When I practise musical instruments, I always select the most difficult song I can imagine. The primary reason is that it will ruthlessly reveal your biggest weakness to you. Then, enlightened, I simply focus on that specific weakness for weeks, months or even years until I discover the next weakness. This past month, I made a wonderful discovery in my drum practice (I started in 2019). Finally, I could easily tell that my left hand was my weakest link.
Read MoreA wise old mate of mine once said that one of the most important things you learn when you get older, is the ability to “snap back to normal” when you get upset, angry, anxious, or whatever other negative feelings that wash over you. I can totally relate. When I was younger, I could get stuck in a negative thought loop for days. And that is very pointless. Currently at 41 years of age, I have improved significantly in this regard. It is much rarer that I get stuck in the same way. There might be two reasons for this. 1) My “snap-back ability” has improved and 2) Maybe I don’t get nearly as angry nowadays? If you decrease the amplitude, you won’t have to cover as much distance to get back to normal. Could it perhaps be that most of it comes back to reason 2)? In that case, it would certainly feel as if 1) comes with the package.
Read MoreChristmas rush at work, a man cold, and severe sleep depravation after a morning flight. And a whole bunch of sleep depraved nights before that. I am quite sure that the cold is a consequence of an immune system that is just as tired as me. A bit of proper sleep would probably do the trick, if there were enough clock hours. The energy reserves are gone, I am running on fumes now just hanging in there for the final check out on Friday. It is times like these that things are really put to the test. How much do I really want to write this blog post and practice my drums? To go to bed right now, is the easiest sell in the world.
Read MoreOne of the drawbacks with acquiring a PhD is that you “lose” around five years of work experience, because you are busy studying. It’s the same with all forms of education a.k.a. sacrificing the present for the future. I felt this very strongly during my first years as an acoustician. My friends who went straight to a private sector employment had several years head start on me, so by the time I was finally ready to start working for real, I was far behind, and I was frustrated by the feeling that colleagues assumed that my experience would be great and not comparable to a fresh recruit. Of course, when you have a good education/toolkit in your mind, it is only a matter of time before you catch up and take the lead, and in my case, I reckon it took around ten years in total (including PhD studies). During my insane quest to learn the drums, I realized something similar the other day with regards to music.
Read MoreBack in July 2023, I began my fifth year of daily practice to nail the song Bleed by Meshuggah on the drums, as a beginner drummer. The insanity of this project is of epic proportions, which can be verified by anyone who has ever heard the original. Many people have asked how I am able to be so consistent with my practice, and if I interpret them correctly, it seems like they would have given up long ago. However, I have finally reached the stage where I cannot keep up my 15 minutes per day. It is simply too difficult. That’s why I have now decided to double my efforts.
Read MoreWhen I became active on social media a couple of years ago, I discovered the phenomenon of so called “haters”. They exist both in real life and online, but it sure seems as if they are more common online. The pattern often repeats like this, the first weeks or months (depending on your virality), the comments section usually becomes active with people who try to bring you down. My best example is when I have been documenting my progress of learning how to play the drums. Negative comments were more common in the first year, but from year two and onwards, it feels as if they have vanished. I guess it is not that fun to harass someone who couldn’t care less even if he tried.
Read MoreI remember driving in the early noughties. The first thing I did after I got my driver’s license was to install a nice car stereo and a 12” subwoofer in the trunk. I always listened to music. I could figure out excuses to go for a drive just so that I could listen to more music. And I listened to music constantly when I was not driving too. Nowadays my music consumption isn’t even close, and it has to a large degree been replaced by audiobooks and podcasts. Why is this?
Read MoreLast week I had a couple of sound measurements planned in Eskilstuna and Uppsala. However, just a couple of days before departure, I realized that I had forgotten to book a hotel. In big cities, that is usually not a problem, but in a smaller city like Eskilstuna it is quite possible that all the rooms run out on a given night. And that is precisely what happened to me. I found one room left on a place called Thottska Villan, about 20-25 minutes from the city centre. When you consider that you park in front of the entrance, I am not convinced that I even lost any time. But when I arrived on site, I was blown away by what turned out to be jackpot as far as hotel nights go.
Read MoreWhen I go on stage as a performing musician, my mind activates another setting. I get much more focused and find it a lot easier to enter the “flow” state. And when practicing at home, I often find my thoughts drifting away to irrelevant things. I’m probably not alone in this behavior and it’s also not surprising. There’s no “skin in the game” when practicing. There is no cost of messing up. But when you’re on stage, you will make a fool out of yourself if you don’t deliver. Hardcore, no extra lives when you mess up. I have found a very simple way to trick my mind that I am performing at a concert even when I am practicing at home.
Read MoreAny practicing musician knows that continuous practice over long periods of time will resemble a sine wave shaped staircase, with varying frequency. You experience good days and bad days, sometimes also clustered into good streaks and bad ones. Never has this been clearer to me than today when I am in my fourth year of daily drum practice of one single song: Bleed by Meshuggah. Any normal person´s gut reaction will probably be that a bad day feels like a failure. But a couple of weeks ago I realized that those bad days are the most important days of all. Because they reveal the truth. They show you what you can really do, without any sugar coating. Tonight, with a high fever, sleep depravation and a severe man-cold is a wonderful day for drum practice. Tonight, I will learn how far (or close) I really am to the goal of nailing this song.
