I love Irish traditional music. I like the scope of it—the fact that there are thousands of tunes out there and a myriad of regional and individual styles that often come together in unexpected ways.

The essence of the solid trad player is a musician who knows a wide variety of tunes and can play them with exquisite skill and style. To pull this off, all players (seasoned and new) need to do lots of listening and practicing at home, playing in sessions (maybe even onstage), and then more practicing.

While there is no shortcut to mastery—everybody needs to practice—it has become clear to me that while good quality practice can lead to excellent playing, distracted practice is a decidedly inefficient path to