The 5 T's that can help you get more gigs Pt. 2 Technique

I define technique as the ability to physically perform your musical ideas. If you notice , I didn’t say that the definition is the ability to play fast and loud, which is what many people tend to define it as. That being said, it is also necessary to have a well-developed technique if you want to clearly and accurately perform your musical ideas.

Possessing a well-developed technique is sort of like having control of your tongue…stay with me on this one. If you have ever been to the dentist and they numb your tongue, and you try to talk what comes out….Nothing right, or at least nothing understandable. Well, musical technique is the same thing. If your technique (tongue) isn’t adequate than nobody will understand what you are trying to say. Technique allows you to express the ideas and your personality through your music. You can have all the best ideas in the world but, no one is going to care if they can’t make out what you are saying.

Developing technique should include things such as basic facility, tone, and control over dynamics and all articulations. It is often studied intently and is often the first thing evident to any listener. However, also believe that even with most developed technique, that unless you have something to communicate to the listener people will quickly get bored. For example, how many people have ever been to a one-hour long fireworks show? Not many people probably because even though they are cool, unless there is an emotional meaning assigned to the show, it is not going to connect with people in a way that will carry them through time.

I believe that only when your technique is mastered are you able perform a piece convincingly. Now I don’t mean that only when you are a concert-level virtuoso are you able to play. However, to be able to communicate at the level where you will emotionally move people, you need to be secure with all the technical issues. That way you will be at a point where you are focusing on the structure and message of what you are doing, as opposed to the details of actually performing it.

In language terms, think of it as focusing on your point in a conversation, as opposed to thinking about how your tongue is moving to form the words. You will quickly notice the difference in mindset. You only having so much focusing power, so if you are focusing primarily on the physical aspect of your performance, then the message and scope of what you are doing is going to be lost.

Each musical language (genre) has its own techniques, and these techniques make up its particular sound. If you plan on performing any of these different styles you need to be able to “speak the language”. For instance, if you are a jazz trumpet player, you are going to know a certain number of idiomatic jazz licks that you can play in probably any number of different keys, and its these licks that help you to define your musical sound.

But say you a get hired for a classical concert, unless you can understand the difference between a classical articulation and a jazz articulation you may not get rehired for that gig. Of course the opposite is also true, whenever switching between musical genres the overall sound changes so the techniques are going to be different as well. Where a particular sound or articulation may not be acceptable in one, in the other it is the norm.

Read next time when we talk about the 3^rd T Taste

Please feel free to share any comments below

5 T’s that can help you get more gigs Pt. 1 Time

There are several things that are important to develop and that will help keep you in work as a musician. Now these areas are certainly not comprehensive, nor do you have to be excellent in all of these concepts. But if you think about all of the players that you have played with, the best players generally have these down pretty well.

Time

Every musician has a sense of time, however, some are more accurate than others, and nobody has perfect time everytime. People can brag that they do, but it is just not true, everybody’s mind will wander or get overly excited at some point in time and speed up or slow down. In fact, an ironic point is that (more often with inexperienced players) the better in tune the rhythm section is with each other, the more likely it is that the time will move and they won’t notice because they are still playing together. One flinches, the other reacts and the tempo moves.

Another interesting point about time is I think best described in a metaphor. If you are riding a horse and feeling and hearing the clippity-clomp of all of the footsteps, who has a better idea of when the horse starts running slightly faster or slower, you or the horse?

My answer is you, because you are more focused on listening and reacting than doing. So generally (when working with musicians of similar skill level) whoever is “doing” (playing) the busiest is going to be the worst judge of the time in comparison to whoever is listening and reacting to it

Time is something that must be felt internally, and is something that must be developed to be able to play with confidence and conviction. If you are tapping your foot to help keep the beat, at some point your foot or leg will probably get tired and the tempo may change in relation to that. You can still tap your foot, just make sure that the time is leading the foot, and not the foot leading the time.

A way to help develop more confidence in your time is obviously to practice with a metronome. But you can practice with putting it on different beats. An example would be to play the same thing 7 times

1^st time 1 2 3 4

2^nd time 1 3

3^rd time 2 4

4^th time 1

5^th time 2

6^th time 3

7^th time 4

If you have any programmable metronome or drum machine you can do a similar thing with measures. I have found that Garage Band works well for it.

