Let it happen

First you learn to play, and then you forget what you learned and just play! This is paraphrase of what I heard a jazz musician say in an interview on NPR this morning. When I heard it I could not help but think of this in the context of athletic skills, learn it, then drill it and then don’t think let it happen! Let the instincts and the sub cortical responses take over. It was Charlie Parker who said even more succintly: “Master your instrument. Master the music. And then forget all that bullshit and just play.”