Sure, that sounds easy enough. Unfortunately, most people get Step 2 wrong. And god forbid I’ve met people who get Step 1 wrong as well, but that’s a different story.

Listening to music isn’t as easy as you might think. We listen to music while cleaning the house, driving a car, or sitting in the bus (for our more environmentally friendly readers). We often forget that you can just sit down and listen, putting all your concentration and resources to the music.

Learning about music and it’s intricate details is a long process. By regularly listening to real examples of published music, we can learn a lot. So here’s the secret:

Start having listening sessions.

And how does that look, exactly? Simple, sit down with your CD player, iTunes library, tapes or vinyl records — wherever you have most of your music. A great place for discovering music to listen to is MusicIP, they have some great discovery tools.

Now, pick any artist, album and start listening. Today we want to just scratch the surface o what you can learn this way, but try asking yourself the following questions:

• What instruments are prevalent?
• How many “parts” does the song/piece have?
• Are there unidentified sounds I’m missing? Synthesizers are often “overheard”.
• Could I play a part of this song myself?

Start slicing the song up, look at each member of the orchestra or band and his part in the piece. Ask yourself “How did they do that!?” and try to find out what makes these songs “cool”. What is it that I could use myself to be a good musician?

Soon enough, we will explore harmonic and rhythmic aspects, and delve deeper into the anatomy of music. Until then, stay tuned by subscribing today!

Post from: The Good Musician

In future posts, I will explore each area deeper and try to size up digestible chunks that will join you on your career to a good musician.

1. Know Your Instrument

Every musician makes music using an instrument. Even our voice is an entire instrument by itself. When playing, we should be aware of what we are doing. We should try to learn as much about the instrument as we can gather, it’s history, it’s uses, it’s cousins, and we should develop our relationship to the instrument, why are we playing the instrument we play?.

2. Know your Music Theory

Britney Spears probably doesn’t know much about music theory, but as a self-made musician free from producers and American Idol, we should indulge in music theory. Music is a science, but an art form as well. That makes it very special, and thus we should attempt to grasp it as much as we can, which the scientific approach allows us to do easily. The artistic side of music is much more obscure and free. Many musicians fail trying to climb that high wall before getting familiar with the subject matter.

In subsequent posts, I will bring in lessons of music theory, and try to present it in a way that it’s understandable, and most of all, show the use of it, and answer that all-mighty question of “Why?”.

3. Brand Yourself

Whether you’re a classical interpret or member of a death metal band, you have to define yourself and place yourself among others. You have to develop your own uniqueness, and this is where the music ends and business begins, but it’s a part of being a musician. Even if just for your personal life, you should put a lot of thought into what you want to be as a musician, and what you can be as a musician.

Draw that mental picture of yourself you’re comfortable with and ask, what makes me so special? You’ll find a lot of things that make you unique, you just have to play them out.

4. Listen to music

Being a musician means making music, but it also means immersing yourself in music that others create. Listening to music shouldn’t only be something you do on the bus, while surfing or in the car. Listening should at times be an active process in which you slice up the music and study it. There’s so much out there, and once you develop an ear for it, there’s an equal amount to learn! Imagine if you can combine all that knowledge and create something new & wonderful!

5. Practice & Criticize

You suck. That’s what you might try pounding into your head every time you force a tortured note out of your instrument, whether a beginner or a wannabe-Hendrix. Well, the truth is: You really do suck. Everyone does. Paul McCartney sucks. Even I do. But the good part is, we can change that. With practice and constant self-evaluation done the right way, we can reduce our suckiness and create something beautiful. Remember, nothing is perfect, but with a little help, you can come a long, long, really long way.

In future posts you will be able to explore each area further, and we’ll finally get down to work. I’m sure we can learn a lot from each other, and if you think you want to join me, be sure to subscribe!

Post from: The Good Musician