How Drumming Reinvigorated

My Passion For Mastery

Presented by:Andy MalehObtiva Corp.

The Journey to Mastery

• Recommended by Drum instructor:– Practice as often as you can• Structured practice of patterns• Free-form improvisation to open up creativity

– Perform live with others in a band– Watch as many shows as you can

Applied to Software Development

• Practice programming as often as you can:– Spend time learning mature technologies well– Play around with experimental new technologies

to open up creativity• Read as much code and watch as many

presentations by others as you can• Use your programming skills on real-life

projects

How To Learn

• Start by playing a pattern slow• Speed up very gradually with a metronome• Practice inserting the new learned pattern in

actual music playing till it is internalized and becomes a part of my "feel"

Applied to Software Development

• Start learning a new technology by writing tiny programs

• Gradually expand those tiny programs to do more

• Look for practical applications for the new technologies and use them in the real-world

Passion and Aspiration

• The more I learned drumming patterns, the more I wanted to learn new ones

• Playing the drums at one point led me to aspire toward utter and complete mastery of all the drum styles I like

• This in turn gave me extreme motivation to enjoy practicing mundane exercises such as marching band drumming rudiments

Applied to Software Development

• The more technologies/languages you master the more you want to learn new ones

• At one point, you may realize that it is extremely rewarding to master the entire software development field

• This will motivate you to master every discipline related to software development including mundane ones like system administration

Applied to Software Development

• Get photos of masters in software development (e.g. Uncle Bob or Ken Auer).

• Cut off the head• Insert yours• Use as inspiration for mastery

Andy Maleh (Obtiva Corp.)

• Blog: http://andymaleh.blogspot.com• Email: andy@obtiva.com• Twitter: AndyMaleh• Bands and Upcoming Shows: – Gag Order (Female Alt Rock)• Nov 4, 2010 @ Elbo Room, Chicago, IL

– Cletus Darby (Garage Grunge Rock)• Dec 10, 2010 @ Silvie's Lounge, Chicago, IL