A sine wave shaped staircase

Any 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.

Stay below 70%

A 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.

Music, MotorcycleRikard ÖqvistFebruary 21, 2022himalaya, meshuggah, drums, trackday, racetrack, motorcycleComment

Progress is like a puzzle

When 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!

Habits, MusicRikard ÖqvistAugust 30, 2021meshuggah, bleed, puzzle, progess, growth, habits, 15 minutesComment

The Grind

It 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!

Habits, MusicRikard ÖqvistJune 28, 2021meshuggah, bleed, drums, practice, habits, consistency, 15 minutesComment

Wax on, wax off

When 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.

Habits, MusicRikard ÖqvistMay 10, 2021meshuggah, tennis, consistency, practice, habits, mind, 15 minutesComment

Can we hypnotize ourselves?

Many of you (including my past self), perhaps think of the entertainers on TV when you think of hypnosis. Not of something that you can use yourself daily. Have you ever experienced that feeling where you are so immersed in something that you are not aware of your surroundings any longer? People can stand right next to you, talking to you, and you don’t hear a single word of what they say. As a musician, I have had this experience several times, however I never chose to enter that state of trance by willpower. It was something that just happened. The idea of hypnotising myself came from a podcast I have started to follow called “Your mind is trying to kill you”, hosted by Alexandros Megas and Vincent Byrne. I was captivated by the thought of entering trance by willpower alone and have been experimenting with it for some weeks now. It turns out it works wonders!