Category: Practice Stuff

Listening to music to shape your learning

Nicole Neal1 Comment
292/366 Music
(Photo credit: Mark Seton)

This may sound like a bit of a silly title for a bunch of musicians. From the general population we classical guitarists, as musicians, are probably more than likely than most to listen to music on a regular basis right?

Well, what I mean to convey is the active listening to music and using it as a tool for your learning of a particular piece. With the proliferation of online services and apps such as Spotify and YouTube, pretty much the whole widey world of music is at your fingertips, night and day, at the click of a button. Whatever it is you want to listen to is right there for you. These fantastic tools can now really assist us, in a cost minimal and effort minimal way to bring new approaches and shine new lights on our repertoire.

Spotify is a particular favourite of mine. When learning a new piece, once I’ve got my fingers and head around the basic skeleton of a piece, I’ll then hop onto Spotify to check out the myriad of versions that have been recorded. I tend to do this once I’ve started to get an idea in my own mind as to how I hear the music, rather than be directly influenced by another’s interpretation straight off the bat where I can (with some of the more popular repertoire I appreciate that this may not always be possible).

Once I’ve started to get a piece underway I do find it particularly useful to check out various other interpretations, listening in particular to:

  • Tempi – these can always be wide ranging, but does it sound better slightly faster or slightly slower? Am I wide of the mark in my general approach to target tempo I had in mind?
  • Voicings – do they draw out the same voices that I’d heard? Are there voices that I’d missed?
  • Phrasing, dynamics and tone colours – how do they shape the music? What is its direction? Are there are any interesting or unusual ways of shaping or adding colour that I like and I could employ?
  • Anything else that I may have missed or that interests me in an interpretation that I’d not heard of or thought about before.

When I’m going through this exercise, it’s not just guitar music that I listen to either. This is especially the case if the piece in question was not originally written for guitar. It really help you understand a piece to listen to it in its original intended instrumentation – transcriptions from the original violin, ‘cello and piano versions are typical with guitar repertoire. Whatever the original instrumentation is it can really help to shed light on what the composer may have been intending, how you can treat your tone colours and overall sound, where the main voices and phrasings lie perhaps.

I also like to see if I can find other arrangements for a piece too, transcribed for other instruments – i.e. not the original instrument and not guitar – and listen to how they shape, phrase, colour and play the music. I always find it fascinating to listen to how other musicians on other instruments aside from the guitar do this.

Solo pieces that are given group arrangement treatments – duos, trios or other ensemble arrangements – can also present an interesting perspective on a piece too, particularly with regard to voicings and how those are shared amongst an ensemble and how they are treated.

So, next time you’re learning a new piece or even now with one of your existing pieces that perhaps you want to take to the next level or freshen up a little, I highly recommend you to hop onto YouTube, Spotify or similar and put a bit of a listening list together. There are a wealth of resources available out there at your disposal and you’d be mad not to use them!

Do I need a guitar teacher?

Nicole Neal1 Comment

 

Another question to add to this is, is it sufficient to teach myself from a book, or YouTube video or something like that?

 

My answer to that is it depends on what your reasons for playing, how far you want to take things, what you want to achieve, how patient you are, the style or styles of music you want to learn and many other variables.

 

If you just want to kind of potter about with it, happy to do just whatever, and amuse yourself and so on, and really not too concerned about too many technical ins and outs, then instruction of some description from a teacher is may not be your thing.

 

If, on the other hand, you really want to accelerate your learning and playing (at pretty much whatever level you’re at, beginner through to advanced) then there are numerous benefits in taking regular lessons from a good teacher. Of course, don’t take regular lessons from a bad teacher!! 😉

 

Why is this?

 

There are a number of reasons, but here are just a handful…..

 

1. You don’t know what you don’t know

 

One of the first things that comes to mind for me whenever people ask me this question is that you don’t know what you don’t know! There are some good books and instructional videos out there I’m sure, as there are rubbish ones. Even if you’re using the best book in the world how do you know you’re interpreting it correctly or in the most optimal way for you?  And how do you know if the book or video has missed something? Or uses words or phrases that you’re not sure of?

 

2. A teacher can tailor things just for you

 

We’re all physiologically slightly different, so having a teacher to guide you in the pure physical mechanics of playing can prevent you from falling into bad habits (albeit unbeknownst ones) and/ or storing up potentially painful trouble later on down the line.

 

A good teacher will also have an armory of tools, techniques, studies, exercises and pieces to aid and supplement your learning – and to have fun with too!! Most importantly a teacher can help you to learn in the most effective way for you, not for the mass market.

 

3. A mentor can help accelerate your learning by helping you hone in on things you need to work on

 

Having a good teacher guiding you can also save you time and frustration. If a misunderstanding, sticking point or some other point of confusion occurs during your learning or playing your teacher will be able to help you sort it out and progress.

 

And, more often that not, it’s clear to a good teacher where a student needs a little further instruction or guidance on a particular technical or musical aspect where it may not necessarily be apparent to you (see point 1 above).

 

4. As human beings we’re biologically wired to learn from others

 

You know when you see someone fall over, or bang their thumb, you say “ouch”? Those are your mirror neurones firing up and simulating a watered down version of what that person is feeling in our own bodies. Our mirror neurons are what are responsible for us as very young infants learning how to use our bodies by copying what others do, how others move and these mirror neurones keep on working right throughout our lives.

 

So by not only listening and copying what a teacher is doing, watching and observing how movements are made to make those sounds can be a key part of the learning process. Apparently (and if you want to get technical about it), the same part of the brain (the right front insula) lights up in the same way when you’re aware of what your own body is doing and what another’s body is doing. If you’re making full use of your biological wiring and learning directly from a teacher it kind of stands to reason that it’s going to aid your learning.

 

5. A teacher can help cultivate not only your playing, but also your musicality, your “ear” and your sound

 

One of the key things a guitarist must always be striving for is the production of a beautiful sound – not many people want to listen to a thin, tinny sound right? A good teacher can ensure that your attention is always tuned into this vital element of playing guitar and aid you in the techniques (physical and mental) for physical production of your sound.

 

6. It’s fun!

 

Lessons are, by and large, enjoyable – who da thunk it?! (well, that’s a key aim in my lessons, anyway). Yes, one needs to work if one wants to progress and all that, but no one said the process had to be as dry as a dog biscuit and quite frankly reading from a book or sitting in front of a video can be a bit like that eh? Interacting with other real, live, warm-to-the-touch human beings is always much more fun! And whoever heard a book say “well done – that’s sounding great!”?