CIRCUMVENTING RULES

One time a guy asked me the best way to get into music and learn to play the keyboard.
I told him that you just sit down and make sound. But I rethought that and told him no, that I know a lot of keyboard players who don't sit down. So, the most important thing is to make sound -- in any position -- and to do it most every day for at least an hour or two.
But here's another route to developing performance skills.
You will need: 500 small marbles, 12 blank CDs, a CD burner, a CD player, a sheet of paper, a Yamaha PSR-630 with stand, bench, and sustain pedal, a 10-gallon bucket with lid, the Rolling Stone list of 500 greatest songs of all time, a black fine-tip marker, and a red fine-tip marker.
You can substitute a PSR-295 if you can't find a 630. But try to get a 630 -- it's a better instrument and it costs about the same.
1. With either marker, label each marble 1-492, dropping them in the bucket.
2. Put the lid on the bucket, and shake it up for a minute or two.
3. Remove the lid.
4. Reach into the bucket, and without looking -- grab a marble.
5. Using the fine-tip magic marker, write its number on the blank sheet of paper.
6. Place the marble to the side.
7. Repeat steps 4-6 491 more times, recording each marble's number on the sheet of paper next to the number before it -- in the order of the draw.
8. Return the marbles to the bucket, replace the lid, and store the bucket in a safe place.
9. Make five copies of your ordered number list, and store the five copies in five different secure locations. It's preferable that at least one copy be in a vault somewhere.
10. Take the original list, and use the black fine-tip marker to note 36 of your favorite songs from the list. Don't worry about being too precise.
11. Using the red fine-tip marker, select your favorite 12 songs from those 36.
12. Get a recording of the first of those 12 songs.
You'll handle the world better when that habit of dividing things into sets of 12 becomes instinctive. It takes practice since we didn't grow up like that. We learned to do it in sets of 10. That's a tradition that began long ago when people noticed that they had 10 fingers. So we started a number system based on the number 10. The fact that we do have 10 fingers is a good argument for the Original Sin idea and the possibility that God may be somehow teasing or testing us.
-- anyway --
13. Listen to that song, and try to play it -- note-by-note -- like you hear it being sung. Then try to figure out the lower notes, and then play the lower and higher notes together.
14. Repeat that process with the remaining 11 songs, and keep practicing until you can play them all without looking -- yes, literally, with your eyes closed.
Congratulations! You are now a cover artist.
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