House of Drumming.com

Lyle Mays: I don’t practice playing like an athletic event. I try to keep the mind in shape.
I try to keep the flow from the mind to the hands in some kind of shape. I'm a little afraid of
practicing certain things for fear that it would come out when I went to improvise, and that wouldn't
really be what I was thinking at that moment. It would be some kind of habit or something.

JazzReview: I'm sure there are a lot of players that would be afraid of the opposite, that what
they practice wouldn't come out.

Lyle Mays: Well, I'm not advocating it. It works for me, you know [laughs]. I don't feel right
telling people not to practice, I guess.