[Tim Bowen]

I'm a huge fan of practicing in a very methodical and disciplined way. This was a way of life for me as a teenager and a young man, on through music school, and it was my escape when I lived the corporate lifestyle. I kept log books and metronome markings, and devoted certain amounts of time to different disciplines, and I transcribed stuff. It made me extremely content to be anal-retentive and academic, and practice for hours on end. It still would.

Since music is my job, I have some sort of instrument in hand at most any given point during the day. Since part of my income is derived through teaching, I have to be at least a little bit academic. If folks want to know about something that I don't know about, I research it. The fringe benefits of doing the work here are that I don't come off like a moron, and I get paid to learn about something that I wouldn't have otherwise pursued.

The biggest differences in my personal practice habits anymore are that I either focus my disciplines on my obligations, or I'll sit and dink around with something that sounds cool to me for two hours like a three year old. I don't run lydian dominant scales with a metronome on a daily basis anymore, although I'm sure I'd still enjoy that, because I'm a geek at heart. If I've got an upcoming session for bass or backing vocals, I'll work on that, as opposed to, say, harmonizing scales. Having said that, my practice wank sessions include harmonizing scales by default anyway, because I'm always looking at voicings and inversions for chord progressions.

Other than meeting my obligations, what I try to do each day is to write something, arrange something, do some improvising, do some singing, dink with something unfamiliar, and play some different instruments. If there's something that's technically and physically kicking me around, I view this as an excuse to watch television. I smooth out most of my rough edges by drilling the tricky bits ad nauseum while watching a film.