do.

We tried to ignore them and we did enjoy the show, but it was undoubtedly disruptive.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Speak to you Friday,

- Josh

Image found HERE.

Adam Buxton is my legal high dealer.

"Variety is the splice of rice." - Adam Buxton

Powerful words from Dr. Buckles there, and some great words to heed. I'd also reccomend listenting to his podcast, you can find it here.

I've been listening to some music outside of my favoured genres this week and it's been great. I've had some Trap (Mura Masa pictured below), some dancehall and some house and the change of pace is really interesting. I tend to listen to a lot of Rock and Metal, from Jimi Hendrix to Periphery, but listening to some modern EDM sub-genres has been somewhat up-lifting. I've been more energised and with the addition of a large coffee my productivity has been off the charts.

Obviously, that isn't sustainable, it doesn't take much caffeine to give me the jitters and send my heart into erratic rhythms, which really stresses me out. I've found that the right music can give me that same energy boost, without the come down. It's something worth testing.

In this week Audio Works Podcast I spoke to Kate Williams about Yoga and the use of music within each session and it's the same principle. It's supposed to aid the task (yoga movements and meditation), without drawing too much attention to itself. That's what music can do, sometimes it's about listening to and analysing the music, and sometimes it's a soundtrack. Choose your soundtrack wisely and it can really help.

Speak to you Friday,

Josh

(Image found here.)

This town is dead.

"There's nothing to do in this town."

"Northampton is shit."

"I'm going to London"

These are all things i've had said to me about the town that I live in (said by people that have made no attempt to change their situation). I have no illusion that there are other, more diverse, more lively places in the world but if you're chasing the 'best' place to be;

a) You'll never find it and (the 'best' anything is temporary and constantly evolving).

b) All the time you spend moaning would be better spent creating.

I'm a firm believer that I am in control of my life, it doesn't just happen to me. Obviously some things are uncontrollable, but certainly in terms of things to do, it's down to me. We all get bored, but it's what we do with that time that can really make the difference.

I read an article about Tyler Perry (a very successful actor, producer, director, screenwriter, playwright, author, and songwriter) about how he had achieved his goals, and one of the things he said was;

"Stop wasting time on TV, games, dumb stuff & people. If a person doesn't have a plan... move on!"

That really resonated with me. If TV and games are my goal, then obviously it's all good, but those things don't get me where I want to go. If i'm not where I want to be, then doing anything other than chasing that is wasting time. If I don't work on it I wont get it. It doesn't matter what my goal is, whether that's money, relationships or expertise it all requires work. Playing Glastonbury festival requires plenty of rehearsal, has anyone ever played Glastonbury with zero practice?

I talk about quotes a lot, I think it's because my mind constantly wonders towards 'what are you doing with your life, you should be doing better/more' territory, so the occasional kick in the butt really helps me. As soon as I think I want to sit in front of the TV or eat that massive chocolate bar I ask myself 'Is that how I get what I want?', the answer instructs me what to do next.

That helps me, maybe it can help you, it's worth a shot.

Speak to you Friday,

Josh.

image found HERE.

Local Business

Support local business!

Support local business is a phrase we hear quite a lot. We're told to shun the national and international faceless giants and help our local community. It can be hard to do, especially as the larger companies can often be quicker and cheaper. Also, while these larger companies can be somewhat robotic and soulless the people that work there are friends and family, and we wouldn't want them out of a job.

Why should we support local business?

I firmly believe in spending time and money with local business', that's partly as I am a local business owner, and I know how important local support is, but also, I find the level of service is always higher. Ultimately, if you're business is good enough you will survive. It's very rare that a great business doesn't stay open and that's part of the challenge of running one. It's your job to get enough customers to thrive, and if they don't show up it's not their fault, it's yours.

That is why local businesses have a high level of service, it matters directly to the staff that it thrives, there's no other branch that can buffer the losses of bad sales, if the money isn't made, you don't get paid. In a small business there is no guarantee that you're getting paid that month, often the last person to get paid is the business owner, ask any of them how long they were open before they started paying themselves, you'll be surprised.

So, use the local coffee shop rather than Starbucks, buy the locally brewed beer rather than the cheap mass produced lager, go to your local independant gym rather than the local globo-gym. If your in Northampton I can point to many local alternatives that offer superior quality, feel free to ask.

Speak to you Friday,

Josh.

Image found HERE.

How to have the perfect band rehearsal.

We've had a fair few bands through our doors at Audio Works Rehearsal Studio, over 5,000 rehearsal slots in the last 5 or so years. We've learnt a lot about how different bands rehearse and now you can too...

The shortest rehearsal we've had was 30 minutes, the longest was 6 hours. The smallest band was one person, and the largest was seven.

Top 5 most common practices;

1.  2 hours average duration.
2. Average of 4 band members.
3. 1 ten minute break.
4. First half jamming or writing.
5. Second half set run through.

