Here’s a quick tip for musicians using iTunes.
Often, especially among guitarists, play-along CDs are included with many of the books you can buy nowadays. Organize these using iTunes, following a few simple tips to keep them from mingling too much with the rest of your music.
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This is Part 4 in the Competencies Series. See also Part 1 (Personal Comeptence), Part 2 (Social Comeptence) and Part 3 (Scientific Competence).
Finally, you’ve mastered the skills covered in this series so far, but now comes the critical point: Putting it all to practice. Practical Competence defines your ability to take your personality, your relationships and your knowledge to the stage and perform.
The subtle step we’re taking is from Know-What to Know-How.
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“I’ll take a pound of passion over an ounce of
technique.”
Billy Atwell is a musician – which makes him a good fit for being interviewed on this blog, because he’s really good. I had the honor of asking him a few questions and in the next few posts I’ll try to profile him as a musician. Today, we’ll just look at his story and how he got to where he is today.
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I’m sure most of you have exploding, huge iTunes libraries or CD-catalogues. You probably brag about it now and then.
You’d expect “someone like me” to have something close to 100GB of music, or thousands of songs. Well, wrong, and most of my friends are startled, because I should be swimming in music all the time.
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This is Part 3 in the Competencies Series. See also Part 1 (Personal Comeptence), Part 2 (Social Competence) and Part 4 (Practical Competence).
What sets Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits apart from you? Well, he was lucky.
Most famous musicians were lucky somewhere down the road. But so was Britney, and I will not begin calling here a musician just yet. As a musician, Knopfler was a heroic master of the guitar, and played so well not only because he practiced for hours a day, but because he had a great intrinsic knowledge of musical theory.
Music theory and the entire science …read more
In a previous post, it was commented that ethics may have nothing to do with competence.
Let’s recall my definition of competence:
Knowledge + Ability + Ethical Stand-Point = Competence
This is Part 2 in the Competencies Series. See also Part 1 (Personal Comeptence), Part 3 (Scientific Competence) and Part 4 (Practical Competence).
Playing alone is something I like doing a lot. I like it because it makes me free, self-responsible for my doing, my musical creative process.
Unfortunately, it’s also the “easy way”. If musicians stayed isolated for all they do, imagine the amount of music that wouldn’t exist? It’s a laughable thought, but apt enough to illustrate the importance of musicians playing together. Thus, musicians require social competence.
Social competence is the ability to solve problems in a group. …read more
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This is Part 1 in the Competencies Series. See also Part 2 (Social Comeptence), Part 3 (Scientific Competence) and Part 4 (Practical Competence).
A good musician has a great personality. Unless you can convince your crowd of your competence, you won’t convince at all.
Also, you have to be at total peace and happiness with your instrument and your progress towards mastering it.
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