Monthly Archives: September 2011

A Hobby That Will Make You A Better Musician

Many years ago when I first met the great flutist and composer, James Newton, he impressed upon me the importance of a musician having a hobby. He felt that many musicians spend so much of their time and passion on music, that having a hobby was a great way to maintain balance and perspective as a human being.

His hobby at the time was studying visual art, painting in particular. He told me that besides giving him an enjoyable diversion from working in music, that ironically enough, it actually ended up expanding his conception of music. He learned this specifically through deepening his understanding of color and emotion, and brought that understanding to view his musical composition process in a new light.

I had no hobbies whatsoever at the time of meeting James, as I was so utterly consumed with playing, composing and studying music. But as a few years passed I did stumble upon a hobby that has not only helped me find balance as a human being, but also, has helped me tremendously as a musician: The study of foreign language.

Though I studied Spanish for a year in 9th grade, I really didn’t catch the foreign language bug until I was nearly 40 years old. At that time I was very interested in Bulgarian folk music, so I took a trip over there to hear this beautiful music first hand. What ended up happening was that I fell in love with the sound of the Bulgarian language. It seemed to so much reflect the sounds of the music I loved so much.

So when I returned home, I began to teach myself Bulgarian. I was totally shooting in the dark with my study, as I had no idea how to learn another language. But eventually I became conversant, and at one point, after much study and travel to Bulgaria, virtually fluent.

The benefits I gained as a musician from the process of studying another language became immediately discernible (I’ll talk more specifically about this below). I decided to tackle another language. I chose Russian, as it is in the same language family as Bulgarian (Slavic) and it uses the same alphabet (Cyrillic).

Russian was an even more challenging language for me to learn than Bulgarian, but it opened up my ears, mind and musicality even more. I was hooked.

To make a long story short, I ended up studying Spanish fairly extensively, and am currently working on improving my fluency in Brazilian Portuguese (my wife is Brazilian). Bulgarian, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese are languages that I’ve spent enough time with to become conversant to fluent in (as long as I stay in practice).

But I’ve also “visited” other languages just for fun: Estonian, Romanian, Eastern Armenian, to name but a few. I never had any intention of becoming conversant or fluent in these languages. I studied them purely out of curiosity, often rising from how pleasing the language was to my ear, or how interesting the grammar was. More like a taste test than a complete meal.

Every time I approach a new language, my musical skills are enhanced and broadened once again. Here are some of the benefits of studying a foreign language for musicians:

You greatly improve your ear-Language is sound turned into meaning. When studying another language, you learn to hear high degrees of subtly in sound. In short, your ability to hear and process sound becomes more sophisticated, richer. Everything from intonation, color and shape become clearer to you. This translates right into your musical activity.
You learn to create the physical gestures to produce new sounds-If you are to be understood in any language, you must learn to manipulate your vocal mechanisms (including, mouth, tongue, throat, jaw) to produce sounds in a different way. If you play a wind instrument or sing, this helps you tremendously to gain even greater control and insight into producing sound on your instrument. (It helps with your sound conception even if you don’t play a wind instrument.)
You broaden your rhythmic conception-Every language has it’s rhythm. And even within every language there are many different rhythmic pattern, depending on region (accent, etc.) By letting yourself find the rhythm of speaking a new language, you expand your own ability to imagine and control rhythm and time.
You deepen your understanding between sound and meaning-As you gain familiarity with a new language, you dramatically increase your capacity to turn sound into meaning. That’s the same skill you need to play well, whether as an improviser or as an interpretive musician.
You learn to think way outside the box about structure and meaning-One of the first things you come face to face with when you start learning another language is how different the structures of the language are than your native language: Grammar, syntax, idiomatic expressions are but a few of the ways your sense of logic is challenged. Again, this opens your thinking up even more as a musician.
You become better at improvising with new material-When you converse, you’re improvising. Learning to converse in a new language means learning to be able to take still unfamiliar material and express ideas, to communicate. This helps your brain immensely when it comes to improvising music with new ideas and material. In essence, you learn how to absorb and use new material faster, in more meaningful ways.
You get more comfortable being wrong-If you converse in the language you are learning, you’re going to make mistakes. Lots of them. You simply stop flinching or feeling bad when this happens. If you take that attitude and skill into your music making, you open yourself up to great possibilities.
You improve your overall brain fitness-All of the above keep your brain working in novel ways, which helps you to stay sharp for the rest of your life. Working memory (the capacity to hold and work with various pieces of information at one time) is crucial for language learning. (It also comes in pretty handy in making music.) My working memory improved remarkably when I started studying languages.

