When I was growing up, I learned that multitasking is a positive thing. The better at it you were, the more efficient you could be, and you would have more time for things you actually wanted to do.
Simple…right?
Well, actually I don’t believe multitasking is that great for you and your musicianship.
I’ve done some investigating on the topic during my everyday routine, and I want to share some of my discoveries with you. I’ve found that the more stuff I try to pack into one short time period, the more scattered I feel and the less I get done, not to mention the quality of whatever I’m doing decreases. Can you relate?
Here’s an example:
The other day, I was cooking breakfast, and noticed that there was a heaping pile dishes in the sink from the night before. I figured it would be easy enough to cook and clean simultaneously, so I put food on the burners – grits, steamed kale, fried eggs, bacon, and toast. Then, I proceeded to clean the massive amount of dishes in the sink – oh, I had music playing as well.
I instantly got sucked into the task at hand, ignored the music completely, and forgot there was food on the hot stove. All of a sudden I heard sizzling, and smelt burning butter. I looked over and the stovetop had gone rogue! I sped up my dishwashing (I only had a couple bowls left!), hurried to the stove, turned the heat to the minimum, ferociously stirred the grits, flipped the bacon and eggs, and turned the toaster oven off.
It was a close call, but in the end, the breakfast was decent, and the dishes were mostly clean. Both jobs were poorly done, and I didn’t hear a single bit of the amazing music that was playing (Glenn …Read the full story
Source:: Musician Wages