The Six-Month Rule

While studying jazz composition and performance at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, a weathered professor taught me a valuable lesson. With the wisdom of a Tibetan Monk, this sage jazz cat whispered to me with understated confidence, “What you learn today, you’ll play in six months.”

He was referring to an idea gestation period, a natural time frame to go from initial learning to muscle memory. I may have understood the scale, riff or chord he happened to be teaching that day, but it t...