So if you think you’d might like to try a new language (and have no previous experience), here are some guidelines to help you get the most out of your endeavor:

Pick a language that really appeals to you-This can either be because of the sound of the language, love and interest in the culture, and more. If you have genuine interest in the language you’ll always enjoy learning more. And don’t think you need to become conversant or fluent to gain some of the great benefits I’ve listed above. Don’t worry about how “useful” the language is. Let your interest be your guide.
Start with an “all audio” language course-Don’t start reading in the new language at the start. All you’ll do is bring your english speaking sound limitations to the language. Instead, learn to really hear and reproduce the sounds of the language. Pimsleur self-study language courses are an excellent option for this.
Sing, sing, sing-Learn songs as soon as you can in the new language. This will help you produce the sounds, as well as deepen your sense of meaning with the words.
Study grammar and structure-After you’ve spent some time just playing the new language by ear, invest some time in learning grammar and writing. You can either take a course in the community, or find a self-study course well suited for this purpose.
Watch films-Watching a film in the new language (with subtitles, of course) will significantly increase your understanding of all aspects of the new language.
Speak-If you can find a friend who speaks your new language, practice as much as you can with him or her. If not, consider finding an online community of other speakers and learners of the language to practice with. Remember, don’t be afraid of making mistakes. If you have a chance to travel to the country where your chosen language is spoken, you’ll find that the locals are gracious, helpful and flattered that you are making an attempt at learning their language.

So there you have it. I hope this post doesn’t seem somewhat off topic, but lately I’ve come to realize even more how my language study has deepened my musical experience. I think it can deepen yours as well.

Two Habits Of Thinking That Will Limit Your Growth As A Musician

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If you ask an accomplished musician about what is necessary for continuous growth and improvement, you might well be met with a “to do” list: Always work on improving your sound. Find new ways to challenge your reading and technical skills. Keep expanding your repertoire with pieces that broaden your expressive capacities. Listen deeply to, and analyze great musical performances. And so on.

And for sure, all these are things you need to strive toward in order to grow. But what about the things you need to avoid in order to grow as a musical artist?

If you were to ask an accomplished musician this question, you’d most likely get a fairly extensive list of things to steer clear from, as well. (It’s even possible that this list would be longer than the “to do” list.) In essence, for you to grow, you must do certain things, and must consciously avoid doing certain other things.

It’s important to keep in mind that if you wish to change what you do, you must change how you think. In my experience both as performer and teacher, I find that the vast array of ways musicians interfere with their progress is often a result of two habits of thinking (attitude):

“I won’t let myself sound bad.”

“I’m doing well so far.”

Let’s look at these habits in detail:

I won’t let myself sound bad

This is of course a habit based in fear. It limits your growth by not allowing you to try new things with an open mind. It radically shifts your emphasis from process to result as you explore musical growth.

For sure you’d like to sound immediately better when you try something new ( a good result). Who wouldn’t? But often enough, changing something to sound better starts with you sounding somewhat worse ( “worse”, at least, in your current perception).

You’ll never improve by doing something the same way you’ve always done it (whether you think so or not). If you examine any musician’s improvement, it comes down to a continuous evolution of edification. What seemed like the “right” thing at one point turns out to be the wrong thing. You acknowledge this, then you move on, proceeding in a different way.

