I would agree with what he's saying. I spent years practicing scales all day at a million miles an hour, and then wondered by I didn't sound like my favorite players when I went on stage for gigs. It was only after I switched my focus from technical goals to musical goals that I made giant leaps in my development.
Having said that, I'm glad that I went through all of that technical development so I had the chops and knowledge under my fingers when I made the switch from practicing scales/arps/chords and moved onto tunes and improvising/creating music in my workout.
One of the key moments for me as a player was when my teacher at Uni, the great Canadian jazz guitarist Roddy Ellias, told me that he never practiced scales and didn't see the point of practicing scales. I asked him how he knew that, he said that he practiced technique for 8 hours a day for 3-4 years and then figured it out. Well, I got my answer right there. It's not that technique isn't needed, it's just that there comes a time where we all need to move on from technical to musical goals in our practicing.
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I see technique as means to an end not as an end in itself - we are not practicing a sport but we strive to transmit an artistic message
