Book Review of Effortless Mastery Part 1

[alcoyot]

Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner.
Its an awesome book, get it! There's my review
Seriously instead of writing a review I'll just paraphrase some of the things I read that really hit home for me. The book goes into much greater detail on these topics, and many more.

1. Any discipline/activity which aims to control the mind (like meditation for one example) is going to be complementary to being a musician.
2. We start out like pawns on a chessboard. Eventually we transcend and become the player who already knows how to win the game.
3. There's this great story about at turning point he has where he meets a Brazilian piano who teaches him a special exercise. This exercise consists of effortlessly releasing the fingers one by one onto the keys. Sounds like the principles! From what he says this became one of the foundations for the great player he became. Another thing the Brazilian player teaches him (his name is Joao Asis Brasil) is a mantra to repeat over and over: "I must be kind to myself".
4. Someone who doesn't fear death can live to the fullest. Someone who has no fear of failure can succeed. Only one who truly serves can command.
5. Don't get too attached to results and the process of learning becomes a lot more fun. Detachment is essential.
6. My own observation in response to his writing about some of the greats like Miles Davis: Some of the rarest people in the world, are those who can truly express themselves in front of others.
7. Whether something sounds right or not is all in the mind and confidence of the player. He states that Thelonius Monk had the "arrogance" to play whatever he wanted, but I prefer to use the word confidence.
8. A great quote from Miles Davis: "This is the baddest **** you've ever heard, and if you don't think so I'm going to kick your ***!"
9. Don't forget that we're programmed like robots to have certain beliefs that don't always turn out to be true.
10. A note is only as powerful as the musician believes it to be.
11. A quote directly from the book "A meaningful path is a path of action."
12. To finish off this part he gives an amazing exercise which he calls "step one". You put your instrument on a chair. And then relax the body as much as possible and be in a carefree state of mind. Then, take the instrument, and hold it in position and notice the tensions and anxiety which automatically turn on just by holding it! See how this might be causing problems!
Do this exercise over and over until you can be just as relaxed and comfortable with the instrument as you were previously. Btw with voice just imagine that you are putting your voice into the chair and become mute. I tested that out and it works.

There are a lot more mental and even technical exercises for various instruments in this book as well, which I will share some in part 2 of the book review. Again, he goes into much deeper explanation of all these in the book, and this is my own interpretation and paraphrasing of the concepts.

[tiffany]

Interesting, I've heard of this book before but never bought it because I thought it was only a theoretical/essay type book without any actual exercises. I also hesitated because it's not guitar-specific, and I doubted my ability to make good use of a book written for all instruments. Now I'm intrigued and will add this to my wishlist. I've just started practicing meditation, but only as a way to help my insomnia/anxiety disorder. I thought that it might be conducive to music, especially when I saw that one of the "right attitudes" to have while meditating is beginner's mind. Good to have that confirmed.

Btw, "controlling the mind" is quite misleading, no? Control would imply that you have negative judgments about your thoughts, and from my very limited understanding, meditation is about suspending all judgments and just "being" so that your awareness becomes greater than your thoughts and feelings.

Do you think absolute beginners will be able to benefit from this book or will it be a bit over their heads? Would you say this book is best used after one has gone through Jamie's methods (which are guitar-specific)?

Looking forward to part 2!

[alcoyot]

Interesting, I've heard of this book before but never bought it because I thought it was only a theoretical/essay type book without any actual exercises. I also hesitated because it's not guitar-specific, and I doubted my ability to make good use of a book written for all instruments. Now I'm intrigued and will add this to my wishlist. I've just started practicing meditation, but only as a way to help my insomnia/anxiety disorder. I thought that it might be conducive to music, especially when I saw that one of the "right attitudes" to have while meditating is beginner's mind. Good to have that confirmed.

Btw, "controlling the mind" is quite misleading, no? Control would imply that you have negative judgments about your thoughts, and from my very limited understanding, meditation is about suspending all judgments and just "being" so that your awareness becomes greater than your thoughts and feelings.

Do you think absolute beginners will be able to benefit from this book or will it be a bit over their heads? Would you say this book is best used after one has gone through Jamie's methods (which are guitar-specific)?

Looking forward to part 2!

