So what are you thinking while you are playing on stage, I went to a concert this past weekend of a one handed pianist (he was absolutely amazing) I was close enough to see his face as he played as well as his hand. The expressions on his face made me wonder what he was thinking… was he hearing the music, was he thinking ok this, now this, ok get ready for… was he visualising the score? He often had a pained expression on his face as if something was wrong as if it was painfully beautiful.
He also is the only pianist I have ever seen who used the all of the keys on the piano.
his name is John Bayliss, if you ever have the opportunity go see him.
I took piano as a child; got as far as “Moonlight Sonata” & quit. HATED practicing.
Took up dulcimer in my 40’s … got into “intermediate” class & quit. HATED practicing.
But I sure could string together melodies & pretty sounds!
TRIED PLAYING (BLUES) harmonica since high school & intermittently thereafter, for decades and decades. Never got ANYWHERE. And Big Walter could’ve been my teacher – or Snooky Pryor – or Carey Bell! But I never asked.
Now, age 63, I’m plunking around on various ukes. Pretty noises again! It’s more fun this time around, and I’m making myself PRACTICE.
Tons of luck! Your post is an illustrative reason for why I always start my advice to folks who ask about how to get started or how to pick a guitar - make your decisions based on whatever you think will keep you motivated to play. If you dig red guitars and love the thought of playing one - make sure your guitar is red! Or if you like metal, don’t go to a teacher who forces you to learn classical.
As for uke - well, I sure wouldn’t start by deciding you want to play likeJake Shimabukuro that might not be so enouraging…
There’s also another angle that’s harder to describe. If you know music theory - either from having studied it, or from playing an instrument enough that you’ve internalised an understanding of it - then you get this sense for the *shape *of a piece. That makes it harder to go wrong, or at least noticeably wrong. If you get lost somehow, you know instinctively that within the shape of this piece, your fingers just can’t go there, they have to go here or at the very least *here *- which may not be the correct place, but is one that won’t create some horrible discord. So listeners are less likely to notice the mistake.
I play (or used to, back when I was in practice) the kind of self-taught guitar that’s basically only useful for accompanying singalongs at parties. If I was winging it and figuring out the chords to a song as I went along, I might not always hit the right chord, but I was unlikely to hit one that was horribly wrong - because I could feel from the overall shape of the song which of three or four chords would come next. Unless you knew the song really well, my version would sound fine.
Tonight at Choir Rehearsal, on the first song we rehearsed, our accompanist was sight-reading and it showed.
And we all smiled, because it shows she’s human. (Seriously, she played at least 90% of the notes correctly, but there were some interesting harmonics on a few chords).
Last week in the middle of rehearsal, same accompanist ran out to her car briefly, and the director said “I’ve got this”, sat down at the piano and looked at the key signature–and the accidentals in one measure. It was funny, albeit probably in a have to be there way.
On another note, I play handbells. I play in a Beginner Choir–because we’re short enough true beginners to make up a three octave choir–and in an advanced choir. And when we went out to play in a Nursing Home recently, I was confident that the beginner choir would play recognizable tunes, and nervous that the advanced choir was going to collapse into disaster.
And frankly, our warm-ups were bad. But the performances were good–not great, neccessarily, and certainly not error free. but we stayed together and our audience enjoyed it. Especially the hand chimes we’d brought with us.
(Oh, and Zsofia–about that practice makes Permanent thing . . . one of the songs the choir is singing at Christmas features a large chunk of Dona Nobis Pacem. The director nitpicked our Latin tonight–which made me want to roll my eyes. But if he wants us to sing it differently than habit would lead us to do, he’d better start the way he means to end, because otherwise, laziness will win.)
Middle school band director checking in. Hereis a short video showing glissandi on a trumpet mouthpiece. The length of the instrument dictates the pitches that can be played. When teaching brass players, we strive to have the student buzz the pitch he/she wishes to play. It is possible to buzz the wrong pitch, but be close enough that the desired pitch comes out. The note sounded, however, will lack the clarity and timbre of a pitch that is buzzed properly.
A clarinet looks intimidating, but it really isn’t too bad. I remind my kids that it was invented to be played by the standard-issue human with a standard complement of ten fingers. Basically, there are six holes on the front and one on the back. All those other keys are to assist the player in opening or closing holes where he/she has no fingers. It all works out okay.
Yeah, I don’t know about that, either. I can do harmonica okay, but it’s not a 5-minute instrument. Hell, most people can’t isolate a single blow or draw in five minutes. If you want to do Bob Dylan style straight-harp folk, yeah, maybe you can learn that in five minutes. But bending notes–which is required for a decent blues performance–takes a good deal more practice. The basics are not that difficult, but it takes a little bit to get the feel down and how to bend a note (and then adjusting to different holes on the harp which require slightly different technique) and then controlling those bends. And then there is getting the tone down–that takes a lifetime. And we’re not getting into advanced techniques like overblows/overdraws/etc., which are beyond basic blues and folk harmonica. I mean, hell, getting a good “train” rhythm on straight folk harp takes a hell of a lot of practice and breathing exercise.
But still, I’m not sure what theory has to do with it. My music theory is pretty descent, as the many theoretical discussions I’ve been involved in on the Dope can attest to. Not perfect, but pretty good. Never helped me one bit in playing harmonica, other than knowing what 1st position, 2nd position, 3rd position, etc., mean.
