audiotthoughts on music

yeah, and i’m sticking to it. i know, i know, these times recommend speed – maybe above all. but learning doesn’t. so the next tip would be: do it sloooooooooowly!

i’d like to mention a picture i got from Vera F. Birkenbihl (yep, her again). imagine you trying to learn a task, like playing guitar for example. learning means new nerve tracts are being built in your brain. so you have a piece of music you want to learn. and now let’s take a look at your brain. there are the guys up there that build new nerve tracts and then there are the puppeteers, those who move your muscles. on the other hand you have only a limited amount of processing power (guys). what does that mean? right, the more puppeteers you need, the less guys are left to build those nerve tracts needed and vice versa. so the slower you play it, the less puppeteers you need, the more guys are available to build the new datahighways. makes sense? cool. this is of course in no way simplified or otherwise manipulated, it’s exactly what happens in your brain…

lots of people try to learn new things by doing it way too fast and repeating it over and over and over again. but this is not efficient at all. almost all the guys are busy playing the puppet (you) and that leaves almost nobody left to build the nerve tract, which is just another term for learning. learning = building new nerve tracts. maybe you know the feeling of practicing hours and hours and still don’t get the results you want. chances are, you made exactly that mistake. the next time, try doing it slooooooooowly – as slow as it gets. overdo this.

there’s one more advantage to this: if you play every single note slowly and well aware, you will play a lot more precise or cleaner, without unnecessary movements etc. and because you’re doing this while the builders are already at work, they include this too. you’re learning better technique as a bonus without any additional effort – how cool is that?

ha! to tie in with yesterday’s entry, here’s the next tip:

no.2 get the big picture.

you can’t tell which one comes first, because it depends. if there is a big picture available (like a song for instance), then you should of course concentrate on that before you break it down. in this case it’s best to provide your brain with an overview and then go from there. but there are situations when there just is no big picture (those are usually the ones where mr brain up there smoothly glides into standby-mode). scientists, for example, need to work with things and understand things without knowing what the end result will be or how it’s all connected. in a situation like that, you need to deal with what you have by using the breaking-it-down-technique, so you can then work on unveiling the big picture. this also happens with music. think drums: you can learn and practice rudiments to achieve certain skills like precision or speed and then later discover that other things, you never understood before, make use of exactly those rudiments… it’s impossible for you to get an overview of all rudiments including all possible uses for them in the first place. so you work on one at a time and then discover what you can do with them…

now, what’s the priority?

no surprise here, if it’s possible to get the big picture first, then by all means do so – it makes the following a lot easier. to give you an example: if you’re reading a book (apart from novels of course), it really helps to focus on the table of contents first. give your brain the chance to see what it will be dealing with, where the journey goes. that way, it will be prepared, open for things to come and a lot less stroppy…

never fight your own brain – it’s a fight you can’t win :-)

this is something that lots of musicians don’t think about. and if they do it, it’s often for the wrong reasons. i know a lot of musicians who teach, but most of them do it for the money and that’s just wrong. you shouldn’t become a musician to make money and you shouldn’t become a teacher for that reason either. if it’s money you seek, work as a banker (maybe now’s not the right time to start…), lawyer, doctor or whatever else. if you’re a musician because you want to make money, you’re either a moron or Paul McFriggin’Cartney. don’t get me wrong, if you happen to make money as a musician, that’s great! if you make a living by playing music – awesome!!! this is the no.1 dreamjob. period. but if you are even thinking about money during ‘work’ – you’re in trouble.

well, why teaching at all then? first of all, to spread the art – to enlighten – to help others grow. not your cup of tea? alright, the next reason is for the me-people out there: to learn something! ahuh. i’m serious, since i started teaching (back then it was for the wrong reasons, i admit) i have learned so much, it’s still hard to believe for me. when i started, i thought ‘hey y’all, i’m so good at what i’m doing that i’m gonna show you how it’s done and you’ll pay me to bathe in my wisdom.’ ugh.

the first thing i learned though, was that i was not half as good as i thought. i guess today i’m half as good as i thought back then (and that’s a lot :-) :-) :-) ). then i learned that teaching is more than just talking about how you do it – you need a plan, a concept. you need to set goals and you need a way to achieve them – and, most important, you need to have a plan b for everything. because in almost ten years of teaching, i never ever had a single student whom my concept worked on without adjustments. every student is different, especially when it comes to the voice. so by adjusting, improvising and figuring out new ways to deal with problems you’ve never encountered before, you learn. and not just as you would learn from a book or something – more like new horizons. we always get used to things, it’s our nature. but that means once we have found our way of doing something, we don’t think about it anymore – and therefore, don’t learn anything. but dealing with problems we never had ourselves forces us to think and to make up alternatives and that’s how we learn.

i would even venture to say that teaching is the next step in learning music. once you’re a decent player/singer, it becomes the next thing to do.

i should mention that not everybody makes for a good teacher, and if you simply don’t like the idea, then you probably shouldn’t teach. but there’s still two things you should do. first, learn about teaching – or better: learn about learning. learn how learning really works, that alone is worth so much… and second, create a concept on how you would teach someone. yes, even if it doesn’t come to it….

and who knows, maybe you even make some money ;-)

hi there.

here is something i’m thinking about for quite a while now. there are vocal lessons online one can find through google or youtube, some of them good – some not. nothing fancy so far. but because i believe singing can only be really learned with a personal teacher and not through one-size-fits-all-clips, i’m gonna start an experiment. maybe there even is such a thing but i’ve never heard of one. so here’s the deal:

i’m gonna try to teach online. basically that means direct contact between the student and me via emails and sending audiofiles back and forth to have useful feedback and advice. no matter how much i thought about this, i simply can’t know if this could work until i launch kind of a beta-version. that’s what i’m doing now. the first people that are interested and willing to help me check it out will get free vocal teaching online (and i’m not talking about 1 or 2 lessons!). i have no idea yet how much time consuming this might become, so i can’t tell you how many students i can accept in this matter. but the offer stands – if you’re interested, drop me a line right here and we’ll work something out.

basically it will work similar to regular teaching. you will need the ability to record yourself, it doesn’t have to be perfect soundquality but i need to be able to hear subtle details – for quite obvious reasons. if you’re able to shoot some pictures as well or maybe even short videos, that would be perfect (if you’ve read through some of my singer’s faq entries you’ll know why). and besides, i’m going to ask you what you think about this way of teaching every once in a while and you’ll need to provide some feedback, because that’s what this offer is about. on the other hand, i will provide you with lessons, explanations, questions, answers and tasks – for example sending you some playback. you would then record yourself to it and send it back so i can laugh my butt off and spread it all around the net analyze it with you….

good idea? then don’t wait around. this sucks? then tell me why by commenting on this post.

have a great weekend…