20 | no right way

In his recent memoir HEARTBREAKER, Mike Campbell, who was the lead guitarist for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, discussed the songwriting process for his collaborations with Tom Petty:

ROCKIN’ AROUND (WITH YOU) was the first song Tom and I wrote together to make it on a Heartbreakers record and set the pattern for how we would write together in the future. I would come up with the music, give it to Tom, and he would go off and write it. It was less pressure than staring at each other nose to nose and sweating bullets to force an idea. That may be the romantic image of writing together most people have, but it really isn’t always the best way to do it. Except when it is. Really, there is no right way. There are no rules. There is what works and what doesn’t, and it is different for everyone.

mike campbell HEARTBREAKER

In Campbell’s world, the goal is a good song. Whatever works to produce that end is valid. In the mental game, the goal is a relaxed body and a clear mind. Whatever helps an athlete achieve that state is valid. There are no rules. Just what works and what doesn’t. And it will look different for everyone! So while it can be tempting to get caught up in the tools of mental performance (e.g., meditation, visualization, self-talk), that shouldn’t come at the expense of the objective. Campbell’s take on songwriting was a good reminder that the likely ways are certainly not the only ways.

I previously touched upon a similar theme in issue 17, but Campbell’s thoughts reinforced the idea that the creative process is highly personal and there is no singular way to operate. Interestingly, Campbell’s descriptions of working with producers illustrated that the process may not only look different from individual to individual, but it can also look different within the same individual across time. Throughout their 40 year run as a band, the Heartbreakers worked with a string of legendary music producers. Denny Cordell left much of the power to his sound engineers. Jimmy Iovine demanded a drum sound before dealing with the rest. Jeff Lynne took a deconstructed approach to build a record sound by sound. And Rick Rubin brought the whole band back together to create as one in real-time. Just as there isn’t one way to write a song, there also isn’t one way to produce one!

To be clear, this is hardly a call for there to be no plan. ‘No rules’ isn’t an excuse to not have tools that you can go to when you need them. It is simply an acknowledgement that performance is dynamic and individuals are not robots. The best plan may be to expose performers to a variety of experiences and creative approaches. Let them experiment to find out “what works and what doesn’t” so that they will be able to adapt to changing circumstances and still achieve the desired goal. In music, a variety of approaches increases the odds for a good record. In sport, it increases the chances that an athlete will respond to pressure with the relaxed intensity needed to be at their individual best.

David D. Laughlin, Jeffrey T. Fairbrother, Craig A. Wrisberg, Arya Alami, Leslee A. Fisher, and Schulyer W. Huck. 2015. Self-control behaviors during the learning of a cascade juggling task. Human Movement Science, 41, 9-19

summary: For this issue, I revisit my own research because it is an example of there being multiple ways to approach a learning task. In the study, participants were given a week to learn the task of a 3-ball cascade juggle. Participants had 4 days to practice the skill and were allowed to request four forms of instructional assistance throughout that practice: instructional video, demonstration of juggling, kinematic feedback about their most limiting error, outcome feedback about how many successive catches they had made on prior attempt. They were informed that they would be tested without any assistance on day 5, with success measured by the average number of catches they could make in a row.

Previous research suggested that participants would engage with instructional assistance in a particular order throughout learning:

• The instructional video would be the starting point and they would engage with that first

• Once they had the idea of what to do, they would turn to demonstrations to key in on particular elements

• When they started to plateau (or couldn’t identify their own errors), they would seek kinematic feedback

• Finally, once they had established a relatively consistent technique, they would use outcome feedback to confirm improvement

The expected order for instructional assistance did hold true across the 20 participants as a group, but it quickly broke down when looking at individual participants. For example, Batman - not the real Batman - asked only for an initial instruction/demonstration and outcome feedback thereafter. In her post-test interview, she stated that she believed people should only need to see it and get some feedback to learn a movement skill. U-God - not the real U-God - reported that learning was all about seeing the number of catches increase, so he asked for outcome feedback almost exclusively. Justin Bieber - not the real Justin Bieber - took a different approach and stated that if technique was correct, the outcome would take care of itself. True to that belief, he stuck with requesting kinematic feedback throughout practice.

In short, it wasn’t the order or amount of instructional assistance that separated those who learned from those who did not. Instead, it was how participants engaged with that assistance and whether they did so with a clear intention.

potential translations to sport: The two big takeaways for me are clear:

1. The “typical” way to use instructional assistance doesn’t always hold up at the individual level. In other words, research will often describe everyone without describing anyone!

2. It was less important how participants used feedback and more important that they did so within a framework of self-regulation (i.e., forethought, execution, reflection). The participants who married their approach to learning and their requests for instructional assistance (and who paused to both plan and reflect) got the most from practice. Those who followed the “average” pathway for instructional assistance (i.e., instructions —> demonstrations —> kinematic feedback —> outcome feedback) but prioritized repetitions over reflection saw their learning stall or fail to start entirely.

Within sport, it is perhaps more important to help athletes engage with the process of self-regulation than it is to stress any particular type of instructional assistance. Forms of instructional assistance certainly provide options and I see no harm in exposing athletes to those choices. The difference maker for learning, however, may have less to do with the specific form of assistance and more to do with that assistance being a good match for how the athlete is approaching the learning opportunity.

In the video below, NBA guard Immanuel Quickley details how playing the drums mirrors playing basketball, noting that, with both, “there’s a million different ways to be successful.”

Let’s turn back the clock to 1969 to recognize that, if there is no such thing as the ‘right way,’ maybe your best bet is to just do it your way!

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows
I took the blows
And did it my way
Yes, it was my way

frank sinatra MY WAY

Issue 20 introduces a new feature: subscriber spotlight. I don’t have many subscribers, but do have some who are doing great things on this platform! I kick the feature off with Nielly and her Music as Literature substack. Check it out for some great playlists and thoughts on how music connects to movement in the political sense. I have been listening to her RESIST playlist, which I will link below for your enjoyment!

For this issue’s playlist, I look to Mike Campbell and the music producers who, despite having very different approaches, all helped Campbell craft musical success as a member of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. So sit back and enjoy a listen to tracks produced by legends Denny Cordell, Jimmy Iovine, Jeff Lynne, and Rick Rubin.