I’ve taught the Alexander Technique to musicians who were so afraid of sounding bad that they could not (at the start) allow themselves to play their instrument (even for an instant) without indulging in the particular habits of tension that were causing the very problems that brought them to see me in the first place. They simply believed that if they didn’t do what they thought they needed to do, they would sound bad. Their fear of sounding bad was trumping their desire to improve.

One of the milestones of growth for my students is their gradual acceptance of allowing themselves to sound bad in order to allow for change. There occurs a shift in thinking, and then the desire to change trumps the fear of sounding bad. When this happens, it opens up a huge, beautiful path toward expansion and upward development.

So when you change something as you play, don’t immediately jump to judging the quality of your result as sounding good or bad . Shift your judgement to, “Is this different than what I’d normally do?”

Then shift from judgement to discernment: “What am I not doing that I would normally do?” (Your growth will often involve you playing your instrument without indulging in your habits of tension and over-doing. Non-doing instead of doing.)

When this happens you put yourself in the frame of mind to make logical, objective decisions about your playing. If you can suspend judgement and stay with discernment long enough, you can choose most clearly that which serves you the best.

Some of the other manifestations of this habit are: a rigid practice ritual that aims toward maintenance instead of growth; avoidance of playing with better musicians; avoidance of challenging musical situations; a limited palate of musical self-expression . As you can see, if you’re afraid of sounding bad, you can’t really risk stepping into the unknown. You can’t ever find something new to play. You can’t ever surprise yourself.

I’m doing well so far

This habit, in many ways, can be more insidious than the fear of sounding bad. Insidious, because what appears as self confidence (a good thing) can easily morph into self-deluded dogmatism (not such a good thing).

It limits your growth in a similar way, in that it robs you of your impetus to explore the possibility of doing something differently. I call it the curse of expertise. When you are absolutely sure that you are right in what you do, you can’t possibly change. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, the saying goes.

In my teaching experience, the most common manifestation of this habit is the belief that excess tension and strain don’t significantly impact musical success. Talent and practice does. “So what if I’m tightening my shoulders and neck as I play? I’ve seen Sonny Rollins doing the exact same thing and it doesn’t seem to make any difference in his playing. He still sounds great.” (I had a young saxophonist with a rather brittle sound tell me this as I tried to explain to him that his sound was colored by his excessive neck and shoulder tension.)

First of all, you’re not Sonny Rollins. Second (and more important), you have no way of knowing how Mr. Rollin’s habits of misdirected tension impact his playing. He obviously plays quite well despite his habits. But it’s possible that he could play even better than he does without them.

One of the things that virtually all truly masterful musicians have in common is that they believe that they can always do what they do in a better way. The great cellist and teacher Janos Starker talks about the importance of this idea, and the process by which the musician’s thinking is edified on the path toward improvement.

Other manifestations of the “I’m doing well so far” attitude are: lack of discipline where practice is concerned; an unwillingness to deepen self-awareness; a superstitious adherence to well-meant, but ultimately useless or counter-productive advice given them by other musicians; an inability to understand cause and effect with respect to their own bodies and the music making process; a perceived (by others) sense of self-satisfaction bordering on arrogance.

You may have noticed that these two habits of thought are closely related, and indeed they are. One often supports and blends in with the other, and both are based to some degree on fear of change.

So always keep in mind that what you do (and what you don’t do) for better or for worse, is conditioned by what you think. Aim at keeping your thinking clear and helpful by avoiding these two habits.

Practicing Improvisation: Aim Mostly For How to Move, Not For What to Play

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Virtually all music disciplines share one thing in common: The movement of sound. This of course involves time and rhythm, even in the most seemingly out-of-tempo and arhythmic music.

It could be said that the improvising musician’s skill lies in having the ability to sponataneously turn artistic impulses into ideas that manifest themselves into moving sound.

