Knowing Your Pathway – Core Competencies

Knowing Your Pathway – Core Competencies…

Being a musician is not the easiest thing, and let’s be honest for the most part it’s not the only thing we do. Most of us have at least one other job; lucky for me I get to work for Apple. I also get to be a high school music teacher, a private lessons instructor, and a gigging bass player, not to mention a husband and father…. Phew, that’s a lot!! Lol. Most recently I have had the opportunity to be a mentor at Apple. As a bass teacher I have mentored for years … 20+ to be exact, however I could have been a little more formulaic in the process. What this means is that as a mentor at Apple I want my mentees to achieve their goals, seems easy enough, right? Not exactly… Most of us have an idea where we want to be (kind of) but are not sure how to get there. We can apply the same skills to development on our instrument. It’s not enough to just want it, we have to set a plan in motion on how to achieve it. This made me think a lot about when I work with my bass students and their personal pathways. I believe to have progress we can’t work in a vacuum. This means that we have to seek out feedback and except it. This also means you have to let your guard down and be willing to be open to change. The first steps are these:

1. “What is your Goal?”
2. ”What competencies are you working on to support your goal?”
3. ”What specific behaviors can be observed that you can receive feedback on?”

Ask your self these questions.

”What is your goal”

This seems simple enough, how would you like to see your playing improve.

”What competencies are you working on to support your goal?”

This could be as simple as building your sight-reading skills, impov skills or improved comprehension of music theory.

”What specific behaviors can be observed that you can receive feedback on?”

For any of these I would recommend starting with a good teacher, YouTube/Video bass lessons do not count because it cannot give you feedback and help you identify where your strengths and weaknesses are. Using the skills laid out before you should be able to track your progress.

Please comment and share your successes and failures. There are learning experiences and everything we do that we can apply to our craft.