The Good Musician » Your Instrument & You

5 Ways to Make Children More Interested in Music

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:15:29 +0000

Photography by carf.

I often wonder what the best way is to teach my little brother, age 10, music.

The boy goes to piano classes, and he’s actually quite talented, being able to read music quite fleuntly and playing all major and minor chords with ease after little more than a year of training.

During this time, I did find ways to contribute and help him on his journey, and there are a few tricks you may find useful yourself.

1. Gift them music.

I bought my brother a colorful storybook of The Magic Flute by Mozart, which included a CD that comprised the most popular pieces from the opera (like this one we’ve covered). He immediately took interest in operas and spent a good week hooked on his iPod with his frightful arias and powerful quintets.

Gift them music, even if it’s just an iTunes gift card.

2. Install the listening habit.

This is really hard. But it goes hand in hand with the previous tip: By giving music you’ll entice them to listen to music on their on. In fact, a trip to a good, peaceful CD store can work wonders on his or her curiosity.

3. Pick an instrument together, showing full range.

I think when it comes to choosing an instrument, you need to weigh in the child’s preferences with a good pinch of your own opinion. I say this because kids often like to go for electric guitars and drums, not because they like the instrument or know whether they’ll enjoy playing it, but due to obvious reasons like the media.

Still, don’t force them to learn anything, nor let them go wild, because they might just loose interest after a month.

4. Practice together at least once weekly.

As a musician myself, I could help my brother in places liek practice routine and technique. I’m not a great pianist, but the rules of slicign music up for practicing apply everywhere.

Sitting with a kid and motivating it while actively coaching is important if done right: Don’t condemn, criticize or try to know better. The teacher is there for that.

5. Engage with the teacher.

I found that some of the best tips of how to improve my brother’s piano skills came from his teacher. Since I had some basic knowledge of how things worked in the music teaching world, I tried to ask him what I could do on my part. Useful tips included timetables, a practice diary and actively searching for pieces my brother wanted to play (like Happy Birthday and Silent Night).

I think that, under the line, the most important thing you can do is to support your child’s musical endeavors by building it into the daily routine, making it a larger chunk of your kid’s hobby. But: Don’t try to intervene too much, or you might end up messing around with the teacher’s plan. Bad thing.

Just find ways to motivate kids and the rest will come naturally: After all, everyone loves music if they can see progress!

Post from: The Good Musician

The Guide to Getting to 100% Playing Form – Take 2

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 23:14:50 +0000

Photography by vern.

Reader “pianologist” commented on this post that it’s not possible to be at your top 100% in a concert situation.

Of course, I agree, and I thank him for the comment. But let me put this into perspective: I think it depends on the definition of 100%. For me, personally, it’s clear that I’ve played a good concert if the response is good as well. That’s my 100% – if the audience really liked it, I’ve played 100% for them.

Personally, it’s a different story. There’ll be practice runs you play better than any superstar out there, but those runs may be a one-time thing, depending on your form, your fitness, weather, daytime and moon phase for all I care.

But it’s equally important – as pianologist aptly implies – that you should never expect to play to your full potential at a concert. You should strive for it, but not try tripping there in desperation.

I think the tips I pointed out have always helped me think I’m going to play at my top levels, but I’ll never know if it was more. It’s a lot of psychological fine-tuning here.

Or do you wildly disagree, pianologist and others out there?

Post from: The Good Musician

The Guide to Getting to 100% Playing Form

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 20:51:41 +0000

We all face situations in which we are tested. I know you do. So frankly, as a musician I always face that moment of fear prior to a concert that let’s me know I’m not going to be playing at my fullest potential. So how do I try and get the engine warm before throwing myself to the wolves? Well here’s a few pointers.

Focus. In the meaning of the word, try to remove everything else from your mind, make it a clear pathway for absolute sole focus on your music. Ditch thinking about the audience, your teacher, your cold fingers. Think music.
Talk to someone. I like this one, as it helps me cut through the time before a concert situation. In a band, just chat about anything but the concert!
Tune well in advance. Tuning about half an hour ahead of your concert will relieve you from the stressful feeling you get when you’re told your on but your guitar sounds like it’s tuned in some turkish scale.
General-Rehearse your gigs. The one biggest thing that helps me is to play my concert a few hours ahead of showtime in as close conditions as possible. This usually ends up in disaster, but I’ve always seen that a disastrous general-rehearsal results in a successful concert

The basic principle behind these ideas is to make yourself feel prepared and relaxed. If you’re in the know about conditions, can forget about externalities and can eliminate any dangers, you’re playing will have a free runway to stun the audience.

What’re your best tips for getting prepared and most of all, relaxed?

Post from: The Good Musician

5 Remedies for Sheet Music Sickness

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 21:35:12 +0000

Photography by selva.

