Practice a lot with those whose skills you seek to learn. This can be academic training, apprenticeship, solo work or whatever. But it has to be challenging a

Practice a lot with those whose skills you seek to learn. This can be academic training, apprenticeship, solo work or whatever. But it has to be challenging and ideally guided. As the internet meme goes, “always be the worst musician in your band”. Repeating something 100x builds rote or muscle memory. Doing new things 100x expands one’s horizons. Both are useful. The Beatles learned how to gig in Hamburg. They learned how to record at Abbey Road. And even at their peak they worked with others.