Join Episode 41 of the Creative Work Hour podcast as we celebrate three years of Practice Not Perfect (PNP), a thriving creative community. Explore stories of artistic growth, collaboration, and the transformative power of consistent practice.

Greg
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Creative Work Hour podcast. Today is February the 15th, 2025. And in the room today, you have myself, Greg, we have Alessandra, Devin, Dr. Timeka, Bobby B, Andy, and Shadows Pub. Today, it's all about practice, not perfect. The younger sibling to Creative Work Hour that takes part every day at five o'clock Eastern time. Alessandra, we're celebrating a birthday for Practice Not Perfect, right?

Alessandra
We are! We're lighting three candles for Practice Not Perfect, which is an online hallway, if you will, of practice rooms that happens. day after day after day after day to the tune of, on Monday, the 17th of February, will be our 1100th consecutive day. And there've been many, many, many more hours than that because bonus hours get asked for. And there were many more sessions than that because we held about 30 of them under a working title that was called, quote, your practice room is ready. And that came out of my background and Devin's backgrounds as musicians.

Alessandra
And as musicians, if you're in the school or university environment or the music conservatory environment, there are places where you practice and it's usually not where you're sleeping. You have to sign up for. practice rooms. You have to rent practice rooms. And they are rooms that are about as big as a powder room, as a little bathroom, a toilet room, closet with a door on it and a little window. And so our online version of that is I wanted the feeling of what it is to walk down a hallway of music school or conservatory practice rooms where you see these little bitty rooms On your left and on your right, a pair after another pair of them, after another pair of them, after another pair of them, and there is this light cacophony of opera singers and blues players and percussionists and double bass.

Alessandra
You know, you see this woman or this man on a really tall stool in this itty bitty practice room, shoved up against an upright piano, just go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's like, there's nothing like it. There's an energy there. And during COVID, some of us finally found the time to pull out the instruments or the voice and practice. Plenty of time, except we're a da mojo. We didn't have the motivation to do it. It's like, oh my god. Now I have no excuses, and I just don't have the energy. So Bitter Irony and I, or Devin as he's known when he's not on Hive, we just had a series of conversations about this because he was working on guitar and I was working on clarinet.

Alessandra
And there was just a lot of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth over how the hell are we going to get to practice? We have the time. What the hell? And out of it was, well, what if we did something together? So Devin, what do you recall about that time? And what do you think happened that made us just go for it and make it a thing on Valentine's Day of 2022? 

Devin
Well, I think it was a success of Creative Work Hour. It was, hey, this model worked for people doing all kinds of creative things. But it's hard to practice, even though obviously learning an instrument. is a creative endeavor, but there's the background music for creative work hour. And so that was obviously a conflict with trying to learn something. So we said, well, what if we had a quiet space at a different time where people could actually, people like us could actually practice and it would give structure because that's the constant frustration is when am I going to practice?

Devin
And the answer is always later. And so we said, well, let's, in a creative work hour-ish time consistently, and hey, if it's just the two of us practicing, well, we both need to practice, so we'll get that out of it, and we can see each other, and yeah, we did like, Alessandra had a completely different experience with the conservatory practice room environment, because she was actually, you know, playing the clarinet. She was working on very hard pieces and studying. I was just dating her, so I was hanging out at the time in those conservatory spaces, doing, you know, studying or sleeping or whatever in those practices, but it was a cool space.

Devin
Even if you're not the musician, even if you're not the conservatory student, That is a great vibe. All those creative, brilliant people and all those, as she, as Alessandra described, all these different instruments and vocalists playing and rehearsing in these small practice rooms. And just the little bit that comes out from under the doors of the soundproof rooms, it's just magical. So I think we both wanted to get back to that experience of feeling like we were together, even though we were individually practicing.

Alessandra
And so what was the idea behind starting something on Valentine's Day? What was that?

Devin
That was your idea, as I recall. 
Alessandra
Oh, he's going to put it on me!

Devin
I would never have suggested taking Valentine's Day and practicing on Valentine's Day when I'm supposed to be delivering flowers and chocolates and dinner and a Valentine's Day gift. So I can guarantee you that I did not suggest watching a practice series on Valentine's Day. That was all you.