Recently I’ve been having some serious trouble when reading sheet music. I’ve begun slowing down! I guess the recent lack of classes has provided me with ample laziness to actual read scores. I’m finding it hard to decipher chords I could decipher with ease just months ago.

So here’s the Fast-Break Crash Diet I did to get back in reading shape:

Play scales of sheet music. I have some scales in traditional engraving, which I brought out and played note for note from sheet, as if I had never seen them before.
Play chord progressions. It’s important to get some examples of chord progressions in different inversions and practice these over and over. Slowly and carefully.
Sing a part of progressions. I played the aforementioned progressions, this time omitting notes. I sung them instead. This is a great exercise to build your hearing of chords as well.
Play simple preludes, starting with C-major and a-minor, then working your way through all keys. Most instruments will have some composer of some sort who has composed charming little preludes in all 24 keys of western music. Seek them out and keep them in your “first-aid-kit”.
Play thirds, sixths and other intervals. Playing intervals on your instrument is one of the most practical exercises you can do, as they come up in “real life” all the time. Got me back in the groove.

That was my quick remedy. If you didn’t understand what the hell I just squabbled about, do tell!

Post from: The Good Musician

Vox Populi Musici: Thoughts On Cancelling Gigs

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:16:28 +0000

Musical Republic, hear what I beg! I need your opinion!

Oboeinsight recently featured some brief thoughts on Orchestra Etiquette, resulting in the fact that it’s important to stick to your commitments.

Of course, we here at TGM are happy to get a gig in the first place, so this seems like an odd question. But it does arise when you’re having spells of high musical stress, when it may be legitimate to consider cancelling a gig.

My problem with this is two-fold:

- Where do you find a replacement quickly enough that’ll fill your spot?
- Is it legally stable to cancel a gig short-notice?

As a economics/law student, I have to ask this because as far as I’m concerned, an artist is in a binding contract with the orchestra/conductor/manager. The kind of contract is not the kind of contract you have when buying an egg at the supermarket, where you don’t care which egg you get, you just need an egg.

Not so much with musicians, whose contract would require personal fulfillment. Otherwise your liable for all damage done. At least that’s what international private law says.

Anyone have thoughts or knowledge on this? I’d really appreciate your opinions or in the best case, hard facts. I hope we don’t conclude that orchestra musicians are no more valuable and differentiable than eggs. But I’ll keep that as last resort.

Post from: The Good Musician

Has Your Concert Yoga Gotten Rusty?

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 23:00:28 +0000

Photography by Brittney Bush.

What Is Concert Yoga? To me, as an Indian, it is my ritual of being mentally and physically alert before any concert, or even just before I sit down to practice scales.

My habits that make up my concert yoga are probably obvious, some may be new to you, some might strike a note with your habits, and others you will scoff at.

Work Out: One of the main factors I find that influence your form and performance is physical fitness. I’m not saying you need to have a BMI of 18 and a resting heart rate of 10, but a good cardiovascular system is not only healthy for your everyday life, I truly believe that good control over your circulation helps keep your mind calm before a concert.
Sleep: Physical Fatigue is antoher huge one for me, especially because I get all hyped up the day before an important event and hardly get any sleep. A good cup of warm tea, a good face scrub and classical music get me into a sleepy mood. Just don’t put in the choral from Beethoven’s ninth (unless it actually makes you sleepy, in which case please contact me for I shall spank you).
RespirationAbout one hour before a concert, I sit back, close my eyes, breathe deeply and practice Pranayama, which is, essentially, breathing in through the left nostril, keeping the air in and breathing out through the right. Follow the link for more in-depth guides.
Backstage-Meditation: Just before I go out on stage, about 10 minutes ahead of showtime, I sit back, breathe once more, listen to my piece in my head and smile. Studies have shown that smiling makes you happy by triggering the corresponding hormones.
Practice physical stretching: My guitar teacher hasn’t failed at showing me a couple of exercises to stretch, strengthen and make flexible my arms, neck and back – three crucial body parts of guitar players. Ask your teacher for help on this, he should know something simply from experience.

What’s your musical yoga?

Post from: The Good Musician

Operationalize Your Success

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 22:11:17 +0000

One question I get asked from time to time is how I maintain advancement and stay aware of it.

Well, the first thing you need to be aware of is your learning pattern. It has a plateau-like structure.

After that, it’s all about a term from empirical research: Operationalization.

Big word, simple meaning. Let me give you an example. Let’s say you wanted to measure whether carrots are good for eyesight. How would you go about it? One way would be to get a bunch of people to test, and do an eyesight test. Then feed them carrots for a week and measure again.

In effect, you’ve operationalized this experiment by developing an eyesight test that will measure only certain aspects of a persons vision.

Similarly, when practicing, measuring success is done by giving yourself variables to measure.

Here are a few such variables:

- Speed. You can measure speed with a timer. How fast can you play a piece while maintaining the same technical standard? If you can play something really nicely at 100 BPM, can you do the same at 120 without impairing a clean sound?

