"My father says that if I hit 2,500 ball each day, I'll hit 17,500 balls each week, and at the end of one year I'll have hit nearly 1,000,000 balls. He believes in math. Numbers, he says, don't lie. A child who hits 1,000,000 balls each year will be unbeatable."
-Andre Agassi
-aw
Yes, but how many would-be great tennis players also hit as many balls as Andre, yet came no where NEAR his level of racket prowess?
Lets take a tennis player from his era. The very fun to watch Michael Chang. He didn't have the blindingly brilliant shot making ability that Agassi had. But, he had something different to bring to the table. He could RUN LIKE HELL. I would watch him play and be truly amazed a some of the shot he would chase down. The opponent would be caught completely off guard, because, in normal, non-space-bending tennis, no one, I mean NO ONE would get to those shots. I especially love watching him and Becker go at it! God, That Was FUN!!!!
Point is, Chang was not a shot maker... He was a
shot getter... Different tools! And that's why he only ever won one open, the French. He didn't have a fierce forehand or backhand, and his serve and return game was average for a professional player. But he practiced as much as Agassi and the other guys. If he hadn't had that natural ability to seemingly bend space-time, we never would have heard of him.
My own experience. I play bass competently, and will get compliments from people I consider much better than I (a former 1950's LA studio guy once told me he loved the way I orchestrated my lines - what a
wonderful and unique compliment to give - will always cherish it). I wouldn't consider myself great and I don't practice nearly as much as I should. But, if I have one thing, one natural gift, that I bring to the table, is my ability to harmonize. Always had that ability for as long as I can remember. I know guy who have been playing and singing as long as I have, and some, technically, can play circles around me on the bass. I don't mind. Music stopped being a contest for me a long time ago. But they just don't have that instinct, the ear, that
thing, that let me pick up on a harmony so quickly. And some of those guys have never been able to put together the trick of playing bass and singing lead at the same time. Now THAT, for as much as I can do it well, IS a matter of practicing to be able to do it. I do it well enough to be able to be Sting in a Police tribute band... But I'm no Sting! Great talent that guy!
And then there is my Mom. She has none of the gifts that her kids do. All six of us are very musically incline. All do, or have played something at one point or another in our lives. Yet, me Mum, she has a hard time carrying a tune, has a worse sense of rhythm than even I do (should see me try to dance - now THERE is something sad to see) and for all the years she took piano lessons, she just never got it. Now, I love my Mom, and her taste in music IS a huge influence on me. She loves anything with a good harmony, Chad Mitchell Trio, Kingston Trio, Simon and Garfunkel.... She brought plenty of great music into the household and all her children absorbed it like a paper towel soaks up water. But, I think it's safe to say, we probably got our abilities from my Dads side of the family.
Oh... I just realized I'm going against the great AW... Oh well... I'm a glutton for punishment!!!!
Really have to go work now.
