Book Review: Effortless Mastery

Kenny Werner has a long and storied career. Outside of his virtuoso performances at the piano, he is best known for Effortless Mastery his practical and profoundly insightful book about performance and what keeps us from consistently delivering our own best performances. 

Sports psychology is a critical component of preparing athletes for success. With contracts worth millions, elite athletes push through mental barriers to try to have a good night, every night or risk getting cut from the team or traded. For most professional musicians, the situations are less financially consequential, but the damage to reputation and psyche can be just as harmful. 

I found Effortless Mastery at a time when I was ready to quit playing music, drums packed up, everything. Dallas is a city saturated with incredible drummers, and I had been painfully focusing on the many shortcomings in my playing. I was discouraged by the chasm between where I was, and the best drummers in Dallas. I started getting furious at myself and more and more frustrated when I couldn’t “get it.” 

Effortless Mastery guided me through deep intentional thinking about WHY I play. It helped me examine what is the REAL motivation behind my wanting to play music, and drums in particular. Some of the realizations were hard to face or accept about myself, but the juice was worth the squeeze! I am more intentional, clear-headed, unstopped by my human faults, kinder to myself and be able to more consistently deliver my best performances.