Alessandra
And it was really funny because part of what we did with it is we weren't even on Discord yet, right? So we didn't have that as a communication thing. What we had at the time was called Twitter. And so to bring awareness, to, you know, promote what we were doing, I went on Twitter Live. which was the video version of Twitter Spaces, the audio show, now just known as X Spaces. So I would go on live and practice in front of God and everybody in the Twitterverse. And that is actually how Andy picked up on that there was something weird going on with musicians over in Creative Work Hour, and he's like, wait a minute, I know those people, I'm in Creative Work Hour.

Alessandra
And he brought us Rochelle, which has just, Rochelle has come back to her instrument and is performing every weekend, like, multiple services, she's doing work over in the ecumenical musician space. In other words, she is playing in church and she is coming right along. Her tone is mature like crazy, and she blames us for it, you know, because we have a place to do all this. But yeah, the numbers do stack up. If you do something every day, it's just kind of like with weight. If you eat during the holidays the same day, day in, day out, you start to accumulate weight.

Alessandra
Well, it's the same thing with the group that's known as Practice Not Perfect, is if you practice, every day, even if it's something that seems impossible. But if you just visit it every day, even if for a few minutes, something comes out of it. So I would like, if Greg will allow me, I would like Andy to talk a little bit about what Practice Not Perfect has meant to him as a composer. Andy?

Andy
Well, a lot, I would say. So first of all, I got to know you as a musician. And that led me to start composing again. I mean, there's a lot of combinations that made it possible, but beating you and Devin and Getting to know you and getting this gift of a computer from you, that helped a lot for me to start. I probably wouldn't have started if it didn't happen. Seeing you grow as a musician, Alessandra, working in Practice Not Perfect with my Celestis, the Clarinet Concertino. I mean, it's amazing to see what's happening. And then to see my mentee from Ship 30 coming into Creative WorkHour, and I didn't know she was playing the clarinet.

Andy
I mean, Rochelle has surprised us so many times with everything she has been doing. But the clarinet thing is Tremendous, really. I'm really proud for her and of her. And I will be really excited to hear her play my music, because she and her brother is soon going to play one of my pieces in church during Easter. So that will be exciting, too. So I wish I could be there. I mean, obviously. But I'm sleeping at the time, so.

Alessandra
It runs at 11 o'clock. Yeah. Where your little bed is, where you lie your pretty little head, Andy. But yeah, what I wanted to just draw out from what Andy said right there is because we found each other through the writing program, Ship 30 for 30, is how we ended up in Creative Work Hour together and just having a conversation three years ago, I believe it was, Andy, that instead of receiving a little thank you note of, oh, what a lovely conversation. It really meant the world to me that we were able to share like that.

Alessandra
Instead, Andy being the special guy he is, he doesn't write me a thank you note. He writes me a concertino. which is a shorter version of a classical concerto. And so, I haven't told Andy this story, but last month I was applying for Symphonic Holidays, which is the European high-level amateur. Like, we're not getting paid, but you've got to be able to play like a musician to get invited to So I applied for this thing, and I'm wringing my hands thinking, oh, you know, boring, imposter syndrome. Yeah, oh, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough.

Alessandra
And Shadows and Devin both just encouraged me. They're like, just send something to them. Just get the ball rolling. You can always knock it over into the gutter if you decide that it's not for you. I'm like, all right, fine. So I did that part. What I didn't realize is that when my application was received, they were trying to get this orchestra staffed on the PDQ on the Pretty Darn Quick. So what they did is they went to ChatGPT and they typed in Alessandra White clarinet and they pulled up my performance in England in Devonshire at Ash House where I did the world premiere of the first movement of the concertino while the other two were being finalized.

Alessandra
I performed that one And they pulled up that particular performance. Man, I wish I could fit into that dress today. They pulled up that performance and they said, we're counting that as your audition, you're in.

Devin
Damn. Did they mention the guy that yelled free bird at the end? Because that was a little awkward.