It does seem that the bands that rehearse for 3+ hours get more rehearsal time, particularly as they tend to stay in for the duration of the slot, rather than having several breaks. Perhaps it's that 3 hours is more of a commitment, therefore the attitude is get in the room and get the work done. It's not clear why, but obviously with more rehearsal comes more productivity.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book outliers, posed that it takes 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in any field. That's 13 years of two hours music rehearsal a day. Obviously, you don't have to be a master to play music and have fun, but the more you know, the more you can do.

In summary, It's important to find the best way your particular band works well. I also think it's important to push yourself, and try out new things. I've been to many rehearsals with a less than perfect attitude. If I had pushed myself a little more, tried a new style/technique to further my musicianship I definitely would have benefitted from it.

Ultimately, I think you need find your way, find your preferred style, but push the limits a little to help yourself grow. I'm trying to do this with my own pursuits and it certainly seems to be working.

Speak to you Friday.

Josh.

p.s. How long is your band practice? Do you have any band rehearsal rules? Let us know in the comments.

How to cure jealousy in one easy step.

I recently saw a friends band play Glastonbury, half of me was cheering them on and half of me was jealous, which is wrong.

I've had that reaction before, I went to see another friend play guitar in a band to 10,000 people as part of a world tour. I was so inspired and proud that he was living his dream. Although I couldn't help feeling a little jealous. It stems from the feeling that I could be doing that, but through my actions I took a different path. His position seemed more exciting, more valuable, therefore I feel I may have made the wrong decisions, which is a difficult feeling to deal with.

I think that I'm doing a good thing with my life. I am fairly confident that what I have dedicated this portion of my life to is going well, and I give it my all, but I must admit I do tend to compare myself to other people and inevitably fall short (wether that's highly successful musicians, athletes or business people). I compare myself to people further down their road than me, rather than people at my level or just getting started.

"Compare, despair"

- I heard Ari Shaffir say this although I think it originates from Alcoholics Anonymous. 

If, for example you compare yourself to Keith Richards, you'll fail. You can't be Keith Richards, because he is Keith Richards. You can be a version of you that has dedicated yourself in the same way, you can be a similarly skilled/experienced person, rather than a copy of someone else.

I think it is that simple, If I had dedicated myself to those pursuits, I would be doing similar things. I have dedicated myself to this pursuit, and hopefully I have 50+ years left to do whatever I feel. I can't be everything all the time, so I must learn to focus on what I want to do and do it, and for now, I am.

So, I need to learn to not be jealous. I need to think 'good for them for doing what they're doing'. We're not comparable, it's apples and oranges. We're on different journeys, if i'm on the wrong path, now is the time to stop and get on the right one, otherwise, keep on keeping on.

Speak to you Friday.

(Cover image found HERE.)

The one upgrade to rule them all.

If I just get that piece of kit everything will be fine.

I've thought that a lot over the last 6 years, mainly because starting a business means all funds go to that and any personal purchases need to be REALLY justified. I often think that this extra piece of kit, this upgrade, or this new thing will make my mediocre thing exceptional, and that's rarely the case.

I put off starting a podcast for 2 years because I was waiting for the money to setup a professional broadcast quality studio, I finally realised it's more important to get it going, than get it perfect from the start (which is nearly impossible).

I bit the bullet, bought a budget all rounder microphone (Zoom H2n) and got cracking. I'm so glad I did because I've got to have long conversations with people I really respect and am intrigued by. If you haven't heard it treat yourself to an hours listening, CLICK HERE for iTunes or here to listen in your browser. Pick one at random and if you like it subscribe. There are so many amazing people, and they're all around us. It could be better sound quality, it could be more polished and produced, but I'd rather have it in it's current form than not at all.

It's the same with this blog. I was holding out for some kind of approval that I had interesting stuff to say, but in the end I knew I had to stop making excuses and get going. I'm not a great writer, and maybe I'm not interesting to you, but as with anything some of you will like it and some of you will hate it, and that's OK.

So, stop making excuses and get going, it's far better to get started and adjust along the way than it is to postpone for the ever-evading perfect moment.

If I can help you with what you're doing please get in touch josh@audio-works.co.uk.

Speak to you Friday,

Josh

My number one guilty pleasure.

"guilty pleasure"

1. something, such as a film, television programme, or piece of music, that one enjoys despite feeling that it is not generally held in high regard.

I don't believe in guilty pleasures.

If something is a pleasure, then why should you feel guilty about it? The only reason you may feel guilty is that you think someone else doesn't think it's worth your appreciation, but why does anyone else get to decide what you should and shouldn't like?

In reality everything that you think is great, someone else thinks is poor, so everything can be classified as a guilty pleasure, rendering the phrase useless.

Like what you want, do what you want. Providing that it doesn't negatively interfere with anyone else everything is fair game.

I like the Spice Girls, more of the earlier material, but it's all enjoyable. I'd reccomend the greatest hits, it really is great. I went to see them at the Birmingham NEC on the Spiceworld Tour when I was about 13. Geri Horner locked eyes with me for at least 3 seconds, our fate was sealed.

What is your non-guilty pleasure?

Speak to you on Friday,

Josh

Train hard, fight easy.

Train hard, fight easy.

