Hey all!
I hope you all had a very happy Christmas period, ate the good food, drank the good drink and made merry! I had a week away with the extended family in Poland (hence my recent solo performance was in a totally different ambience, I WISH that fire was in our house…) and took a couple of days to recharge the batteries. Next up, 2026...
Which brings me to something you see everywhere at this time of year…new year’s resolutions, transformations, New Year – New You…all of that, and I’m sure that some of you are very familiar with intending on the new year being ‘the’ year where you crush everything…sound familiar?
What then often tends to happen is that you stay with it for a little while and then fall off the train (been there and done that). Why? Because instead of making an incremental change to our habits, we’ve gone for the seismic shift and are trying to change things wholesale. These changes are too much too quickly and you aren’t giving yourself the opportunity to bake them into your routine in a way that makes them permanent as opposed to a temporary shift.
As such, something I would encourage you all to do is think of 2026 as evolution rather than revolution. Think of it as tweaking what you are already doing rather than altering it wholesale. I’m going to expand on this within the context of music but it’s equally applicable to fitness, eating habits, hobbies…actually, any change you want to make within your life!
Within music, there are all sorts of things you can do to move the dial with your progress, but before you look at what you want to do differently I would invite you to consider the following first…
What went well in 2025? What did you learn that you’re pleased about? What did you accomplish that you’re proud of? What changed within your playing that moved you forward?
Get those positives on the board before you look at any alteration, because this way you have it clear in your head what has been a success and can be further reinforced! Then you can start looking at what you might look to shift and evolve.
Practice
A lot of musicians I speak to talk about practicing more, and yes, ultimately there is no substitute for time spent with the instrument…but something you can also consider is making your practice more efficient. When you sit down with the instrument, do you have it clear in your mind what needs work within your playing? Do you have any notes/tempos/roadblocks from your last session written down? If not, make that an evolution of your practice routine so that you’re maximising the productivity of the time you have before you start looking at trying to allocate more time (because god knows we lead busy lives). Extract everything you can from the time you are already spending with the instrument!
If you do want to dedicate more time, I reiterate evolution rather than revolution. Build slowly over time rather than trying to make a seismic shift, so aim to practice perhaps an additional 10mins per practice day as a starting point and see how that goes for 60-90 days and if you’re successful, then re-evaluate and build from there! Keep in mind that quality, focused practice beats sheer quantity.
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Motivation vs Discipline
Motivation is often misunderstood because people feel that it’s a state of mind that you need for improvement. What we’re actually talking about most of the time is discipline, showing up when things don’t go exactly according to plan and getting the work done, because if we really do want to get better, we have to show up and do the thing when we are not necessarily in the mood. A quote from a favourite powerlifting coach of mine always come back to me – “The distance between good and great is how hard you are prepared to push when the going gets tough, when you’re sore and don’t feel like doing the work”. I’m not saying that you must practice through a migraine or anything like that, but don’t shy away from the work. Which leads me to motivation! There are many things you can do to keep your motivation, including getting out and seeing some great live music, discovering new music (be that here with me or elsewhere) and checking back into the records that motivated you to play in first place! Which brings me neatly to…
Listening more
We (understandably) get very absorbed with the idea of practice and learning but honestly…one of the things I’m personally going to be looking to do is spending a little time each day (starting with 10mins) actively listening to some music, and by that I mean on my own, in my studio with no other distractions. No phone, no bass, no notifications…just me and the music. I did this recently with Bjorn Meyers new single ‘Gravity’ from his upcoming solo record Convergence (ECM) and sitting there absorbing the music reconnected me with everything I love about Bjorn’s playing and writing. Sound, melody, time, mood…it was an immersive experience and one I’m very keen to have more of throughout 2026. Listening is also one of the most important things to be doing if you are looking to significantly change your playing in the new year. You want to work on your jazz chops? You need to listen to a LOT of jazz. You want to get some fills together? You need to be listening out for those new ideas you want to emulate. You’re not feeling particularly motivated? Get out the records that made you want to play bass in the first place, turn off your phone and computer and reconnect with them. The listening is as important as the playing and is something we should all be striving to do more of! I look forward to sharing my discoveries with you throughout 2026!
For now, thank you again to all of you that have subscribed and come on this journey with me. I appreciate you all very, very much!
Here’s to 2026! Do let me know what your personal goals and ambitions are in the comments below.
Ben
You should write a book! Your writing is very well put together, my goal is to slow down! That's it slow down work through things at a pace that allows me to fully understand concepts and theory, get every last inch from the things im trying to learn and they play around with them and explore before I move on to the next thing. Hope your 2026 is a great one too.