Every year, I spend time with metalheads aged 12 to 22 at a destination Metal Heroes Summer Camp in Up-State, New York.

These camps are a fantastic, positive experience on several levels, fueled by young energy, enthusiasm and “go get ‘em” attitude from the young rockers. Many of them want to make metal music their life. While I am at the camp, I always start to collect my thoughts on the definition of “success,” and what it could mean to these young people as metal musicians.

There are countless thoughts and possibilities that come to mind, because success is a very personal thing. It means something different to everyone. To top it off, the vision of success often changes as you travel along on your journey.

Here are a few ideas that can help you ponder the meaning of success:

What Do You Want? Be Honest About It.

What is your current vision of success? It cannot be your teacher’s or your best friend’s. This is just for you. What is it that you want to get out of being a musician right now? How do you think it could look in five years? You don’t need to know every detail, but capture the picture that appears in your mind.

You have to be honest with yourself because the path you choose will be often traveled by you alone, so you’d better be sure it is the one you want to take. No dream is too wild or too big, simply because if somebody else is doing it, it is possible.

There are many ways someone can be successful as a musician.

It can mean you signing your name next to “musician” as your occupation on your tax return. You’ve achieved success at being a full-time musician. It certainly takes guts to do it, and many people fill out that line every year.

Being successful also can mean having a guitar in your hands every day, playing the style of music you love. Honestly, it doesn’t matter if you make your living doing something else. There’s no rule that says you can’t. As a matter of fact, hats off to you for having skills to do two things amazingly well. If a pop singer can have a jewelry line, own a restaurant and be a recording artist, why can’t you fix cars during the day and play the music you love at night? That sounds pretty successful to me.

I think it is important not to cave under the social conditioning that you must be a full-time musician so you can tell so to people you meet. In all honesty, some of the full-time musicians I have come across were some of the most complaining, unmotivated people I’ve ever met. They played gigs and music they didn’t care for just so they wouldn’t have to get a job. This distorted their view of what they loved in the first place.

Others find jobs within the music industry just to stay in the biz. Yes, it does work for many as it allows them to make contacts. For me, it makes little sense. I prefer to spend my time with people who don’t wish they were somewhere else. Why not use other non-musical skills to make money if you have to (Yes, you have other skills outside of playing your instrument) and save the music part only to the type you love?

Some musicians find a lot of satisfaction in the DIY approach.

They might work during the day to save enough money in order to get in a van and tour two months out of the year, which also allows them to sell their music across the US or whatever. It has its challenges, but for many young metal musicians, it also can mean the time of their life. Traveling across the country while spending time with people who love the same thing you do sounds pretty successful to me.

There are many types of success.

All I wanted to do was support myself while playing and teaching heavy metal. That’s all I wanted. I also wanted to release records of my own music, which I still do, and the hard-core love for what I did later on lead me to work with many of my heroes within the genre. That was icing on the cake. With the new opportunities, however, my dream grew to include tour bus arena tours, in-store appearances, album release parties, meeting more of my heroes, a visit to the Playboy mansion and buying a fine-tuned Italian automobile.

This is what my vision was. I am not telling you this to yank my own chain. I am telling you to simply explain that I was (and still am) very precise about what it is that I’m shooting for. You can’t find things unless you know what you’re looking for. Once you obtain your goals, you’ll get bored unless you set new ones. As you obtain them you’ll be fulfilling your own vision of success. You don’t need to tell your dream to everyone. As a matter a fact, the closer you keep it to your heart, the more it means to you.

As I have achieved many things I wanted to do, my own vision of success has taken another dimension. In addition to recording and touring, I also found out that I want to share my experience with others, and I do this through blogs, guitar clinics, videos and metal camps. I find it satisfying to spend time with young metal players and share ideas with them while helping them with their dreams. I concentrate on creating as much value for others while being true to my visions.

Ultimately, it’s an amazing feeling to use your musical talent in order to help others. That sounds pretty successful to me, too.

Carpe diem!

Summer is always an interesting time of the year as the weather gets nice and family and personal activities, trips and events kind of pop-up. Frankly, it is hard to sometimes keep up with the guitar in the warm months unless you are a working professional. So, I am here to just bring that up and give you heads up that things will compete for your guitar time just about now.

I remember when I was younger, I’d literally lock myself in the basement and I’d play and play. While all of my friends where on the Jersey Boardwalk, I’d be practicing on my B.C. Rich Platinum Warlock. I remember clearly when a couple of my friends showed up at my house and wanted me to go to the park and I told them no because I was deep into learning Ozzy’s Killer Of Giants song. This happened quiete often. One of the great things about this approach back then is that when the school started again, I would seriously have a leg up on many guys who were better than me on the guitar.

I had 6 musical notebooks filled with scales and licks and I would go through everything in each one. That was good enough for back then.

I still have them.

When players ask me how I practice these days I say that it depends what I’m trying to do. So, in short, I do not have a set practice schedule.

When I am working on lessons for students, I plan them out and work out the examples that I want to show. When I have to do a clinic somewhere, I work on the live material (relearning music) and I work on what I will cover.

In othe older days, I’d set out 30 minutes for exercises (like playing my technique building licks for 3 minutes each), working on chords, scales for another 30. I would then work on songs that I knew and I’d spend another half hour trying to come up with riffs. I’d put a cassette recorder by my amp and tape what I came up with. I’d finish each session with another 30 minutes of exercises. Back then, I practiced constantly. I’d keep a planner and I’d write down how many hours I played each day,

One thing I do today is when I feel that my playing is feeling little off is that I sit down and work on different scales. Playing them 3 notes per string, in thirds, fifths, etc. I feel then like my whole playing gets glued together. This sounds very simple, but it works. I kind of got this little regiment out of an interview I watched with Billy Sheehan, who is one of my favorite bass players.

For practicing, if you have a hard time getting a full hour in, break up your sessions into 15-20 minute jams. Do a couple of them per day. This approach works well.

On the weekends, it is a lot of fun to wake up early, brew some coffee (strong in my case) and just play before anyone wakes up.

And, sometimes you have to bribe yourself. If you hit 5 hours of practice per week (just an example), you can get something, be it a CD, a tuner, etc. Us humans, we respond to this.

Lastly, and most importantly, in order to keep wanting to do anything, we must keep fueling the fire. Just like an old school locomotive, we must keep that furnace going with coal. For us, it is spending time here, listening to great music or reading about music. When we move away from something and stop fueling it, very often the interest dims. And, we lose focus.

Loosing focus is the #1 killer of why people fail at accomplishing something they set out to do.