Learn your craft

I overheard a professor telling a student a story the other day.  He had been playing at some music conference and a student asked him to help him get some really good ideas out of his head and into the world.  So the prof tells him to play what he's got.  After the student is done he says, 'You can't play your horn, learn to play it and the ideas will come out.'  That sounds harsh, but it's probably the best advice that student could have gotten.

If you don't know what your tools can do, then you can't use them to fully express your ideas.  I mean tools in the broadest sense possible, like if you are a writer than language is your tool, if you're a photographer the camera is your tool.

Learning your craft might seem tedious, but once you have it down you are free to use it, abuse it, disregard it, do whatever that gets your idea out because you know the rules and you can consciously decide how to apply them.

Guess I better go learn the scales.  Again.