The Fastest Way to Learn a Musical Instrument Guaranteed

Are you passionate about the music you’re playing?  If not, it’s probably pretty difficult to get excited about practicing and doing all the hard work needed to perform well.

There are plenty of situations in life that do not contain passion.  Just think of commuting to work or school, running errands, doing housework, and all the other mundane but necessary tasks of living your life.  Don’t make the mistake of leaving the passion out of your music!

Here are a few tips for putting passion into your playing:

1.  Choose to perform music that you truly like.  Listen to recordings before you tackle something new.  Hearing this music should inspire you and make you want to play your instrument.

2.  Tell a story with your music.  If you infuse plot and characters into the music you play, it’s a lot more interesting for you and for your audience.  Stories contain emotions and plot twists that give music the extra spark it needs.

3.  Pick a venue where you want to play.  When you take control of where and when you will be performing, it’s a lot more interesting to learn new music–and it’s easier to feel passionate about the outcome.

4.  Copy the masters.  Try to play exactly like an artist you admire.  Copying their sound and technique can inspire you to go beyond your usual techniques.

5.  Play when you’re angry.  Doing this usually brings out a whole new interpretation of the music for most players.  It’s almost like someone else is playing your instrument.

Do whatever it takes to put the passion into your playing!

It’s interesting to rehearse without playing the beginnings of any of the pieces your ensemble is working on.  This is counter-intuitive for most people, but it opens up the group to thinking about their music in a new way.  Just because the default mode of musicians is to start at the beginning doesn’t mean that starting at the beginning is the best plan!

The real secret to efficient rehearsing is to go through the music section by section.  Very few groups do this as a normal part of their rehearsing.  But, this is a crucial process if you are to have successful performances.

Daniel Levitin, in his extraordinary book This Is Your Brain on Music, writes, “Most musicians cannot start playing a piece of music they know at any arbitrary location; musicians learn music according to a hierarchical phrase structure.  Groups of notes form units of practice, these smaller units are combined into larger units, and ultimately into phrases; phrases are combined into structures such as verses and choruses or movements, and ultimately everything is strung together as a musical piece.”

Many musicians have an understanding of this process but still do not run their rehearsals using the principle of putting together sections.  A lot of rehearsals are simply run-throughs of the music.  When learning a piece, starting at the beginning of a song and playing it through to the end is no more useful for a group in rehearsal than it is for a solo musician in the practice room.

Instead, the trick is to run sections of a piece and work out any of the kinks that exist for each section.  Then, rehearse the transitions between the sections.  Only when this process is complete does it make sense to run an entire piece–though going through the whole piece is probably not that important at the first rehearsal if the group will be getting together for multiple rehearsals.

Try this technique at your next rehearsal.  Make each section perfect.  Then, make the transitions perfect.  Finally, string together multiple sections and play through them.

Do you ever feel that you’re practicing only one or two items and feel guilty for neglecting others?  Most of us have experienced these feelings.  We know we should be more balanced in our practicing–even as we play through the fun music on our practice list.

The Musician’s Practice Planner can help you avoid these negative feelings by organizing your practicing into useful categories.  If you make sure you have at least one item in each practice category, you can rely on the Practice Planner to give you your to-do list.

By following the categories in order–Scales & Arpeggios first, Exercises & Etudes second, Repertoire third, etc.–you can make sure your practicing is balanced.  More importantly, you relieve yourself of any feelings of guilt that result from skipping the less exciting parts of your practicing.

When you focus on your scales and exercises before you go through the songs or pieces your really want to practice, you will be thoroughly warmed up and ready to play at your best when you get to your songs.  Going through this process every time you practice will help you learn faster.

The trick is to make sure there’s something written in every category of your Musician’s Practice Planner.  You and your teacher can make this a goal at every lesson.

Stay balanced and you’ll make more progress!

A performer walks on stage to start a concert.  They seem uncomfortable, maybe even a bit scared.  They look down at the floor as they enter.

How will the audience react to this musician?  Will they be enthusiastic and eager to listen to the performance?

In this situation, audiences usually feel embarrassed and worried that they will be hearing a timid, difficult performance.  Audiences do not want to feel this way–whether they’ve paid top dollar for great seats at an expensive venue or they’re at a free children’s recital.

Audiences want to be led by the musicians on stage.  They want to feel comfortable and comforted.  If you’re the musician about to start the performance, you owe it to yourself and to your audience to enter the stage in such a way that everyone realizes they’re in for something special.

