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On the danger of shortcuts in learning music
- Thread starter dan
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Harrytulipan
Member
Should we really rank pieces from easy/beginner to advanced?
I mean, there are pieces that can be played as a beginner or advanced depending on the arrangemang, right?
Chicken dance can be played in different levels but even a beginner player might be better at getting a polka feel than an advanced. This means that the advanced technichal player is less good at something that the beginner player is good at.
What do you think about this?
Harrytulipan
Member
I am not sure all the advanced piano player find slash chords easy.
Alan Sharkis
Well-known member
Within the formal part of lessons, it’s important to stick to a developmental sequence. At some point, however, most students will say something like, “I want to play ____,” and at that point the teacher could provide a simplified version (at the level the student is, or a tiny bit more challenging) of whatever the student requested and say, “Let’s learn this for fun.”
A less advanced technically, but more advanced musically (connecting) player may be more fun for ME to listen to, hence better in MY opinion. Others may consider the more technically advanced player BETTER. Different strokes for different folks.
Harrytulipan
Member
Alan Sharkis
Well-known member
Aaah! So now we get into an area I’ve observed for years. It’s the all-too-familiar case of the child prodigy who’s a great technician, but whose playing lacks emotion. If the kid survives and stays with his music into adulthood, he will probably learn to put more emotion into his playing. That aspect of musicianship is difficult for young people.
Sometimes, even adults don’t emote with their playing, but that can also be a function of what they choose to playat any one performance.Musicality is very related to emotion.
insert-witty-username
Member
I think you got this backwards, or at least it sounds misleading to me. It's not the player who must put emotion into the piece, but rather the audience who one hopes will get it out of it. It may well be that actually having or simulating these emotions may be the best way for the player to pull this off, but it is clearly not required, nor relevant to the artistic merits of the performance.
A performance sounds the way it sounds, no matter what grimaces, jumps on the podium etc. etc. one gets as extras, in much the same way that a comedy is funny on its own merits or it isn't, whether or not the author had a silly smile on his face when he wrote it.
(I'm talking about public performances here, when I play for myself, I'm also the audience and it sure would be nice to connect emotionally even with my clumsy attempts.)
Alan Sharkis
Well-known member
Maybe it’s a little of both? A player can inject emotional content into what they’re playing with variations in tempo, articulation, accents, dynamics, etc. An individual in an audience may or may not react to these variations and another individual in the same audience at the same time may react differently or not ar all.
true
and perception of music greatly depends on a lot of things: time of day, introductory words, sympathy for the performer, etc. etc. - how you 'market' your performance on the spot is of big value. Sometimes this has absolutely nothing to do with music, but a lot with interaction and expectation management
Can someone become a good musician without structure, guidance or a strong foundation? It all depends on your definition of what a good musician is.
When I was in Nuremburg Germany many years ago, I stopped in at a tiny restaurant just outside the city. Come to find out that this was a bit of a hangout for the local gypsies and that they often played there. I was intrigued so a few of mu cousins and I came back later that evening for supper and indeed there were 2 musicians there. One was an elder gent that played accordion, the other was his son that was about 25-ish.
The evening went like this... the elder played for about 2 hours. His playing was good, but it was unstructured, the melodies often distorted, fingering awkward and his idea of a fast run was to do fast up and down glissandos and move on. He was strongly applauded by the mostly gypsy audience and acknowledged as the king of musicians in this area.
His son stepped on stage... man, that kid's technique was STRONG, he made that guitar sing, the runs were fast and clean, the songs had the melodies played so that they were recognizable. The locals were not all that impressed apparently as the applause was not as energetic.
Turns out the son was classically trained for 10 years and the father was a life-long player by ear and could not even read, much less read music.
They were complete musical polar opposites and so odd because they were father and son.
What do you like to listen to? They were both good, but I would not really call the father a "good musician" in my book.
Then again, had not my background been a mix of strong structured conservatory trained style interspersed with about 15 years of gigging alone and in a czech/german band, I may have thought him the better musician... but I had.
So, in looking back at my earlier life, I see that I could not have done half of what I did without a strong musical base, without being able to read music, without having spent hours and hours of focused and structured practice. I would certainly have never known the pleasures of having been able to play Mozard, Bach, Liszt and many others without being able to read music and had a good base. I know that at one point in my life it went way too far and ended up being a severely negative experience and I had to stop, but it makes me wonder what could have been had it been 1% less intense, how far could I have gone?
We all do what we want and go as far as we set the limit for ourselves to go.
There are no useable shortcuts in attaining a strong set of foundational skills, one has to learn the alphabet to learn how to read, one has to invest the time and effort in the basics of theory and reading music and just benefit from that moving forward. One cannot build a house on quicksand... well you CAN, but you will start over and waste so much time... until you learn not to... lol.
When I was in Nuremburg Germany many years ago, I stopped in at a tiny restaurant just outside the city. Come to find out that this was a bit of a hangout for the local gypsies and that they often played there. I was intrigued so a few of mu cousins and I came back later that evening for supper and indeed there were 2 musicians there. One was an elder gent that played accordion, the other was his son that was about 25-ish.
The evening went like this... the elder played for about 2 hours. His playing was good, but it was unstructured, the melodies often distorted, fingering awkward and his idea of a fast run was to do fast up and down glissandos and move on. He was strongly applauded by the mostly gypsy audience and acknowledged as the king of musicians in this area.
His son stepped on stage... man, that kid's technique was STRONG, he made that guitar sing, the runs were fast and clean, the songs had the melodies played so that they were recognizable. The locals were not all that impressed apparently as the applause was not as energetic.
