This may just be me, but this is something that I try to remind myself of every so often. If you enjoy it, then it’s worth doing.
That’s it.
Even if it’s not “productive.”
Enjoying doing something makes it worthwhile.
ISJ
…
Conventions can be useful … that’s if there is a tangible benefit and they have been observed to be useful. But there’s often a pressure associated with following conventions. A pressure to meet those conventions.
But sometimes conventions aren’t useful. And sometimes there are better ways to achieve the goal you have. And most of the time that’s the method you should use.
Check what benefits conventions provide. If they provide very little benefit then maybe they’re not useful anymore.
ISJ
…
So I’m a teacher as well as a musician. I sometimes encounter people that get caught up in the process of doing one of those things that they forget what the goal is.
If you’re teaching, the goal is to convey information to your students so that they learn whatever process or information you’re teaching them. That’s the basic goal of teaching. Get people to understand how to do this new thing or how to understand this new idea.
Whatever you’re trying to do, don’t get caught up in the process where you forget that goal.
There are certain conventions and processes that people follow to get to a certain goal. But sometimes we can get caught up in those and end up forgetting the goal we’re trying to achieve. If you’re going through the motions and still not achieving that goal, and you’re not getting any closer to that goal, maybe try changing that process.
If you’re teaching, for example, we can often get caught up in the different routines and conventions of “how to be a good teacher” where we forget what our goal is. So try not to do that.
If you’re trying to achieve a specific goal, but there are certain things that are normally done to get there, you don’t need to follow them. Just because that’s normally how people do things doesn’t meant that’s how things should always be done.
Now always remember to look at the results and how things work because even with this it can be taken too far. Maybe you throw all the conventional advice out the window and do everything in a unique way … but then you don’t really get anywhere. Check how other people have gotten the result you want and try some of those ideas.
ISJ
…
I remember Tim Ferris saying something about imagining the worst case scenario for something to put it into perspective. I have mixed feelings about some of Tim Ferriss’s stuff, but this one thing in some contexts can be really useful.
I’m trying to write one blog post a day. Recently I’ve been failing miserably. And what’s the worst that’s going to happen?
Well, not much honestly. So what if I miss a few days? Or even a whole week?
Not much happens.
This same thing can be applied to releasing music.
What happens if you release a song and no one hears it?
Think about honestly what would happen?
Quite literally nothing.
No one hears it. No one responds to it.
Nothing happens.
That’s not that bad if you think about it.
Nothing even changed.
So, with that.
Release a song. Do whatever little thing you’re thinking of doing. Think about what’s the worst case scenario. It probably won’t be nearly as bad as you imagine it to be.
ISJ
…
I made a new YouTube video that’s titled How to perform with confidence.
Go check it out.
ISJ
…
This is a tip that’ll help your sight reading. Before you play a piece of music take a look through it. These are things I always notice:
I’ve noticed that when I’ve done these things I’ve sight read better. When I haven’t done these things I don’t sight read so well.
Time signature and key signature are the big ones that will likely be noticed right away. I think flipping through the music and looking for the rest can be incredibly useful too. Looking for repeated sections or repeated ideas can help a lot. It can help you get a general idea of what the form will be so that you’re prepared for different sections of the piece.
Looking for familiar chord progressions can also be useful because you’re trying to relate the music back to pieces you can already play. It also can relieve some stress when you end up finding those familiar chord progressions. You might not have to figure out the chords right on the spot and can rely on the patterns that you already know.
Lastly I look for what sections might be difficult and what sections might be easy. I look for difficult sections to see if there’s anything I need to slow down or try to rehearse a tiny bit before playing. It also helps in not freaking out halfway through the reading because you’re prepared. Easy sections are nice to know about beforehand because you can give yourself a rest and/or take a minute to really look ahead in the music and prepare.
Remembering to do all of these can take a while to get used to, which is why I literally talk to myself in my head when looking through these.
This step can also take a piece from being hard to read to being slightly manageable. Or take a piece from being a medium difficulty level to being fairly easy.
ISJ
…
One of my students recently asked me to start teaching him solfege. I made a video about Should I Learn Solfege? a while ago, but I figured I’d explain it in a post here.
So my student asked if I could prepare him for AP Music Theory. He’s a high school student.
After explaining the basics of solfege I told him some of the amazing things you can do when you get good at it.
