Play Your Heart Out

This month, I'm really excited to bring you a wonderful post by trumpet player Mike Brozick.  Mike was kind enough to take the time to share his wisdom with us and his post is totally inspiring and motivating!  Enjoy! RPG

“First you master your instrument.

Then you master the music.

Then you forget all about that and just play.”

-Charlie Parker

We spend a lot of time mastering our instrument, but how do we go from refining the fundamentals to performing for an audience? After you lay a foundation of technique and begin to build your repertoire, it is important to distinguish between two complementary forms of practice: programming practice and performance practice -- or as Parker puts it, mastering the music and then forgetting about all that and just playing.