Hey Tiffany!
I'll have part 2 up shortly. Thanks for pointing out the thing about "controlling the mind". Probably not the best way to put it. I do a ton of meditation also, and to be honest I'm not really sure how to describe exactly what it does. It does really kill anxiety though, which I also have suffered.
This book is perfect for beginners and advanced, the concepts are universal. There are many exercises in the book and I'll write out a few more of them soon. Trust me, read it, it will change the way you view music in general, and its a rare thing to find something which will change one's entire paradigm.

[N E Y]

Thanks for posting the reviews Lex,

I am very familiar with Kenny Werner's work and it is in my experience perfectly representative of the the truth and the way an artist has to conduct himself/herself in order to let the music come through.

The paradigm about making music with the mind by intellectual means has always been entirely false, yet the truth is not available at large because artists study with artists , not with academic teachers, at least not entirely.

Every artist -at some point- needs to learn from real artists, who perform in the real world and bring forth real music as composers and improvisers. That is only for those who are serious enough to go through what it takes to get a master as a guide. To the others , the real teachings are not accessible. Only the elementary technicalities, the basic tools. But not the means to use them.

The only chance is to BE an artist, only then will a master appear, if one is serious enough. Often it is very late that a great genius grand-master is gifted to us. I only got to study and be mentored by AL Di Meola , very briefly when I already had an established career as a guitarist/composer.

This book can only be comprehended by real artists who want to awaken to the real world of music and break the wall of shackles present in ego identification , commonly described as egotism.

If have a feeling you are an artist! not just a functioning technical musician like so many...but the real deal!




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[tiffany]

Hey Lex,

I hear ya, there are so many different ways of defining meditation that it can get pretty overwhelming. I have yet to come across a concise definition or general concensus of what it is. But I think Jamie would be a good candidate for that since she has a way of breaking things down into universal concepts.

Cool, I'll definitely check the book out.

Btw, is that your voice in the track on sound cloud? If it is, I'm impressed! I'm usually really picky with "gritty" voices because it's so easy to overdo it to the point that it sounds contrived, but the quality of your voice sounds totally authentic and heartfelt. Very cool.

[alcoyot]

Hey Lex,

Btw, is that your voice in the track on sound cloud? If it is, I'm impressed! I'm usually really picky with "gritty" voices because it's so easy to overdo it to the point that it sounds contrived, but the quality of your voice sounds totally authentic and heartfelt. Very cool.

Yes, that's my singing. I'm very proud of these recordings because I did them with the bare minimum cheapest equipment necessary. A 100$ used Oktava Mic, (which I love), garageband (free recording program), and 2 decent rooms in a house my friend allowed my to use for free for a night. I used the preamps and converters in the mbox interface which was $150, and guitar is a $200 yamaha pacifica recorded direct into the computer. The one thing I wish I had was a better reverb with more options, but I figure rather than spend the $150 and up on that, my sound would improve much more if I spent that money on a webcam lesson from Jamie.

Just a quick note on your comment of "gritty". There's a bit of an illusion going on there. I used a large condenser mic, which is very sensitive and brings out a lot of fine detail in the voice, and on the quieter parts, I lean in 2-3 inches to the mic, which gives a lot of texture. On the louder parts I lean back to about 6-12 inches from the mic, but I'm singing a lot louder so it has the same effect. This makes the voice sound a lot rougher than it really is. That is the real secret of rough sounding voices like Rod Stewart. I don't recommend that anyone try intentionally to make their voice sound rougher than it really is. This always sounds terrible and it is very damaging, doing it continuously will destroy the voice. If you were to hear my voice live, either from a normal distance or through a dynamic mic, it would have much more of a bell-like ringing quality than grittyness.
One other interesting little known fact. Brian Johnson of ACDC actually achieves his results by singing in a very quiet, almost whispering volume. He's mastered doing this in a way where they can just turn the gain up, and it sounds like he's doing a super loud scream. That's how he's saved his voice over the years.
Anyways thanks very much for the compliment. I'm glad you like the recording and hopefully the songwriting as well, which I've been working on.

[tiffany]

Wow, you sure seem to know a lot about recording! Where did you learn all this stuff and have you ever thought about doing sound? The only recording I've ever done is messing around with my now-broken old school 4-track portastudio. But I'd love to hear one of your live performances, just to hear the difference these recording techniques can make.

That's great that you're able to get such a great sound from entry-level equipment! I have to admit, I used to be a bit preoccupied with gear... especially when my band was still active. And then I realized it's not about gear, it's about the player (or or singer, or sound engineer). Which is why I'd also rather spend my money on lessons and education over better gear any day.

and yes! the songwriting sounds great. I like