One of those things being singing songs that you’ve never heard before.
I sang in a choir while at Berklee for a little bit, and I sang the bass parts. Most of the time I was sight reading either during rehearsals or during church services because I wasn’t provided with the music before hand. I also didn’t know many of the hymns.
With solfege I was able to sing them. I could imagine what the solfege syllables would be and hear the bass parts in my head before I sang them and then when I sang them they sounded alright.
It’s the same way that I’ve been able to harmonize some sea shanties on TikTok. Go follow me.
Once you’re able to hear a full scale in solfege and be able to hear different combinations of syllables you’ll be able to use that to figure out music without an instrument, sing harmonize without knowing what notes you’re singing, and even learn full songs without an instrument.
I’ve used solfege to learn songs while driving to a rehearsal. Because you’re focusing on the relationships between the notes, rather than the notes themselves, you can figure out what scale degrees the melody is playing and what roman numerals the chords are.
It kind of feels like a super power. You can sit down at your instrument and play a song you’ve only ever listened to, and never played, and play it fairly well.
It’s an amazing tool to learn to use.
ISJ
…
I often play music for my students and have them write a short paragraph telling me whether or not they like it and why. Most of the time my students are respectful when they don’t like a piece of music. Sometimes they’re not. And I always remind them to like whatever music they like, but on the condition that they leave people alone if they like other types of music. Like whatever you want, but don’t make other people feel bad or not liking that type of music.
If you like hip-hop music and nothing else that’s awesome. It doesn’t say anything about the quality of other styles of music.
If you only like classical music that’s fantastic, but again, it doesn’t say anything about other types of music.
Other types of music are valid forms of art, whether or not you like them.
I use the example of Justin Bieber. I’m personally not a fan of much of his music. For many reasons I’d rather listen to something else.
BUT.
He’s an amazing singer. I can appreciate his vocal abilities even if I don’t like the specific style of music that he makes. And me disliking his music says nothing about his singing abilities.
I often hear people saying that other types of music are “bad”, when in reality they just mean that they like it. The same thing goes for saying a song is “good.” What specifically did you like about the music? What specifically makes you say it’s “good?” That’s what I want to hear. Just hearing someone say that it’s “good” or “bad” tells me nothing about the music.
The goal is to be able to describe what you like about a song in such a way and with such detail that the person you’re talking to can imagine what type of song it is.
Doing this repeatedly and regularly will also help you more deeply listen to music and listen in more detail. You’ll eventually start to hear more details in music.
ISJ
…
Recently I started looking at Brahms’ 3rd Symphony. I’ve heard recordings of it, but I’ve never really studied the score. So I started studying the score.
One thing I always do when beginning to study a score is flip through it a few times. Flip through it like it’s a magazine. Imagine it’s just pictures and look at it that way. No audiating the melodies. No singing the parts to yourself and imagining what they sound like. Just flip through it. Look at what’s there first. Notice things.
I had a conducting professor at Berklee who would have us do this with the scores we studied. He’d ask us what we saw. And the answers he wanted were often very simple. For example, “I see eighth notes”, or “I see staccato dots.”
“I see a trumpet solo.”
“I see mezzo-forte.”
“I see an accelerando.”
“I see arco.”
He literally just wanted us to say out loud what we saw in the score. As if we’d never seen music before and didn’t know what it meant.
That single thing helped with conducting so much. It gets you familiar with all of the different markings. And if you’re looking at an orchestra score that’s often 20 or more instruments, which means lots of markings.
It gets you more familiar with the music on the page and what needs to be played.
We went much farther studying the music, but that was always the first step; flip through it like a magazine.
That gave us the foundation to look at things like form and harmonies and melodies and themes. We knew the music really well. We could locate different pieces of the music in the score, almost as if we were memorizing a book.
It got us acquainted with the music just as a piece of music. That way when we analyzed it we could remember the different parts of the music.
It also helps when conducting because you know exactly what’s coming next. You know the upcoming sections before playing them.
Almost as if you can imagine the whole entire piece of music in your head.
Now that takes quite a number of different flip throughs, but eventually you get there.
So now that’s how I always start looking at pieces of music. If I’m learning them for a musical or if I’m learning to direct them with an ensemble. I flip through it like it’s a magazine.
ISJ
…