Alessandra
Yes, that's right. So Devin aka Bitter Irony, he was there at that performance and he was into the moment. So I play the last, and I mean, you got, you got to hold something out to the very end of this piece. All right. So I nail it. I'm like, Oh yeah, I'm the shit. I got it. I nailed it. And all of a sudden from the very small audience, I hear free bird. coming from Devon with his rock fingers up. So yes, I think that's probably what sealed the deal and how I got, so I'll be playing the second chair.

Alessandra
I'm playing second chair in the South of France this summer. So we'll have to do some posting and some things about that because this shit is what we call a dream come true.

Andy
Yeah, I'm really impressed.

Alessandra
Watch yourself with this ChatGPT, because people will find you there. But not everybody does music stuff when they come to practice Not Perfect, because it's the atmosphere. It's the artistic place to spread your shit out and get some stuff done. So I would like to ask Greg to do the thing that he always does for us. He goes around the room and he pulls the gems from the people that are here. And we're not like guests on the show. We're all co-hosting this thing. So Greg, would you take over?

Greg
Absolutely. You know, creative work hour and practice not perfect. It's not entirely isolated to being online, is it? Because I know that there's been some meetings. in real life, in the wild, the Creative Work Hour members. And I know that Alessandra, you and Rochelle, you were talking about the clarinet. You've met up at the Clarinet Association. Andy's intro and outro is some of Andy's music. The Tiny Desk Concert and things like that is really exciting stuff. But Shadows, tell me about your experience with Practice Not Perfect, if you would.

Shadows Pub
Well, I'm relatively new to Practice Not Perfect, and since I don't admit to any musical ability, I do things like writing and generating art during that period.

Greg
Right. And that's absolutely OK to do. And we were talking before the show about your daily echoes. And we're going to be looking at a daily echo to do with words and things  of that nature. So that's kind of exciting to look forward to. Dr. Timeka, tell me about your experience with Practice Not Perfect.

Dr. Timeka
Greg, thanks for the opportunity. Practice Not Perfect has been very inspiring for me. In addition to that, motivating, and it's just a great space to optimize my resources. There are a lot of times when I'm on and I will see Rochelle or Alessandra playing their instrument, and I'm thinking to myself, ooh, I want one. I think one day I will log on and rent first an instrument and start to play. I mean, I have the resources I've sang my entire life, but never an instrument. So I'm really excited about it and I'm really happy that there's a space for musical talent.

Dr. Timeka
It's not often, typically I find it only in church, especially in my culture. or at a restaurant, but it's just another safe space that music is permitted. And I'm happy about it.

Greg
That's the key, isn't it? A safe space. It is a very safe space. Bobby, your experience with practice not perfect.

Bobby. B
Well, I took the name at face value, especially the discussions around it, that was musicians. So it's only been recently that I've dipped my toe in once in a while when it works out. Because for me, it's two in the afternoon. It could be a difficult time. What I love about it is it's like that garden that you might walk by in a city and you look in there and it's like, that's not really the stuff I'm into or doesn't look real comfortable, but it doesn't hurt to sit in there and just see what the energy is underneath it all.

Bobby. B
And it's that energy that has compelled me to want to be there more in the future.

Greg
Quick show of hands, I know you can't see this at home because it's on the screen, but quick show of hands, have you taken part in a Tiny Desk Concert during Practice Not Perfect? I see Alessandra, Devin, I know you have, Andy.

Alessandra
Oh, and Dr. Timeka has too, because her Tiny Desk Concert was her architectural presentation.

Greg
That's  right. That absolutely counts, doesn't it? Yeah

Alessandra
So some tiny desk concerts may not have anything to do with music per se. It may be doing a talk where you do the dress rehearsal of a talk in front of us, a safe crew who is skilled in how to give beneficial feedback.

Greg
That's right. Like what Hilary just did with her Tonesmasters. Bobby, have you thought about doing a Tiny Desk concert?

Bobby. B
I have. On my never-ending shortlist of things I have to get done is some video content that goes along with some writing. Absolutely, we'll take advantage of presenting, dry running, getting feedback on that in the future. 

Greg
Well, watch this space. We're going to bring you some of these tiny desk concerts because they're absolutely fabulous. But it's that time again, I believe, isn't it? You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the Creative WorkHour podcast when you could have been doing something else. Check out the website, creativeworkhour.com and come back next week.