Read MoreA very good rule of thumb when riding a motorcycle on a racetrack is to stay within 70% of your maximum capacity. Because you will need those spare 30% when you mess up – which you will. I love to do track days with my motorcycles. It’s the best practice there is. To expand your skill level and learn exactly where your current limit is and how it feels to approach it. That has saved my ass and perhaps even my life on several occasions in the real world, which is less forgiving than a racetrack.
Read MoreWhen I decide to do something, I often become obsessed. The perfect example is when I decide to learn to play the drums and chose Bleed by Meshuggah as my first song. This is arguably one of the most difficult metal songs ever written, and thus I thought that it must be the perfect place to start for obsessed beginners like me. If you learn a song on the very edge of what is possible, any other (normal) song becomes a walk in the park, right?
Read MoreThe year 2020 and 2021 have resulted in some interesting alternatives for live music. With most concerts cancelled, some artists went online instead and started to livestream. I personally find this approach very interesting for several reasons. The ability to play live to anyone in the world is the primary factor. And the possibility to experience it even after the concert is over is another. It opens a whole new forum for musicians to interact with their followers. However, I do suspect there is a huge technical barrier for many musicians. Personally, I love to figure out how things work and bang my head on a problem until I find a “perfect” solution. Learning how to livestream drums AND play the drums at the same time might perhaps be my most ambitious and rewarding project yet. Because there is no end in sight of technical problems to be solved!
Read MoreWhen laying a puzzle, I usually start with the edges and create the frame. Those parts are the easiest to identify and combine, because it is obvious where they should go. After the frame is completed, I then pick out some key part of the motive. A couple of years ago me and my wife built some geography puzzles of a world map, and one such key part could have been to “let´s build Africa”. And then the other components. Finally, we laid down the oceans, which are all blue and thus by far the most difficult. That’s why they came last. Because without a framework it is almost impossible to place them at all. A very interesting fact about puzzles is that the closer you get to the goal, the speed of the building process accelerates. Just think about how quick you will lay down the final three pieces compared to the first three!
Read MoreWhen you become a parent, you will discover the world again through your child. You cannot understand how fascinating and amazing it is when the wind rattles the leaves in a tree. But your two-year old sees it instantly and his mind is blown. And you stop and think for a second: “Yes, that is quite amazing actually. I had forgot about that when I became an adult”.
Read MoreI always practice a musical instrument 15 minutes per day and have been doing it every day for the past seven years. In these years I have been experimenting with the optimal practice time, and I have tried all of them. What I have found, is that a habit like this works best first thing in the morning. When you open your eyes after a night’s sleep, your mind is fresh and feels like a blank slate. As the day goes on, more and more ideas enter your mind. And at the end of the day, the mind is so full of thoughts and ideas that a night’s sleep is needed to crystalize them, so that the process can start over the next day. That’s why I have found the morning hours to work best, but there are also other factors to consider.
Read MoreIt is now 24 months since I decided to learn Bleed by Meshuggah on the drums, as a beginner drummer. This is a totally crazy project, because it is arguably one of the most difficult metal songs ever written. It is also one of the best, and a personal favorite. I can now play all the parts of the song one by one, in somewhat lower tempo. It took almost two years to just understand the riffs. But now the next phase begins, which I call “The Grind”. It is the final push to connect all riffs together and bring the tempo up to the original speed. And paradoxically, this is the easiest part of the whole process!
Read MoreThe greatest difference between acoustic drums and electronic drums is that you can control the sound pressure level from the electronic drums by turning the volume knob. Whereas an acoustic drum kit will produce a sound pressure level that is what it is. If you want to play rock or metal, you need to hit the drums hard, or it will not sound or feel right. Consequently, the sound pressure level will be very high. The drummer only has one option, and that is to wear proper hearing protection while drumming, or face a near certain risk of permanent hearing loss. With the E-drums on the other hand, you can choose whatever sound pressure level that you like, and your ears will be safe. Or will they?
Read MoreWhen I was a kid, I watched the movie Karate Kid where young Daniel wants to learn Karate and gets old Karate master mr Miyagi to train him. Miyagi lets Daniel clean and polish his cars using the “wax on, wax off” motion. He also lets him clean a terrace and pain a fence, always using special motions with his hands when appying the wax, paint or cleaning water. All in all, Daniel spends lots and lots of time with these activities until he finally snaps and goes furious – “When are you going to teach me Karate?!” It turns out, that is precisely what he has done. The special movements Daniel used in the activities are important Karate moves, and by doing restoration and renovation work, they have just killed two birds with one stone. A lot of works has been done, and Daniel now has the correct movements in his muscle memory.
Read MoreSix years ago, I opened an account where I put aside ~50 EUR every month. The purpose of this account was to slowly build up a buffer so that I can buy musical equipment whenever a I come across a good deal of something I desire. I have been looking at a pair of Finnish Genelec studio monitors for about 15 years. They are called the 8050 and they are ridiculously expensive, and they are also quite rare on the 2nd hand market. I have been scanning the trading sites for years and have only seen them a couple of times and when I did, I wasn’t fast enough and someone else grabbed them before me. But if you keep your eyes on the target and are consistent, there are only two options: Either you will find a used pair, or you will save up enough money to go and buy them brand new.
Read More
