Goals, goals, goals. Anyone who knows me is aware of the fact that I'm a goal-driven person by nature, regardless of what the particular quest may be. Of course, I'm not exactly the only individual with a fondness for setting goals, but I am routinely reminded of how important it is to have our priorities aligned properly, if we wish to fulfill them. The purpose of this article edition is to reiterate this importance, and to help you determine what you need to know in order to achieve your goals.

As I've mentioned many times in the past, music is too broad a field for any of us to do everything we'd like to do at any particular point in time, not that we can't gradually expand our scope of accomplishments. But to make solid, consistent progress, it is paramount that we periodically take time to weigh the past, look to the future, and consider the present path as a means to move forward and truly feel a sense of successful achievement. It's important to be aware of our past, present, and future to really comprehend what needs to be done. So, in a sense, what we need to know first is simply what we're trying to accomplish.

Examples? Sure. Maybe your goal is to perform solo. Maybe your goal is to write songs. Maybe your goal is to form a band, or to arrange tunes, or to transcribe solos, or to become a better improviser, ad infinitum. Now, for every one of these goals, or for almost any other that you can think of, there is an optimum way to go about it, and certain things that you need to know in order to reach that goal. The problem is that we often get misled by others or our own false assumptions, and end up wasting valuable time with things that we really don't need to know.

Now, in order to further illustrate the process, let me expound a little bit on at least a couple of the scenarios above. I'll start with performing solo, not for any specific reason, although I did have a couple of students express an interest in this area recently, so my thoughts are fresh.

If your goal is to perform solo, you need to know tunes and you need to know how to learn them. You also need to know which tunes you'd like to perform, and you further need to know why you're doing this and therefore who your target audience will be. Yourself? Your family and friends? A local venue? All of the above? I realize that this is a lot to digest, but it's well worth the effort to plot your course of action based on the "need to know" factor, because reaching your goal will certainly involve time and energy on your behalf, and you don't want to waste time spinning your wheels and not moving forward.

What if your goal is to write songs? What you need to know, in this case, depends on the type of songs that you intend to write. Pop? Rock? Latin? Blues? Jazz? Will there be lyrics? And once you've determined that, I'm a strong believer that you need to know existing, popular songs in that style in order to have what you really need to know in writing your own. Make sense?

Without going into the specifics for some of the other previously-stated goals, I should also make the obvious point that making progress towards one goal can have a dramatically positive effect on another goal. For instance, being able to arrange your own versions of standard songs can greatly enhance your ability to acquire material for your solo act. So therefore you can view the goal of arranging as a "need to know" for performing solo. The same goes for the relationship between transcribing and your goal of becoming a better improviser. Want to really reach your goals? Put yourself on a "need to know" basis!