How do you improve? Shortcuts welcomed. http://www.miniclip.com/games/up-beat/en/
may be an example.
I find that learning an instrument seems to be getting the subconcious brain connected to the fingers but it takes a long time of (enjoyable) practice.
Can the fingers be told what to do without having to go through all that practice?
I cannot practice as long as I would like and the music comes second to the family, but I can hum what I want to hear.
Will any other training help?
Open up your itunes or Media Player or whatever music program you use. Then put your head against the computer. The tunes from itunes will, by a process of osmosis, seep into your brain, provided that the concentration of tunes on the computer is greater than the concentration of tunes in your head.
well you are all being silly, but i have noticed that as jennifer wrigley says, you can't play a tune you don't know. so i listen a lot, then i hum or sing or diddle-de-di, and then when i am with fiddle, at least i know what i want to hear out of it.
it helps me. but i'm a slow learner, and i started late. still...i'm having fun.
Here's a legitimate answer instead of a wise-crack.
I have hear during sleep your brain is quite active going over the things you have learned during the day. They even did a study with a mouse hooked up to electrodes to demonstrate this. You could probably find that online. It was on TV in the US (60 minutes) not too long ago.
Some people believe that if you practice your music before you go to sleep, specifically if you practice it slowly and deliberately with the minimum of mistakes (because your brain will process the mistakes believing them to be what you wanted), your brain will work on it in your sleep and you will see faster improvement than if you practice only in the morning, or if you practice too fast and make mistakes.
Also, some people suggest that you practice the music in small bits by identifying the difficult passages and starting there, repeating them over and over, gradually adding back more and more of the parts before and after. This is supposed to be more effective than playing a piece in its entirety several times. It also takes less time because it is more focused.
So, if you practice the difficult parts repeatedly, then play the whole piece slowly without mistakes before going to sleep, you should improve faster.
I have found this to be effective myself when I discipline myself to do it.
O.K., I'll be serious...
The process of doing small bits is called "chunking" and it does help the brain/fingers learn. It was/is a popular topic in learning theories, brain stuff, been around for years.
Also, when driving, I have listened to tunes and tapped them out on the steering wheel, gently. Interestly, I do it with both hands, not just my left.
And yes, if you can hum the tune, it certainly helps.
I'll have to try the sleep thing...
There's also the concept of "ideomotor movement" which could be of use to a musician. Basically, it means that if you mentally focus on a physical task hard enough (without actually doing it) the muscles involved will start making small movements without you consciously being aware of it - perhaps the neural connections are being exercised at the same time, who knows.
So, as you think through a tune in your head you could also be vividly imagining the finger and arm movements involved with the playing of that tune, and when you come to practice that tune later on for real, then some of the work will have already been done.
thanks you all, that was some seriously good info for learning. though i love it when you are wise-cracking too. guess i want the world to be full of the fun and the serious, and indeed they often overlap
get a gripmaster,you can strengthen your fingers while not practising.
listen to yourself.
use your practicetime thought fully,allocate a time to working on specific areas of technique,parts of a tune you find difficult ,isolateand practice seperately.
A man on the street in New York asks a passerby, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The passerby answers, "Practice, practice, practice."
That being said, as you practice you muscles will remember the movements. Chunking is a great thing. It's how we learn to type and even when I sang in a chorus, we learned parts at a time, not the whole piece at once.
(Years ago I got to sing at Carnegie Hall. They rent out the hall for high school graduations. I was in the high school chorus at the time and we performed "And the Glory of the Lord" and the "Hallelujah" from Handel's "Messiah." It was a wonderful experience. )
When I'm at a jam session (not an ITM session) and improvise over a tune I don't know, I'm not really playing the tune. I'm playing stuff over the chord progression. But in order to improvise better, it is beneficial to know the tune.
as far as composers...more than likely, they know the tune in their head before they write it down, maybe even just moments before, unless they are using a different method for getting the notes: mathematical equations, for example.
I have experienced quite a number of specific things that have helped me jump forward in ability. All of them involve practice.
But a couple of specific things that can help:
* practice with a metronome. I don't do this anymore, but when I was first starting out, it helped me play evenly, and steadily. And I could use it to try to push myself faster than I could play, and then ease back to where I could play OK. I also would use it to practice more slowly than normal sometimes too.
* play a lot with people that are way better than you, if you have the chance. Getting "dragged along" in a session that is above your ability can be fun - kind of like a rollercoaster, where you feel out of control, but you're still on the track. You can "latch onto" a stronger player's rhythm, and that frees up your mind a bit to concentrate on other things.
* practice other things besides playing - like listening. Try listening to tunes in your car on your way to work (or on your iPod on the train, or whatever). Practice listening to it in different ways. Most people listen to music in a passive way - they let it wash over them. Try listening actively. Do things like listen to the A part of a tune, and try to lilt along with it the second time through to see how well you listened. The third time through, see if you can pick up the bits that you missed.
* teach tunes to someone else. There's no better way to learn a tune better than to teach it to another player, in my experience.
* practice learning by ear, instead of from written notation. The more you do it, the better you get at it, to the point where you can start picking up tunes in sessions, and one day, you'll find yourself playing a tune in a session, ask what it was when it is finished, only to realize that you never sat down and learned it, you just started playing it by osmosis.
But the biggest "plateaus" of improvement in my playing early on came after large amounts of practice and/or playing. Not immediately, but maybe a week after or so. I would practice for a couple of hours every day for maybe 3 days in a row, and in about a week's time, my playing would have hit a new plateau. That still happens to me to some extent. I spent 2 weeks in Ireland earlier this year, and played in sessions basically every day. I felt like I played fairly poorly the whole time I was there. But a month after coming back, I had a number of people comment on how my playing had hit another level.