I was at a public speaking workshop put on by Ovson Communications recently, and this point was hammered home.  Public speaking and performing music have a lot in common.  In both cases there is someone on stage leading an audience.  The audience’s expectations are high, and it’s up to the person on stage to take control of the room.

At this workshop, the leaders demonstrated various uses of body language that turn off audiences when a performer enters the stage: stooped shoulders, staring at the floor, walking slowly, frowning.  Then, they showed how to engage the audience when entering: shoulders back, walking purposefully, smiling, looking individual audience members in the eye.

Then, each of us participating in the workshop got to practice taking the stage.  It is amazing how different it feels when you purposefully take control of the stage and the audience.  I felt more confident and more ready to speak to the audience.

Controlling the stage is something you can practice at home.  If you’ve got a performance coming up, treat your practice room like the stage.  Leave the practice room for a couple minutes.  Then, when you’re ready to do a performance runthrough, re-enter your practice space–just as you would if you were in front of an audience.

Take your time before you start playing.  Visualize your audience beineager to hear you play.  Feel the confidence pouring out of you.

When you take the stage confidently, you will feel more calm, relaxed, and ready to perform!

In your Musician’s Practice Planner, in addition to the weekly practice plan, it’s important for music students to write down their reward and their risk for meeting the practice goals for the week.  This is an excellent way to create motivation and forward momentum in achieving goals for music lessons and performances.

Here’s how it works:

First, set up a Reward for meeting your weekly goals.  The reward can be anything positive that you’ll get for following through with your plan.  The reward can be big or small, but it should be something you want.

Next, create a Risk for NOT meeting your practice goals.  Your risk is your anti-reward.  It is something you will give up or lose if you do not carry out your weekly plan.

Using risk as an incentive is one of the great secrets of motivation experts.  If you create a plan for achieving goals, ask yourself this question:

What am I risking if I do not meet my plan?

If you risk nothing, what is your incentive to carry out the plan?  Risk is an essential component of the SMART Goals system, which says that your goal itself should have some element of risk in it.  This usually means that your goal is something new that will take you slightly out of your comfort zone.

Using risk as an anti-reward is another wise use of the concept, and this type of risk will make you hungry to achieve your goals.

Be sure to put both your Reward and your Risk in writing.  And, let other people know what you have chosen as your incentives.  These people can help hold you accountable and encourage you to meet your goals.  They will want you to earn your reward, not suffer from your anti-reward!

There is a lot of advice for music students to get the most from their music lessons in the Music Lessons blog archive here on the Molto Music site.  Today’s post adds one more tip:

Always leave today’s music lesson with your next lesson scheduled.

For many students, lessons are scheduled weekly at exactly the same time.  If you’ve set up your music lessons on a regular schedule, congratulations!  You will get regular feedback, advice, and assignments from your music teacher.  Regular lessons give you the best opportunity to make the most progress in the shortest time possible.

There are many music students–especially adult musicians–who do not adhere to a regular lesson schedule.  Some of these students are highly motivated and will practice hard between lessons to make a lot of progress.

However, a lot of students who take lessons only occasionally don’t have a great deal of motivation between lessons.  Knowing that they don’t have to check in with their teacher any time soon, they put practicing on the back burner.

If this describes you, today’s blog post is tailor made for your situation.  You absolutely, positively must have your next lesson on the calendar before you leave your music teacher’s studio at the end of your current lesson.  Knowing when the next lesson will happen gives you a deadline.  Deadlines lead to motivation.  Motivation leads to practicing.  Practicing leads to accomplishment.

It’s that simple.  You always need a deadline to keep yourself on pace to accomplish your goals.  Always having your next lesson scheduled will give you that deadline!

Today is the summer solstice, the first official day of summer.   It’s a good time to put your summer music goals in place.

Here’s an easy way to set up your summer music goals:

First, make a big list of all the music you’d like to learn this summer and all the new techniques you’d like to master. Don’t think too hard about this; just write down your goals quickly.

Second, pick 3 – 5 goals from this list that stand out to you for any reason. Perhaps they seem the most important or the most fun. Just make sure they are goals you would truly like to achieve.

Third, choose just one goal from your short list as your main goal for the summer. This is the goal that would feel great to accomplish.

