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MUSICIANS

On the Quest to Become a Better Musician

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better musician

Here are some of the most important things to practice:

Your Sense of Time

How deeply and accurately you feel this underlying heartbeat determines how strongly everyone else will respond to the music.

Your Sense of Tonality

I cannot tell you how many times I have been in a rehearsal with someone who does not have a clue what key they are in. It’s critical that you know this, because everything you play comes from a key whether you know it or not – and if you don’t know, you may find yourself being that guy in the band who seems to have five heads.

Your Sense of Harmony

Once you know the tonality you are in, you can use the pitches and interval relationships inside it to create harmony. Harmony is created anytime you make the listener hear two or more pitches at the same time.

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A Way To Make Your Memory More Anxiety-Proof

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Stress impairs memory

I think retrieval practice could also represent a fundamentally different approach to learning. Where efforts to play from memory are baked into the learning process from the very beginning.

When I was a kid, memory was something I never thought about until I had gotten a piece totally learned. I saw it as a task to engage in during the “polishing” stage of learning a piece, to get it ready for performance. But how might our approach change if we saw memorization as an integral part of learning a piece from Day 1? Not as some add-on at the end of the learning process?

I know some musicians who do this. Who spend the first week or so “learning” a piece so that they can play it from memory, however imperfectly and haltingly, from a very early stage. And a 2007 study (download PDF here), which follows a concert pianist as she learns Debussy’s Clair de Lune, found that a deliberate effort was made to emphasize memory from the very beginning, even if it meant “muddling” along in a start-and-stop-and-pause-and-think kind of way at the outset.

This was a completely foreign idea to me, but in light of this study, is starting to make a lot of sense.

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How Do Musician’s Brains Work While Playing?

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Musicians' brain

When musicians play instruments, their brains are processing a huge amount and variety of information in parallel. Musical styles and strengths vary dramatically: Some musicians are better at sight reading music, while others are better at playing by ear. Does this mean that their brains are processing information differently?

This is a question posed by Eriko Aiba, an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo, Japan. During the 172nd Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America and the 5th Joint Meeting with Acoustical Society of Japan, being held Nov. 28-Dec. 2, 2016, in Honolulu, Hawaii, Aiba will present research that delves into the various ways the brain engages in music signal processing.

Aiba began learning to play the piano when she was five years old, and quickly realized that musicians might be roughly divided into two groups: sight readers and those who play by ear.

“When considering a human brain as a computer, playing a musical instrument requires the brain to process a huge amount and variety of information in parallel,” explained Aiba. “For example, pianists need to read a score, plan the music, search for the keys to be played while planning the motions of their fingers and feet, and control their fingers and feet. They must also adjust the sound intensity and usage of the sustaining pedal according to the output sound.”

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The Beatles – Come Together isolated bass track, bass only

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In many a musical situation, one can communicate an entire playing style in a name. When it comes to the bass—in pop music, at least—one of the foremost of those names is Paul McCartney, whose soulful basslines have given us some of the most memorable melodies in music history.

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“Thinking of Your Performance As a Gift”: Does This Really Work?

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At the end of the day, yes, I think for some musicians, the “gift reframe” can be a helpful way to approach performances. With one caveat!

We have to make sure we don’t get too attached to whether the audience likes our gift or not.

The value of the gift reframe lies in its ability to focus our attention and energy on the doing and sharing and excitement behind our work, not the response to that gift by the intended recipients.

Do we wish our gifts would always be embraced with open arms, bright shiny eyes, and boundless joy and enthusiasm? Of course. But as any parent who has tried to find the perfect gift, cook the best meal, or buy the right clothes knows, the degree to which others will appreciate our efforts is not something we control… Good thing much of the fun is in the forethought and giving that comes before we see their reaction anyhow!

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