The Fastest Way to Learn a Musical Instrument Guaranteed

Performing should be the goal for all musicians.  Though practicing and learning new music can be rewarding, there is little point in putting in all that hard work if you’re not going to play with other musicians–and hopefully in front of an audience.  There is an easy-to-use 3-step process that will get you ready for any [...]

Musicians face a big challenge in how to phrase music that has a lot of repetition in it.  The truth is, most musical compositions have a lot of repetition.  Melodies are built on repeated fragments, different phrases sound alike, and entire sections are often repeated. When something reappears in your music over and over again, you [...]

Have you ever taken a music lesson where everything during the lesson was perfectly clear, but then you got home and couldn’t remember any of the information from the lesson? When you leave a music lesson, you need to remember all of the pointers your teacher gave you, everything you’re supposed to practice until the next [...]

To learn to play music successfully, musicians must focus their attention on the most important details of their music while practicing.  No matter if you play guitar, piano, violin, trumpet, flute, or drums, there are always certain details that matter more than others. You need to decide what to pay attention to while you’re practicing [...]

With all of the amazing technology available today designed to help musicians learn to play their instruments faster than ever before, it’s easy to forget about one low-tech piece of equipment that is an essential tool for musicians: the Music Stand. Yes, the lowly music stand remains one of the most important accessories for musicians.  [...]

One area that’s often skipped in the time-consuming process of preparing music is the performance itself–that is, exactly what should happen on stage. Beyond being able to play all the music you intend to perform, you’ve got to be ready to put yourself in front of an audience. It’s time to think about your stage [...]

One of the things that plagues musicians when they practice is stopping playing, making a quick correction, and restarting.  I call this the SAD Syndrome (SAD stands for Stop And Do-it-again), and I’ve seen it happen in my own practicing as well as with my students and musicians who play at my master classes. There are many [...]

It’s important to keep your practice space free of clutter.  When you start your practice session, it’s a lot easier to get going if everything you need is easily accessible and you can find you sheet music, metronome, tuner, and any other accessories you need. Getting started with a practice session is difficult for many [...]

When many musicians practice, they go about it the same way they listen to music.  That is, they start working on a song at the beginning and run through the music until they get to the end. Then, the entire process starts over.  The musician goes back to the beginning and plays through to the [...]

Many musicians give themselves rewards for meeting and achieving goals.  Getting a reward is a wonderful incentive for achieving your goals. What do you do if you DON’T meet your goal?  Is there any consequence?  Without a consequence, many musicians don’t have enough of an incentive to truly do what it takes to achieve their [...]