Students of improvisation (from beginner to pro) approach this reality in various ways. Some spend huge amounts of time memorizing stylized patterns, licks, solo transcriptions and so forth. For sure this leads to maintaining and cultivating the ability to “move the sounds” to create the music.

If you’re working constantly on these things, more music comes out of you when you improvise. This is largely because you know “what to play” as you improvise a solo.

If you approach improvisation this way, your solos will most likely sound consistently controlled, melodically sound, stylistically accurate, cogent, and full of clear intention. All good things, without a doubt.

But if you ever want to get to a deeper level of playing, a more personal level, you need to shift your emphasis from “what to play”, to, “how to move”. I’m talking specifically here about taking a step back from working with pre-formed ideas (licks, patterns, etc.) and instead aiming at working with the materials of the music on a much broader level. Diving deeply into the materials of the music to expand your ability to move the sounds with ever increasing spontaneity and surprise (both to the listener and to yourself).

Now, it could be argued that the memorizing of licks, patterns, transcriptions, etc., leads to all this. To a large degree this is entirely true. Studying these things to the point of absorbing their logic, and ultimately transcending them, is a worthy aim for the serious improvising musician, and can set a foundation strongly rooted in the tradition of the art form.

But if you want to significantly increase your chances of playing something fresh each time you improvise, you’ve got to start lessening your use of the pre-packaged stuff. You’ve got to leave the formulas alone and start looking toward two broader targets: Increasing your rhythmic imagination and control, and re-thinking and expanding how to organize pitches.

In an eye opening interview with saxophone legend, Joe Henderson, by Mel Martin (himself a formidable and highly gifted saxophonist, improviser and composer), Joe addresses this question of “formulas” quite well:

Mel Martin: Everybody wants your formula. How many students have come to you and said, ‘Joe, what are those patterns?’

Joe Henderson: And those are the kind of students I don’t take. I want to effect the part of their brain to create these things. When you think about this in a certain way, there is no formula.

Mel Martin: What they hear as formula is actually something you created spontaneously out of all the resources that you have at your command. (Brilliant!)

Mel Martin’s comment absolutely sums up what I’m talking about here. Joe could move the sounds differently, gloriously, surprisingly, every time he played. Melodically, harmonically and rhythmically magnificent without exception.

Here are some things you can do to help you shift your focus from specifically what to play, to playing (again quoting Mel Martin from his comment above) spontaneously out of the resources that you have at your command:

Make rhythm primary-Rhythmic variation literally has no limits. It is the thing that makes music, music. More so than anything else. It is the language of the universe. Yet it’s amazing that many jazz improvisers have a rather limited rhythmic conception and base from which to draw ideas. Start moving away from practicing all your tonal material in symmetrical patterns of eighth-note, sixteenth-note and triplet patterns. Aim for three things: Polyrhythms (e.g., 5 eighth notes over 2 beats), polymeter (e.g., organizing eighth note melodic patterns in 4/4 to imply 3/4) and rhythmic displacement. Becoming masterful at rhythmic displacement is a key element in all this. Take any melodic idea you have in mind and practice starting it from various places in the measure (e.g, up beat of 1, down beat of 2, upbeat of 2, etc.) Gaining this kind of rhythmic control and imagination will consistently help you find new ways to move the sounds. And of course, practice in odd metered time signatures. Every day. Break that “4/4” predictability (though if you practice this way often enough, your 4/4 playing goes to a whole new level of creative possibilities).

Turn everything you practice into melody-Rather than playing mindless scale patterns from the bottom of your range to the top, create patterns and ideas that sound melodic to you out of these scales (or chords, etc.). Make the organization and movement of the notes be always interesting and pleasing to you aesthetically. Work toward using your musical materials in ways that connect you to your creative, expressive self. Develop your technique to become the servant of that expression.