- Your personal judgement. Record yourself twice with an interval in between and try to criticize. This is my favorite way of measuring success as I can actually judge the overall progress just by listening to myself. If I feel I’ve worsened, I’ll go over the problems with my teacher.

- A friend. Ask an aficionado to be your critic. This way you’ll also play with a little concert pressure.

- Pain and rough skin. As a guitarist, I tend to map my progress according to the level of pain in my fingers when playing a tough technical exercise. If it gets lighter and easier to accomplish, I usually try to play it really slowly once more before upping the speed (depending on whether I’m playing for speed in the first place).

Operationalization is a tough thing for musicians, but helps to keep us motivated and gives us some structure to our walk towards mastery. What are your ideas of measuring success?

Post from: The Good Musician

5 Good Musician New Year’s Resolutions

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 14:36:46 +0000

It’s the end of a turbulent year, a year in which I had to choose not to study music, and where I had to begin a life of practicing alone, and giving up concerts sponsored by my school.

In the new year, I have a few goals I want to achieve, to keep my musician-being going at a healthy rate.

Here are The Good Musician’s new year’s resolutions:

1. Practice at a fixed time daily.

I get time in the mornings only, and I used to practice daily from 5-6. But those days are gone, and I want them back.

2. Play regular concerts at a local hospital.

This is a great way to stay in the practice of concerts. In old age homes I’ve come across the most charming and appreciative audiences for classical music ever.

3. Start a jazz band.

This is a big project and I want you to join me on this endeavor. I’ve launched and crashed a few groups in my life before, but this time I’m looking for something fun, and lasting.

4. Improve my technique.

My main focus this year shall be on technique. I’ve played many a complex piece before, but in order to advance to a new plateau, I think my technique is what’s holding me back the most right now.

5. Listen to more music.

I need to explore more music. I’ve been stagnating on the same 72 artists for much too long now, and oughta find some fresh inspiration. Maybe my own recommendations will come in handy for that…

These goals, though large and hard, are what I aspire to be and what I should be building this year’s musical antics around. What are your goals as a musician this year?

Post from: The Good Musician

Creating Practice Goals

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:01:04 +0000

Photography by It’sGreg.

One very important aspect of your musical endeavors should be your goals.

Ask yourself these questions:

Where do you want to be as a musician in 5 years?
In 3 years?
In 1 year?

Who are your idols?
What piece do you want to be able to play?

Personally, I had an array of things I wanted to be in a few years, and a lot of pieces I wanted to learn to play.

While having ambitious goals is fine, keeping them basic will help you focus, stay realistic and actually experience success in a more intense way.

Set aside around fifteen minutes and do some brainstorming:

Outline Goals: As aforementioned, outline your 5-, 3- and 1-year goals. Even go as far as three months.
Select pieces smartly: If you’re a classical musician, select just one large piece to work on at a time, accompanied by some good technical exercises and some short preludes. This will help you maintain variety while still being focused on one larger work.
If you’re more into modern music, it really depends on your genre. In Jazz, it’s important to practice a lot of scales while checking out a lot of literature. Set aside 4-5 songs you want to master and find out what the technical difficulties are. Then focus on exercises aimed at helping you at those technicalities.
Routinize your practicing: Practice daily at the same time, if possible. Keeping a routine works together with your biological clock, so the next time you sit down to practice your mind will already be at peace and ready to start working music.
Get a friend: It’s like working out: If you have some friends pursuing similar goals, join them for practice or schedule your sessions to coincide. I had a friend with whom I’d practice a Villa-Lobos study once a month, and we’d meet up every month just to see how we’d progressed. This kept us challenged and hard-working.

Those are just a few starting points. The main idea behind this exercise is to begin getting focused as a musician. Most of my friends who are great talents usually don’t make much progress because they either don’t know where they want to be headed or just pin their ambitions to high.

Post from: The Good Musician

Capture Music Anywhere With Moleskines

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 14:00:05 +0000

It’s happened too often that I had a brilliant tune while sitting in the bus, just to end up at home at my instrument, having forgotten how it went.

You may argue that if it didn’t stick, it wasn’t that brilliant, but the point is that even Mozart was known to have had a quill and some paper around him at all times.

Similarly, you should consider a capturing device for your musical inspirations. I personally use Moleskines for note-taking and as an agenda, but they have a product just right for musicians, the Music Moleskine.

I love them for their beautiful looks, the rubber band, and the silky pages make a grand setting fit for the wonderful music you’re about to create.

Of course, it only makes sense if you can read music. Otherwise, you could try an audio device like a dictaphone to record your tunes by humming them. The downside of this is it’s a bit awkward to do in public.

How do you write down your songs? Full score notation, chord names or tabs? Or do you have your own system?

Post from: The Good Musician