Fourth, pick out two additional goals as secondary goals for the summer. These won’t be as important as the main goal, but it’s nice to have more than one goal to shoot for while you’re practicing. It often works best if these secondary goals support the main goal. For instance, the secondary goals could be technical skills that will help you learn the piece of music that’s your main goal.

Now that you have a main goal and two secondary goals, write these down in your Musician’s Practice Planner. You can use the “Other” category or the “Special Notes for the Week” section.

Every day, before you practice, read these written goals and design your practice sessions to help you accomplish these goals. Remember, these are goals for the summer and all should be achievable by Labor Day.

Enjoy your summer, and have fun achieving your summer music goals!

Making sure students know the exact expectations of their music teachers is one of the top priorities at music lessons.  If a student leaves the lesson unclear on what to do at home, disaster can strike.  At best, their practicing will be unfocused and maybe even nonexistent.  The worst case scenario is they actually practice something incorrectly, learn a section wrong, and build a damaging technical habit.

There is a method for creating clear communication that can easily be used by music teachers.  This method can be utilized when talking with music students and when writing in students’ Musician’s Practice Planner books.

The method is simple: Make sure your communication is coherent, compelling, and comprehensive.  This is known as CCC Communication.

Let’s look at each of the three C’s:

1.  Coherent: It should be clear what the student should do as they play at the lesson and as they practice at home.  If you’re a music teacher, ask your student if what you’ve written in their Musician’s Practice Planner is clear to them.  For very young students, make sure directions are clear to the parent.

2.  Compelling: Make it interesting!  There must be motivation on the student’s part to achieve the teacher’s goals.  If all the practicing seems boring to the student, very little will be accomplished.

3.  Comprehensive:  Communication needs to cover all areas that students are likely to have questions about during the time in between lessons.  By being as thorough as possible, and by anticipating questions from students, teachers can help students gain a more complete understanding of what it is they’re accomplishing.  And, students absolutely must feel they’ve accomplished something when they get through a specific goal–that there’s some sense of completion or victory.

The CCC Communication model can be adopted by all music teachers and expected by all music students.  If you are an adult beginner student, this level of communication will be very important for you.  You can ask your teacher to be more clear and thorough and to give you interesting material to practice.

Coherent.  Compelling.  Comprehensive.  Give it a try!

Two more apps aimed at musicians are now available for the iPhone and iPod touch.

Planet Waves, a maker of accessories and software applications primarily for guitar, has released the ProTune tuner application and the ProTempo metronome application.

ProTune is aimed at string musicians, with tuning modes specifically dedicated to guitar, violin/mandolin, viola/mandola, cello/mandocello, bass/mandobass, banjo, and ukulele.  This app is $5.99.

ProTempo includes simple click mode as well as programmable rhythm patterns and samples.  ProTempo can be downloaded from the iTunes store for $4.99.

No one at Molto Music has tested these apps, and we have not been compensated for mentioning them in this blog.  If you have comments about either of these apps, please leave your comments on this post.

In last week’s post on pricing when you buy musical instruments, I mentioned that you need to negotiate when you purchase instruments and accessories.  It’s important to think of the retail price in a music store the same way you’d think of the sticker price of a new car: an imaginary number that has nothing whatsoever to do with the price you will actually pay.

There are tactics that can help when you’re in the negotiation process.  Here are a few bargaining approaches you can try:

1.  Do your homework.  Before you start bargaining, know the pricing available online for the instrument you’re buying.  Print out pricing you see at websites like www.musiciansfriend.com, www.music123.com, or www.samash.com, and take the printout with you to your local music store.  See if your local store can match this price or come close to it.  Even if they can’t exactly match the price, it may still be worthwhile to buy from them since they’re there to let you see the product in person, give you advice on how to use it, and repair it if needed.

2.  Ask for a specific discount.  Once you see the retail price listed on a product, you can ask for 25 – 30% off this price.  For instance, if something is $1000, ask for a 30% discount and say you’re willing to pay $700.

3.  Have the store cover sales tax.  If you are given a price that is less than retail price, but still not as low as you’d like to pay, ask the store to pay the sales tax.  Depending on where you are, this could save you 5 – 10% more.

4.  Ask for the “street price.”  For this tactic, look the salesperson directly in the eye, and simply ask, “What’s the street price for this?”  You’ll be amazed at how often they’ll tell you the street price and sell to you for that price.

For any of these approaches to be successful, you’ll first have to be willing to negotiate.  Just realize that negotiating is a normal part of buying a musical instrument, stay relaxed, and ask for what you want!