Turns out the son was classically trained for 10 years and the father was a life-long player by ear and could not even read, much less read music.
They were complete musical polar opposites and so odd because they were father and son.
What do you like to listen to? They were both good, but I would not really call the father a "good musician" in my book.
Then again, had not my background been a mix of strong structured conservatory trained style interspersed with about 15 years of gigging alone and in a czech/german band, I may have thought him the better musician... but I had.
So, in looking back at my earlier life, I see that I could not have done half of what I did without a strong musical base, without being able to read music, without having spent hours and hours of focused and structured practice. I would certainly have never known the pleasures of having been able to play Mozard, Bach, Liszt and many others without being able to read music and had a good base. I know that at one point in my life it went way too far and ended up being a severely negative experience and I had to stop, but it makes me wonder what could have been had it been 1% less intense, how far could I have gone?
We all do what we want and go as far as we set the limit for ourselves to go.
There are no useable shortcuts in attaining a strong set of foundational skills, one has to learn the alphabet to learn how to read, one has to invest the time and effort in the basics of theory and reading music and just benefit from that moving forward. One cannot build a house on quicksand... well you CAN, but you will start over and waste so much time... until you learn not to... lol.
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Right on Jerry -- everyone is really different -- me included. As, I mentioned in previous posts, I only took accordion lessons for two years. I quit for when I was 10. 65 years later, I started again, with an acoustic and now an FR-8X. I love the 8X, with all the different tones, and the adjustments I can do with the editor. So many choices, allows me to be creative.
I am amazed how much of the accordion I can recall after so many years. Most of my effort now is to improve my left hand. When I was 10, I "memorized" the bass side. The layout never made sense to me. Now that I understand the layout -- up by fifths -- down by fourths -- counter bass one third from the root, It is much easier. Still takes a lot of practice. I play "by the dots". My speed is getting better with practice. A tough bass note for me was F#. Now, when I see F#, I think D chord, since F# is the third of the D Major chord and just one row over. I know my major chords pretty good now -- "I picture them on the keyboard", so when I read an F#, my brain goes immediately to the D major chord. There are so many ways to comprehend that humongous "sea of keys" -- would be impossible for me to get it my memorization. This method works for me -- probably not so good for other people. By the way, I do not attempt songs such as Mozard, Bach, etc. I am happy with the simpler stuff.
I am amazed how much of the accordion I can recall after so many years. Most of my effort now is to improve my left hand. When I was 10, I "memorized" the bass side. The layout never made sense to me. Now that I understand the layout -- up by fifths -- down by fourths -- counter bass one third from the root, It is much easier. Still takes a lot of practice. I play "by the dots". My speed is getting better with practice. A tough bass note for me was F#. Now, when I see F#, I think D chord, since F# is the third of the D Major chord and just one row over. I know my major chords pretty good now -- "I picture them on the keyboard", so when I read an F#, my brain goes immediately to the D major chord. There are so many ways to comprehend that humongous "sea of keys" -- would be impossible for me to get it my memorization. This method works for me -- probably not so good for other people. By the way, I do not attempt songs such as Mozard, Bach, etc. I am happy with the simpler stuff.
You're so right Jerry! I'm the poster child of "should learn the fundamentals," as you know. A guy asked me yesterday if I could play some tunes with his band (duo). "Sure, no problem," says I. Ok, so he sends me this original song to play. Omg, it's in A which I *never* play. Well, no time like the present!Can someone become a good musician without structure, guidance or a strong foundation? It all depends on your definition of what a good musician is.
When I was in Nuremburg Germany many years ago, I stopped in at a tiny restaurant just outside the city. Come to find out that this was a bit of a hangout for the local gypsies and that they often played there. I was intrigued so a few of mu cousins and I came back later that evening for supper and indeed there were 2 musicians there. One was an elder gent that played accordion, the other was his son that was about 25-ish.
The evening went like this... the elder played for about 2 hours. His playing was good, but it was unstructured, the melodies often distorted, fingering awkward and his idea of a fast run was to do fast up and down glissandos and move on. He was strongly applauded by the mostly gypsy audience and acknowledged as the king of musicians in this area.
His son stepped on stage... man, that kid's technique was STRONG, he made that guitar sing, the runs were fast and clean, the songs had the melodies played so that they were recognizable. The locals were not all that impressed apparently as the applause was not as energetic.
Turns out the son was classically trained for 10 years and the father was a life-long player by ear and could not even read, much less read music.
They were complete musical polar opposites and so odd because they were father and son.
What do you like to listen to? They were both good, but I would not really call the father a "good musician" in my book.
Then again, had not my background been a mix of strong structured conservatory trained style interspersed with about 15 years of gigging alone and in a czech/german band, I may have thought him the better musician... but I had.
So, in looking back at my earlier life, I see that I could not have done half of what I did without a strong musical base, without being able to read music, without having spent hours and hours of focused and structured practice. I would certainly have never known the pleasures of having been able to play Mozard, Bach, Liszt and many others without being able to read music and had a good base. I know that at one point in my life it went way too far and ended up being a severely negative experience and I had to stop, but it makes me wonder what could have been had it been 1% less intense, how far could I have gone?
We all do what we want and go as far as we set the limit for ourselves to go.
There are no useable shortcuts in attaining a strong set of foundational skills, one has to learn the alphabet to learn how to read, one has to invest the time and effort in the basics of theory and reading music and just benefit from that moving forward. One cannot build a house on quicksand... well you CAN, but you will start over and waste so much time... until you learn not to... lol.
