At the outset, the repertoire was most accurately described as popular jazz, i.e., jazz versions of Gershwin standards and the like. In addition to drums, bass and guitars, instrumentation soon included brass, keyboards and flute. That not all were especially proficient was only of slight concern; for in absolute application was the LRH dictum: An artist should drill with his equipment until he feels confident with it.
A host of drills were eventually prescribed in the name of confidence and technical expertise. Some, for the development of those basic skills possessed by any competent musician, were traditional -- or variations on traditional drills. For example, recalled the drummer, “He would relentlessly drill us with metronomes, which, of course, is standard fare. But rather than drilling only individually, he would utilize the metronome to instill rhythmical skills for the group as a whole.” By way of illustration, musicians told of tapping their feet to the steady beat of an electronic metronome. The group would continue to tap out the beat while the volume of the metronome was turned down until it was inaudible. After two or three minutes, the volume would be turned back up again, “and the whole group was expected to be tapping out the beat, exactly in time to the electronic device -- not faster or slower, but dead on!”
The fundamental point: “Ron was relentlessly driving home the basics to us as a team, because without the basics you have no art.”
The statement was crucial both to the success of the musicians as a troupe, and as artists individually; drawn from his ART was an absolutely key datum delineating just how good the musician, or any artist for that matter, must be:
“If you look at or listen to any work of art, there is only one thing the casual audience responds to en masse, and if this has it then you too will see it as a work of art. If it doesn’t have it, you won’t.
“So what is it?
“TECHNICAL EXPERTISE ITSELF ADEQUATE TO PRODUCE AN EMOTIONAL IMPACT.”
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