Rethink tonality-There really is no such thing as “mastering” the scales, chords and intervals. There are always new ways to organize this material. This was a big part of Joe Henderson’s approach. A great way to explore familiar tonalities in unfamiliar ways is to extract and regroup. For example, you can take a symmetrical, non-tonal scale like the diminished scale and organize the notes into tonal (major and minor) triad combinations that still have the tensions of the diminished scale, but have a very different color. Thought, curiousity and exploration are all you need to find seemingly limitless new tonal ideas.

Broaden your sense of time feel and articulation-If you’re a jazz musician, stop swinging everything. You can always go back to that feel anytime you want. But getting stuck into one time feel sort of locks your brain into thinking one way about organizing and moving the sounds.Try improvising over a song or a set of chord changes without your swing feel, and you’ll find many new ways to organize and move the notes. Same with articulation. Practice improvising with many different specific articulation patterns. It’s especially helpful to practice an articulation in an odd rhythmic grouping (e.g., 5) against an even time signature (4/4). Yet another thing you can do to really help broaden your rhythmic imagination.

Improvise slowly-I can’t emphasize enough the importance of slow improvisation (I’ll be writing an article about this specifically in the near future). By improvising on tunes, changes, themes, modes, etc. at very slow tempos (I’m talking about quarter note equals 50-70) you give yourself the chance to discover many new ways to work with your musical materials, many new ways to move.

Shift your thinking from the more specific “what to play”, to the more general “how to move”, and (ironically) you’ll never be at a loss for what to play. What worked for Joe Henderson just might work for you.

The Difference Between Playing Music Normally And Playing Music Naturally

Is The Art Of Improvisation A Relative Thing?

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Many musicians define themselves (or could otherwise be categorized) as being primarily interpretive musicians, or primarily improvising musicians. In other words, their main creative impulses lie either in interpreting the musical thoughts of others, or in composing their own music right on the spot. When you put it this way it seems like an either/or situation. You are, or you aren’t. Or you’re both.

But is it as simple, as black and white, as that? To me, it begs the question, “What is improvising?” I don’t doubt that lots of musicians (and critics) have very clear and ready answers for that question. Strangely enough, I don’t.

I do know that when I’m improvising, a very unique and beautiful process is taking place. For me, it’s a form of meditation, a way of finding my way back to my own internal temple of peace and joy.

I also know is that I’m making countless creative decisions (almost unconsciously) moment to moment in order to let something release from within me. But it doesn’t feel to me as if I’m creating the music, creating the flow of pitches and rhythms. It’s more like I’m just following them.

These days, I spend about half of my music listening time with classical recordings. Interpretive musicians at play, as it were. One of the things that thrills me the most is to hear the stunning differences in interpretation between various artist performing a given piece.

Even though these artists are only “interpreting” the music, I’m amazed at the seemingly endless creative choices they’ve made with the music. They, too, sound as if the music is rising up from within them, being created in the moment. It sounds improvised to me.

When I attend a great classical concert performance, it seems as if the artist is making some of these choices moment by moment, feeling the unfolding pulse of the music. Risks are being taken. The sound of surprise.

And ironically, I can go to some jazz performances where the so-called “improvised music” doesn’t sound or feel to me at all improvised. It sounds canned and far too premeditated. No risks are being taken. The sound of craftsmanship, skill, taste, cogency….but not really the sound of surprise.

So it got me to thinking, is the act of improvisation an absolute thing, or is it a direction on a path that can be followed? And are dynamic interpretive musicians, to some degree, improvisers or simply creative in another way?

If there is a continuum, a direction, toward improvisation, I think it mirrors closely our tendency toward verbal communication. It’s ironic that sometimes in the most potentially heartfelt moments (like at a wedding, funeral, or graduation ceremony) some speakers can stand up and say something that sounds absolutely pre-packaged, as if it were lifted right off of a Halmark greeting card. “I wish you health, long life, happiness and eternal blessings…..”

Nice sentiments, for sure, but are they genuinely expressed and created specifically in the moment for that occasion? More important, do these sentiments rise from that creative, emotional well within? Is it improvisation, or a regurgitation of something previously heard?