It's an age old adage that you hear from athlete's, chess champions, musicians and military alike. The idea being that if you train harder than the competition/event/gig/war it will be easy to accomplish when the time comes.

It's a great theory, and I'd argue that it's true. It's only through pushing yourself to the point of failure that you really understand what you're capable of. The added bonus is that once you know where your failure point is, you can train to extend it, and therefore improve. Without that test you simply don't know what you're capable of and therefore can't improve.

I remember listening to DJ Craze explain that he trained 8 hours a day for the upcoming Technics DMC World Championship. That's 8 hours a day practicing turntablism, the same as a full time job and probably the same or more than most professional athletes. Now, if you want to be the world champion at something or even just competitive then clearly you need to put more time in than the hobbyist.

This does still apply to the average person on the street however. Most of us are doing something that requires learning, wether that's exercise, music, art, or chess for example. All of these hobbies require a sequence of learning and evaluating. You learn the new skill, test that it works and then move on to the next problem.

If you do it right it enables you to struggle less and potentially enjoy the event itself too, rather than grinding it out because you haven't prepared enough.

Practice more, get better and breeze through the big day, whatever that may be.

Speak to you Friday,

Josh.

p.s. The Obstacle is The Way: The Ancient Art of Turning Adversity into Advantage by Ryan Holiday is a great book. The simple change of attitude towards potential road blocks/problems really helped me working through them, I thoroughly reccomend it.

What Oscar Wilde, Bravo Two Zero and Ben & Jerry 's have in common.

"Everything in moderation, including moderation." - Oscar Wilde (also, Benjamin Franklin, Apollo, Publius Terentius Afer...)

I like this phrase, partly because it helps me not obsess about sticking to the rules all the time and partly because eating an entire tub of Ben & Jerry's while watching Bravo Two Zero is totally part of a healthy lifestyle. There's also science to back this shit up.

I exercise daily and eat a healthy diet so I believe this allows me the occasional indulgence. Sometimes that's a large portion of sugar (90g is the Guideline Daily Amount) and sometimes I go to a gig and have as many pints as I want (14 units per week for men, (7 pints) is considered the maximum safe amount). It's strange that I say 'allow' as that implies someone else has the decision, I suppose what I really mean is 'not feel guilty'.

It's the 'not feeling guilty' that can really affect how and what you do. There's nothing more satisfying than having a beer/ice cream/(choose your poison) on a Saturday after a week of hard work, but that same beer after a week of slacking is significantly less pleasing. It's like rewarding yourself for mediocrity. The harder you work, the more pleasing you find your pleasures.

I used to be far lazier than I am now, and back then I did not see this point. It's only after I've put more effort into things that I realise not only can you derive pleasure from the work itself, but the rewards you allow yourself after and exponentially more betterer*, (and the outcome from the hard work is also greatly improved as opposed to slack work), It's win-win.

So, practice more and have a beer after the gig, work harder and go to that new restaurant at the weekend, go the extra round and pick-up a chocolate bar on the way home. Tell yourself that 'OK' is not good enough and then reward yourself for your accomplishments.

Or don't, do whatever you want.

Speak to you Friday,

Josh

p.s. I'm personally happy that I've managed to shoe horn Bravo Two Zero into a blog post because i'm totally not obsessed with it at all. If anyone wants to talk about that I'm down.

*it's not a word.

What I've learnt from 5,000 rehearsals.

I worked out yesterday that we've had somewhere in the region of 5,000 rehearsal sessions booked at Audio Works. That's amazing. It's also really nice to know that people like to rehearse here.

Some people practice on their own, some bands have 10 members. Some sessions are 30 minutes and some are 6 hours. Some bands come in and don't leave the room until their session is finished, and others have a cigarette break every 20 minutes. But what makes a good rehearsal?

Whenever I'm practicing anything I consider it useful, worthwhile or successful if I've improved what I was practising or constructed something that didn't exist before I started. It depends on your objective. I've had successful rehearsals when I've jammed for 60 minutes, and also had good practice when I focussed on one specific, minute detail.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, states that to achieve expertise in any field you need to spend roughly 10,000 hours. Now, clearly this depends on how you define expertise, and not many people start out with the goal of becoming an expert. Most of the fun is in the journey, the learning and failing, and trying again. That does show however, that if 0 hours is no knowledge and 10,000 is maximum knowledge, then we need to start putting some hours in.

Most of the bands at Audio Works rehearse once a week for 2 hours with no breaks. Know, that's not to say that if you don't do that you're good or bad, I think we all know when we've put in the time, and that's what drives me to progress. Whenever I do something that turns out not good enough, I know if I've put the time in so I know what needs to be done and where the mistakes where.

My overriding motto while practising/rehearsing is 'practice makes progress', a good friend of mine, Mark Ski (funkbyfunk) added that as a comment to an image I posted a while ago and it's stuck in my head ever since. I'm not sure perfection can be achieved, but that's OK because most of my most personally satisfying work has come from the pursuit (and failure) of finding perfection.

PRACTICE MAKES PROGRESS.

See you next week,

Josh