1^st time 4 measures of time

2^nd time 3 measures of time and 1 of rest

3^rd time 2 measures of time 2 of rest

4^th time 1 measure of time and 3 of rest

5^th time all measures off

6^th time All measures on ….

The idea with this is to be able to keep your internal metronome going throughout all of the measures of rest and be able to land on the beat when they come back in.

Another thing that has to do with time, is time within a particular style, also known as feel. For instance, better players are aware of the differences between swing and rock, and latin and country and have the skills to adapt to it. Also they aware of more subtle differences such as the difference in the swing feel in between a swing version of Autumn Leaves, a rock swing such as Rock around the Clock, and a country swing in something like Crazy. One way to help develop your skill in this area is simply to practice with recordings of each of the styles and listen closely to try to match articulations.

Next installment will discuss the second T, which is Technique.

Uncle Forte and Aunt Piano... The Relativity of Dynamics in Music

Choose the correct answer

You are in the library and speaking full voice to the person next to you.

a) too loud

b) too soft

You are at a rock concert and talking in a regular tone of voice to your friend

a) too loud

b) too soft

You are at a party with loud music and you are talking loudly to your friend, when all of the sudden the music stops, and everyone hears the last couple words of your conversation.

a) too loud

b) too soft

In every day life, everyone recognizes that certain volume levels are appropriate at different places, and most importantly there is a range within each level. For instance, if we were to take the dynamic level piano, the grade-school definition is soft.

 The question becomes, what kind of soft?

Is it soft like a whisper? Well what kind of whisper a soft sweet whisper or a whisper like a yelling whisper? Is it talking softly, as if singing a lullaby to a baby. Or is it softly like my Mom used to do my brothers and I when we would be goofing around in church, “If you don’t knock it off right now….” (Generally accompanied by a grab around the arm). What about, if the music says to crescendo?  Does that mean you go straight to forte or only a mezzo piano?

When determining dynamics, you always have to keep in mind what is going on. It is always relative. The exact decibel level is not what dynamics are about. Dynamics help to define the character of a phrase/section/piece. Some intra-musical concepts that affect dynamics are range, texture, and rhythm. Extra-musical things that affect dynamics are venue, balance, and sound systems.  For instance a forte in someone’s living room is going to be different than a forte in a concert hall, or loud bar.

All music needs dynamics, if they are marked or not. Nothing should ever remain default loud or soft indefinitely. For instance, if the music has a big range and a thick texture then it is probably going to be louder, and therefore the opposite will also be true of a narrow range and thin texture. In popular music, the chorus will almost always be louder than the verse. Sometimes the bridge will be louder, and other times it will be softer. The key is that there should always be changes according to the music, and you need to listen and be aware of what the music is doing.  Life is not interesting when it is static and in default mode and neither is music.

 So the next time you are at a party and the music stops….I hope you are still not yelling…relatively speaking

Have fun

Mental Key Changes #1

Mental Key Changes #1

Welcome to The Land of Make-Believe

The smallest changes can often make the biggest difference. Sometimes the difference between a sub-standard performance and an amazing performance is simply a change in mindset. This post is going to share some techniques and concepts about how to adjust your thinking to help improve your performance. These concepts are simple and when implemented are often incredibly effective. The best part is, they don’t require hours of practice to be able to do.  Just by changing the way you are thinking you can dramatically affect the quality of your performance.

Act as if its easy

This first technique can be used both in practice and performance. In performance it will help you to keep your attitude positive and resourceful, and in practice it will help to show you which areas still need work.

This technique is incredibly simple but can be incredibly effective. All you have to do is act as if it’s easy. That’s it…perform it as if you have total control over the performance and especially any difficult sections. You want to play as if what you are performing is the easiest thing in the world, with the same technical freedom and emotional freedom that you would have if you had totally mastered it and had no fear in the world.

