Practice Makes Perfect

Breathing life into today’s motivational minute was a bit of a struggle owing to the difficulty I encountered while attempting to locate my muse. Although I thoroughly enjoy writing these every week, sometimes inspiration can prove to be rather elusive.  When I finally found what I had been looking for, that is to say, when I found my muse, I discovered her curled up among my CDs listening to the Beatles.

If you have ever been told, or have ever told anyone that practice makes perfect, I hope this story will help you understand that you don’t know the half of it until you know the story of the Beatles.

The Beatles arrived in the US in February of 1964 and started what was to be called the “British Invasion” and transformed the face of popular music in America. That is the part most everyone already knows.  The remainder of the story is less well known.

By the time of their arrival in 1964 the Beatles had already been together since 1957.  In 1960 they were still a struggling high school rock band, but they were able to take advantage of a very fortuitous yet unglamorous opportunity.  A strip club owner in Hamburg, Germany named Bruno had a unique idea.  His idea was to bring in cheap, unknown bands to play in his clubs and offer non-stop, live music all day long.  As chance would have it, he came to Liverpool looking for talent and met a local entrepreneur who agreed to find bands for him.  Being fortunate to both live in Liverpool, and to be known to this entrepreneur, the Beatles ended up traveling to Hamburg.  They played not only for Bruno but when other strip clubs started copying Bruno’s very successful idea, they played for them as well.  The pay was awful and the audiences were understandably unappreciative.  The only thing these clubs really offered the young band was time, lots and lots of playing time.

Sometimes they would play for 8 hours straight.  They would do this 7 days a week while in Hamburg.  Between 1960 and the end of 1962, the Beatles traveled to Hamburg five times.  On the first trip they played 106 nights for at least five or more hours a night. On the second trip they played 92 times and they played 48 times on the third trip for a total of 172 hours on stage.  The last two trips in 1962 involved another 90 hours of performing.  They played a total of 270 nights in just under a year and a half.  By the time they had their first real success with Sergeant Pepper and the White Album (yes album); they had performed live on stage, in one venue or another, an estimated 1200 times.  That was nothing short of extraordinary.  Most bands then and now never even perform 1200 times in their entire careers.

According to Phillip Norman, the author of the Beatles biography, Shout, “They were no good on stage when they first went to Hamburg and they were very good when they came back”.

They learned stamina, discipline and hundreds of title tracks from all genres of music which they played along with all of their own original material.  By the time these “kids” from Liverpool came to America, they were quite possibly the most experienced stage performing musicians the music world had ever seen, or likely ever will again. 

What I like about this story is that the “secret” to their success isn’t even a secret.  It is the simplest thing in the world, practice, practice, practice.  It’s also a message that is so universally adaptable to any of our lives endeavors.

Be inspired, practice more and have a great week.