There are plenty of non-musical benefits to taking music lessons, both as a child and as an adult. This one minute podcast explains some results of a recent study regarding these benefits in children. As I come across more sources of information concerning indirect benefits of musical study, I'll post them as short updates to the blog.
Scientific American Podcast: 60-Second Mind: Young Musicians Reap Longterm Neuro Benefits
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Metronomes, Listening, and Playing Together
As musicians, one of the most important skills and rewarding facets of our craft is playing with other people. It fills us with a sense of community as a performer, and this sense of community has a multiplicative effect on an audience as they are witness to music making on this level. When a performing group "clicks," an audience feels it, too. This is a big part of what makes music feel polished or tight (or any other number of buzz words made popular by Randy Jackson.)
A more accurate descriptor for this "click" among musicians is togetherness. Musicians playing in the same room are not necessarily playing together. They may be playing consecutively, but to play together, musicians must share one common sense of rhythmic integrity. Those of you in my studio know that's easier said than done. There is much to be managed rhythmically as an individual before one can even dream of syncing up with another musician. Once you've achieved the level of confidence and knowledge of your part as an individual, you must also learn all the other parts going on around you. Without knowing what every person on stage is doing on any given beat, you might be together on a beat, but it's likely not the correct beat.
Of course, on some level this takes place subconsciously and intuitively. Our musical brains and ears have been accepting training much longer than we've been actively seeking it out. Still, a subconscious knowledge and anticipation of the rhythmic material in a piece of music won't necessarily help you out of a jam if you fall apart in a performance. Preparation and knowledge are your saviors there.
So, there are really three things that need to happen. First, you need to be rhythmically solid on your part on its own. This is the "woodshedding" part of practicing, during which you're often practicing out of tempo in order to master the execution of your part. This is the part that feels like hard work, but consistent effort does yield progress, even if it is sometimes too gradual to be very noticeable to the musician. Taking frequent breaks will help keep your brain fresh and help you to realize this progress.
Next, you need to get used to repeating your part while listening to another musical idea. This requires the use of a metronome as a regular part of your practice routine. This requires the use of a metronome as a regular part of your practice routine. Yes, I included that sentence twice, because I know many of you are likely to skim it the first time. The metronome accomplishes many things, but most importantly it forces you to listen to another musical idea as you practice. That the other musical idea is an unwavering steady beat doesn't hurt, either.
After you've got that down, get together with your band, accompanist, or whomever you want to collaborate with, and put things together. Start noting landmarks in the music where it's easy to sync up due to a memorable riff or a change of musical idea. Some places are more favorable for this than others, and some create a downright necessity to do this. Some good starting points: new time signatures, key changes, any place where one musician is playing completely alone, or even just a really memorable lyric, riff, or fill.
This isn't something that can be mastered overnight, and you need to have patience with yourself and your collaborators. We're all learning musicians. Perfection is not an absolute... but we'll save those ideas for another blog post.
Here's a related article to this blog post: Study reveals methods used by musicians to stay in tempo with each other
And here's the interesting video that inspired me to write this: If the machines can do it, so can we!
Happy Practicing!
-Mike
A more accurate descriptor for this "click" among musicians is togetherness. Musicians playing in the same room are not necessarily playing together. They may be playing consecutively, but to play together, musicians must share one common sense of rhythmic integrity. Those of you in my studio know that's easier said than done. There is much to be managed rhythmically as an individual before one can even dream of syncing up with another musician. Once you've achieved the level of confidence and knowledge of your part as an individual, you must also learn all the other parts going on around you. Without knowing what every person on stage is doing on any given beat, you might be together on a beat, but it's likely not the correct beat.
Of course, on some level this takes place subconsciously and intuitively. Our musical brains and ears have been accepting training much longer than we've been actively seeking it out. Still, a subconscious knowledge and anticipation of the rhythmic material in a piece of music won't necessarily help you out of a jam if you fall apart in a performance. Preparation and knowledge are your saviors there.
So, there are really three things that need to happen. First, you need to be rhythmically solid on your part on its own. This is the "woodshedding" part of practicing, during which you're often practicing out of tempo in order to master the execution of your part. This is the part that feels like hard work, but consistent effort does yield progress, even if it is sometimes too gradual to be very noticeable to the musician. Taking frequent breaks will help keep your brain fresh and help you to realize this progress.
Next, you need to get used to repeating your part while listening to another musical idea. This requires the use of a metronome as a regular part of your practice routine. This requires the use of a metronome as a regular part of your practice routine. Yes, I included that sentence twice, because I know many of you are likely to skim it the first time. The metronome accomplishes many things, but most importantly it forces you to listen to another musical idea as you practice. That the other musical idea is an unwavering steady beat doesn't hurt, either.
After you've got that down, get together with your band, accompanist, or whomever you want to collaborate with, and put things together. Start noting landmarks in the music where it's easy to sync up due to a memorable riff or a change of musical idea. Some places are more favorable for this than others, and some create a downright necessity to do this. Some good starting points: new time signatures, key changes, any place where one musician is playing completely alone, or even just a really memorable lyric, riff, or fill.
This isn't something that can be mastered overnight, and you need to have patience with yourself and your collaborators. We're all learning musicians. Perfection is not an absolute... but we'll save those ideas for another blog post.
Here's a related article to this blog post: Study reveals methods used by musicians to stay in tempo with each other
And here's the interesting video that inspired me to write this: If the machines can do it, so can we!
Happy Practicing!
-Mike
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