Summary: a tourist asks the musician "How do you get to Carnege Hall (http://www.carnegiehall.org/SiteCode/Intro.aspx)?" he plays a few more bars, pauses and says, "Practice man, practice." we get asked about doing production and what it takes to get good at doing it. but it's not just about production. you can apply everything that we talk about to programming, science, flying or cooking. the what really doesn't matter because it all has the same root problem. which is, the problem that I have seen with students and people wanting to make something is that there is a lot of talk about making but making never happens. this is a concept called "rocking later (http://www.johnpla.net/105/rocking-later/)." the extremely important to take away here is to get the need for gear out of the equation of making your success. a RED camera won't automatically make your movie better. recording with a Sound Devices 722 won't make the script better or enhance the actors performance. just like a MacBook Pro won't make you a professional. technology is not a substitute for doing. at every single writer workshop that I've attended one person asks the same question which is, "how do you get good at writing?" the answer is always the same: "write. write every day. write when you don't feel like it. write until you can just write." that's how you get good at writing. but the same thing can be applied to anything you want to get good at doing. one Phd scientist has said that it takes 10,000 hours (http://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/11/science/peak-performance-why-records-fall.html?pagewanted=all) to achieve the level where you are an expert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)). this makes the joke where a musician misunderstands a tourist even more funny. the tourist asks, "How do you get to Carnege Hall?" the violinist plays a few more bars, pauses and says, "Practice man, practice…" this article (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/magazine/02cooking-t.html?pagewanted=all) from the New York Times tells a story that I've noticed but didn't know how to say. that is watching a TV show somehow equates to an "I've done that" experience in your brain. and this can be worse then rocking later. the lesson I learned Ms Childs as a kid is that cooking isn't hard. but you do have to practice. "you have to have the courage to flip the eggs," she said. so while it looks easy, there's a moment when your minds eye sees egg flying all over the stove making a mess. and that's exactly what happens. I wanted to learn to flip omelets and to get over the fear of the flip. I got four dozen eggs and started flipping. at first this seemed incredibly wasteful because I was ruining lots of eggs and making a mess. but by the 8th or 9th toss I had gained confidence. by the time I was out of eggs the flip was perfected. the cost of learning a lifetime skill was five bucks. there is nothing wrong with letting the unscene satisfaction from reading MAKE Magazine, Popular Electronics, Wooden Boat or watching Monster Garage, Jacques-Yves Cousteau or anyone else who is "doing things" in front of the camera. just don't get trapped into letting watch or read becoming the substitute for doing. this is a problem that I have seen with students and people wanting to make something. there is a lot of talk about making but making never happens because the brain can't tell the difference between the show and your own actions. the act of watching steals your ambition to make. not getting trapped by Rocking Later is just one part of the "make mantra". the mind set that can be broken down into a list. in the spirit of the lifezero 10 list. here's 11. * no "rocking later". * RTFM. * practice. * mind your levels. * use what you have. no pining. * always learning. * test it before you commit to it. aka sound check. * pretend that you can't fix it in post. * if it's broken fix it or replace it. * you can't polish a turd. * don't tweak what works.