By theory, I mean the recognition of chords and how they fit into the structure of the song. (Perhaps this is what **eclectic wench **means above.) For example, the I chord on a diatonic harmonica in second position can be found on the 2-3-4 holes when you’re drawing breath. The V chord (again, second position) can be found on the 4-5-6 holes drawing breath. The IV chord is essentially all over the harp when you’re blowing: you can find it on the 1-2-3 blow, the 4-5-6 blow, or the 7-8-9 blow.
If you know music theory, all of the above made sense to you. If you know music theory, you can also imply from the above that passing tones for the I and V chords can be found on the blow holes, whereas the passing tones for the IV chord can be found on adjacent draw holes. If you already have a good familiarity with the music you’re working with and know music theory, that’s essentially what you need to know to play blues harp. Most blues pieces are built on a twelve-measure chord progression using those three chords, examples of which are ubiquitous in American music. (I remember how surprised I was when I realized that “Wipe Out” was a 12-bar blues, for example.) Therefore, you can play with the vast majority of blues pieces just using the above, emphasizing the appropriate drawn or blown notes at the appropriate times and using passing tones where appropriate.
Bends, frankly, aren’t that hard on draw holes; if you’ve heard them on harp or guitar, you can do them with a little experimentation. Not sure what you mean by breath control; since playing blues harp entails constant inhaling and exhaling, I’ve never found it very difficult. (Once, I did try to teach a guy who was paralyzed from the neck down. He did in fact have some trouble with breath control and the harder draw one has to do to bend notes. I never realized I was drawing harder to bend notes until I worked with that guy; it was a real eye-opener.) Brass players have told me I have good breath control. This has always shamed me, because I know it’s an illusion created by playing an instrument where one can constantly play without having to pause to draw breath.
If you don’t know music theory, none of this makes sense and it isn’t helpful at all. It’s really remarkable how much easier playing music is when you have a general knowledge of theory.
I will probably go to my grave maintaining that blues harp is one of the very easiest instruments out there. There are no fingerings, embouchure a matter of subtlety (if you’re not dead on, it won’t kill you, as opposed to brass intstruments), and you’re not trying to coordinate ten fingers on 88 keys like you would on a piano. Yes, you get better with practice. Yes, there’s a lot more to it than above. However, the diatonic harmonica may be the only instrument where someone with general familiarity with music can pick up their “axe” on the way home from work and be able to play (if not well, at least not atrociously) by the time they go to bed. Does it take practice to become good? Of course, but much less than instuments like piano, guitar, saxophone, violin, or (heaven forbid) French horn.
ETA: The fact that you can sound decent right out of the chute helps, too. I can’t imagine how tough it is getting through all the screeching involved in beginning violin. With harmonica, you start out sounding…not horrible, then build from there. With most other instruments, you sound like total crap at the beginning, and it takes real practice just to get over that hump.
I’m not a musician but I read a lot and what they are thinking while performing depends on the musician. The thing they all seem to have in common is that they’re not thinking about the mechanics of the music they’re playing. Once you start thinking about what you’re doing you’re going to make mistakes. Here’s an interview with James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem where he talks about it:
It may be worth mentioning some of the differences in practice habits between professionals and students or amateurs:
It’s very important to practice slowly. If you “practice” at tempo, mostly all you do is reinforce mistakes. You have to practice slowly enough that you can catch and eliminate errors, than gradually move towards playing in tempo, little by little. Use a metronome to keep yourself honest.
It’s very important to practice fundamentals: long tones, scales, etudes, etc. Amateurs and students often are impatient with these things, and want to just practice the pieces or songs they know and love most. But that’s not the way to build technique.
Don’t just play the parts you know you can play; be honest about where the errors are and focus on fixing them. This requires slow practice. See 1) above.
Record yourself practicing. It’s often easier to notice errors this way, when you’re not just focused on playing. This also develops critical listening skills.
All very true; great post. I’d add that ensemble work is absolutely essential. Anyone can sound fine to themselves; you aren’t really playing until you can make it fit with others.
A follow-up note: My spouse helped me go out ON THIS BIG LIMB of a musical gamble … he gave me **two! **most beautiful (sounding!) ukes for my birthday and he is *constantly *encouraging me. He gave me the opportunity to try to make music again, with superior equipment. And he absolutely doesn’t mind if I practice while he’s watching his automobile and home fix-up shows on TV! What a wonderful gift HE is!
I’m working on “Heart & Soul” now, and it’s starting to come together! I am so pleased and happy
For those interested, it seems the “clam” occurs a 0:25 seconds on this upload of the recording on youtube. It sounds like he hits an extra note there.
Anywho, didn’t know there were so many tromboners around. I was one many years ago, but so much time has passed that if you placed a trombone in front of me, I wouldn’t know what to do with it. But anyway, yes, practice makes perfect.
Ha, yeah. I stopped playing trombone in college and picked up the guitar. It’s kinda hard to practice the trombone in a dorm room and maintain a friendly a relationship with the rest of your floor. And, as a surprise to no one, being a mediocre guitar player lead to more success with the ladies than being a good trombone player ever did.
that might not be so enouraging…