"You only get better by playing"
About this Quote
Getting better comes from contact with the real thing: sound, people, time, risk. For a jazz drummer like Buddy Rich, improvement was not a theory but a nightly trial. The bandstand is both laboratory and crucible, where timing, touch, endurance, and taste sharpen under pressure. Charts change, tempos surge, horn players push or lay back, the room echoes differently each night. You learn to listen harder, to adjust on the fly, to make choices with stakes. No practice pad can replicate that feedback loop.
Rich came up as a child prodigy in vaudeville and spent his life on the road with big bands and small groups, eventually leading his own. That world demanded stamina and immediacy. He was famously exacting, sometimes volatile, because he expected musicians to meet the moment. The claim that you only get better by playing reflects an ethic born of relentless performance: repetition inside real music. He reportedly did little isolated practicing; his refinement happened in public, gig after gig, where mistakes are costly and lessons sink deep.
The idea is not a dismissal of discipline. Rather, it is a focus on situated practice, the kind that integrates technique with context. Running rudiments has value, but until stickings interact with a walking bass line, a saxophone phrase, and an audience, they are abstractions. Playing makes knowledge embodied. It builds time feel that cannot be counted, ears that anticipate, and a confidence forged by surviving difficult sets.
The lesson reaches beyond drums. Writers improve by writing, programmers by shipping code, athletes by competing. Preparation supports, but progress accelerates when action exposes gaps and forces adaptation. Waiting to feel ready creates a loop of delay; engaging creates a loop of feedback. Buddy Rich’s career is a case study in that loop, a reminder that craft grows bold and precise when it is put to work, repeatedly, where it counts.
Rich came up as a child prodigy in vaudeville and spent his life on the road with big bands and small groups, eventually leading his own. That world demanded stamina and immediacy. He was famously exacting, sometimes volatile, because he expected musicians to meet the moment. The claim that you only get better by playing reflects an ethic born of relentless performance: repetition inside real music. He reportedly did little isolated practicing; his refinement happened in public, gig after gig, where mistakes are costly and lessons sink deep.
The idea is not a dismissal of discipline. Rather, it is a focus on situated practice, the kind that integrates technique with context. Running rudiments has value, but until stickings interact with a walking bass line, a saxophone phrase, and an audience, they are abstractions. Playing makes knowledge embodied. It builds time feel that cannot be counted, ears that anticipate, and a confidence forged by surviving difficult sets.
The lesson reaches beyond drums. Writers improve by writing, programmers by shipping code, athletes by competing. Preparation supports, but progress accelerates when action exposes gaps and forces adaptation. Waiting to feel ready creates a loop of delay; engaging creates a loop of feedback. Buddy Rich’s career is a case study in that loop, a reminder that craft grows bold and precise when it is put to work, repeatedly, where it counts.
Quote Details
| Topic | Training & Practice |
|---|
More Quotes by Buddy
Add to List