The trick is that you actually have to embody the idea. What you want to do is think of the last time you did something that was real easy. Something that you had an absolute certainty that you could perform correctly. It doesn’t have to be music related. Maybe its playing Mary had a little lamb on your instrument, or simply using a fork.

Chances are you have a certain feeling in your body that feels like the equivalent of someone saying, “I got this, no problem” and it may be even a bit cocky about it (just to be more fun).  That is the feeling and mindset you want to keep while performing.

For this to be effective you have to feel as if your skills are way above this task, and you need to maintain that mindset throughout the performance.

That is all there is to it, often the change from struggling to mastery is simply a mindset shift, and this is the easiest one to make. So just play as if it was absolutely nothing, and you will find that many of the more difficult sections actually do become easy.

This works on a number of levels. By acting as if  its easy you send a signal to your body and mind to relax and to allow the performance to happen. This is directly in opposition to what you would normally do. As a difficult section approaches your mind would be sending the message to your body, “Here it comes, here it comes, the hard part is coming up, “ so your body gets ready for the hard part and probably tenses up, it has no choice if that is the message coming from your mind. With this case sometimes you force your way through, and play it correctly, other times you are less successful.

Another way of describing this phenomenon is summed up in the difference between these two phrases:

I am trying hard to do this…

Vs

This is the way it goes…

The difference is that the first phrase puts the situation out of your control and you are struggling to do something.  The second phrase automatically assumes control and puts you squarely in the drivers seat. Now you are in total control and the crazy part is that even if you haven’t fully mastered the section, you will be much more successful in performing as a whole. Your body and mind are linked so what one says the other obeys.

Now this technique won’t work miracles, if you don’t already know the material, but it could still dramatically change your performance for the better

Please feel free to comment below

The 4 steps of the learning process

The 4 steps of the learning process

“Slow theory is no theory,” as my undergrad music theory professor would shout at 8am whenever someone would be slow to answer his musical questions.  He figured that if you couldn’t immediately recall and use the concept then you didn’t know it.  Looking back, I believe he was right …well sort of.

Generally we learn things in phases.  Without this turning into a philosophical discourse on knowledge acquisition, I will briefly outline the different stages. This system is by no means my own, in fact; I learned it so long ago that I can’t remember where I learned it. At any rate, it clearly displays the progression that takes place when you try to assimilate something new.

I.             Unconscious Incompetence 

You are doing it incorrectly but don’t realize it

II.            Conscious Incompetence 

You are doing it incorrectly, but you DO know it

III.            Conscious Competence    

You are doing it correctly, but only with a great deal of focus

IV.             Unconscious Competence    

You are doing it correctly, without thinking about it

To demonstrate this more clearly I will use the example of learning the appropriate fingering for a technical pattern:

I. You are unaware of a need to change.

You show up to your lesson and fumble through a particular section. 

II.  You are aware that you are doing it wrong, but need time to practice the changes

Your teacher shows you/has you deduce a more effective way. You work on this pattern at home and bring it to your teacher for comments.

III. You can now do it but you have to be conscious of it

You go to your lesson and perform it. You are successful, but you still have to pay close attention on that particular part.  So you continue to practice it.

IV. You do it automatically now whenever you play that section

That section becomes as simple to play as any other section in the piece.

Sometimes this process is quick and easy as in small changes (missing dynamics) or slow and longer term (developing technique).  You have mastery of a concept only when you reach step 4 and no longer need to think about the process.

Mastery is the final step in learning, and should be the end goal of practice sessions. Just make sure as you are practicing to remind yourself that it will sometimes take time for your body or mind to incorporate these ideas or techniques. This doesn’t give you the right to slack off, but just make sure that you are being realistic in your ability to learn and assimilate new information.

…Finally to my undergrad theory teacher…you were right we didn’t know it…but come on it was 8am!

Mastery is a multidimensional concept and something that will be discussed often. I hope you have found this helpful and please feel free to comment below.

Welcome

Welcome to Matt’s Musical Musings. This blog is designed to help share knowledge and gain more insight into music. It is geared for both amateurs and professionals alike.  The blog includes information from how to improve your performance skills, to how to teach and learn music more effectively, to discussions of musicianship and music-related jobs.