Don’t get me wrong, I think these kinds of sentiments are often sincere, they’re just so unoriginal, and thus sound startlingly impersonal. Contrast that to somebody who gets up, with no public speaking polish or experience, and speaks from the heart, improvising a moving speech. Speaking personally. The sound of surprise.

I think we’ve all had similar experiences when we’ve heard musical performances. You can’t plan magic. It just happens, or it doesn’t.

In the realm of modern jazz improvisation, there is a continuum from the mainstream, to the more progressive, to the (for want of a better word) avant-garde. Yet within each of these approaches, styles, genres…whatever you want to call them, there are degrees of true improvisational originality.

I tend to lean toward the left when it comes to jazz and improvised music, yet I’ve been on the bandstand with some really “free” players who turn the entire set into a Hallmark greeting card moment.

I’ve also experienced creative transcendence and spiritual power playing with, I guess what you might call mainstream stylists, sometimes just playing standards. To me it has less to do with the music than it does with the musicians. (I’ve also experienced the opposite phenomenon many, many times.)

If you transcribe or read through enough Charlie Parker solos, you’ll find he had many pre-packaged musical ideas (licks). On the other hand, if you transcribe a Sonny Rollins or Joe Henderson solo, you’ll be harder pressed to find a “lick”. Take down a Warne Marsh solo or two and I doubt that you’ll ever find anything like a lick.

Does this mean I think that Rollins, Henderson and Marsh were superior improvisers compared to Parker? Not at all. Parker, in my opinion was as spontaneous as they come. That music just hits you right in the soul when you hear it. It still excites me every time I listen to it.

It’s just that Charlie Parker had codified some of his own musical thinking into components. Yet he always created surprise by stepping in and out of these components, naturally, sincerely and spontaneously. And in practically any of his solos, you’ll hear absolute, first time creation of many musical ideas. The sound of surprise.

What makes Charlie Parker ultimately brilliant is how he combines these codified ideas, how he organizes them in any given solo. The variations and permutations he makes, that he discovers for the first time as he plays. Creative decisions being made by the hundreds in each solo. Again, the sound of surprise.

Warne Marsh, on the other hand, had a different approach, a different impetus with the material of improvisation. He had deeply studied and absorbed solos from Lester Young, Parker, and other greats. He’d spent a huge amount of time working with patterns, inversions, substitutions, rhythmic freedom and displacement.

But his aim wasn’t to codify his work into concrete, packaged ideas. In fact he was careful not to. His brilliance lay in the spontaneous manipulation of his musical materials as he followed his muse, rather than in the reorganization of codified ideas. Creative decisions being made by the hundreds too, just in a different way. The sound of surprise.

So where are you on the improvisational continuum?

Do you have tons of licks memorized in all keys so that you’re never at a loss for what to play? So that you never the possibility of sounding wrong or unsure? Or do you let yourself find the music anew each time you play, without any safety net? Or are you somewhere in between?

Wherever you are, one thing is for certain: to improvise more deeply, more genuinely, you need to give up the idea of playing it safe, of always sounding like you wrote out your solo. In short, you have to let go of the idea of always knowing.

I remember hearing a story by Chick Corea about Thelonious Monk. Chick’s band was on the same bill as Monk’s band at some concert in New York. Monk played first. The band starts with the iconic, “Rhythm-n-ing”. They play a stunning performance. Chick is astounded. Then Monk launches into the second piece of the concert. Rhythm-n-ing again. Chick says the second version is nothing at all like the first, all the musicians playing completely differently (yet equally brilliantly) than on the first version. And then into the third version of the same piece. Monk’s band ends up playing “Rhythm-n-ing” four times, each version stunningly different than the previous. That’s the entire set. Chick Corea is completely edified. (I was edified just hearing the story for the first time!)

In my opinion, that’s improvising at the very top of the creative spectrum. That’s the sound of surprise.