"gripmaster" - to strengthen the fingers (actually it's the muscles in the forearm) - best for the beginner who really needs that strengthening under advice and supervision. The poster of this discussion certainly wouldn't need such strengthening.
Pete, "plateaus" - it's been my consistent experience, too, that I make progress a week or so after a good workshop or playing in sessions in Ireland.
Reverend, thanks for this: "Try listening actively. Do things like listen to the A part of a tune, and try to lilt along with it the second time through to see how well you listened. The third time through, see if you can pick up the bits that you missed."
I'm heading out of town later this week (something I do often), and leaving the fiddle behind (something I haven't done in ages), which I'm already dreading, in part because I'm plagued by this irrational fear that when I return, I'll pick up the fiddle upsidedown or backwards or somesuch and have to relearn everything from scratch. So I'm going to try to do as much practicing as I can, without the fiddle. (I'll be bringing the oft-neglected ocarinas with me, too, so hopefully that will help, too.)
The only shortcut I know is to stop wasting time trying to find easy ways to improve, pick up your instrument and play and play and play and play..........
"How do you get to Carnegie Hall/The Albert Hall/Sydney Opera House".......the directions can't be the same to each, can they ?
I do agree with Reverend, not least because we share the same name, that sometimes you reach a new level, or plateau, of competence, but also that it's not apparent to yourself, only to other people.
The short answer to the shortcut is: Release. Learn to relax.
Players get in their own way due to tensions, some caused by playing their instrument. Release your tensions, and you improve up a level without trying.
Expect sudden change, then plateau; repeat.
Release of tensions and the emotions associated with them create a more open person, in body, mind, spirit. So your hands will feel more open, for example.
Your sound automatically opens and is larger, more loving, in step with your expansive person.
Note that tension is inward. Musicmaking is constant expansion, so release is necessary.
Advice to Practice, practise, practice comes with a caveat: Tight playing will hurt you, especially if you hammer at it for long periods. It is you hurting yourself, so do what doesn't hurt, and you can always play (rather than becoming injured, or stuck in your ways).
So release solves all the physical problems. It's much easier and quicker to use fingers when they are released and ready. Poised.
One of my mottos is: Comfortable, Musical.
Play in a way that feels comfortable and right, even tho it looks different. Avoid learning by sight. Musicmaking is an aural, a feeling art.
Learning tunes: There is discussion of this elsewhere on this site. Perhaps the following have not been pointed out:
Tunes have Form. There may be analysis of tunes on this site. You can quickly come to your own conclusions. Usually 2-bar sections are heard again in specific places, such as end rhyme closing each section.
When learning by ear, expect to hear similar turns of phrase in similar places in the tune. Learn the first 4 notes. Learn the last 4 notes. Follow the shape of the tune. Learn what and where the highpoint is. Find handles throughout the tune so you can grab it and keep it. Be ready for surprises, because that's what makes each tune unique.
Find a way to remember the tune. It's your brain on music.
And Yes, The Think Method does work. You can always practice without an instrument or a page.
* play a lot with people that are bigger than you. You will tighten up your style out of “respect.”
* play a lot with people that are smaller than you. This will give you confidence you are
* play a lot with people that are better at intonation, but you are better at rhythm and chops. That will make you happy that you have ability, but sad that the music is held back by classical musicians with no beat.
* play a lot with people that are better at rhythm and chops, but you are better at intonation. That will give you a benchmark to strive for of how the music is supposed to sound.
Self Improvement
Self Improvement
How do you improve? Shortcuts welcomed.
http://www.miniclip.com/games/up-beat/en/
may be an example.
I find that learning an instrument seems to be getting the subconcious brain connected to the fingers but it takes a long time of (enjoyable) practice.
Can the fingers be told what to do without having to go through all that practice?
I cannot practice as long as I would like and the music comes second to the family, but I can hum what I want to hear.
Will any other training help?
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by tlittlewazzock
Re: Self Improvement
shortcuts?
Have you seen "The Music Man" Maybe you could use the method the lead character espoouses in that musical.
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by Wyogal
Re: Self Improvement
Open up your itunes or Media Player or whatever music program you use. Then put your head against the computer. The tunes from itunes will, by a process of osmosis, seep into your brain, provided that the concentration of tunes on the computer is greater than the concentration of tunes in your head.
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Self Improvement
I tried that, but the defragmenter crashed while running. Now I don't know where I am.
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: Self Improvement
Blimey that's difficult
Reminds me of those dancing games where you have to jump on the arrows in time to the music. The kids always beat me on those.
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by Wurzel
Re: Self Improvement
well you are all being silly, but i have noticed that as jennifer wrigley says, you can't play a tune you don't know. so i listen a lot, then i hum or sing or diddle-de-di, and then when i am with fiddle, at least i know what i want to hear out of it.
it helps me. but i'm a slow learner, and i started late. still...i'm having fun.
kj
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by full measure
Re: Self Improvement
Here's a legitimate answer instead of a wise-crack.
I have hear during sleep your brain is quite active going over the things you have learned during the day. They even did a study with a mouse hooked up to electrodes to demonstrate this. You could probably find that online. It was on TV in the US (60 minutes) not too long ago.
Some people believe that if you practice your music before you go to sleep, specifically if you practice it slowly and deliberately with the minimum of mistakes (because your brain will process the mistakes believing them to be what you wanted), your brain will work on it in your sleep and you will see faster improvement than if you practice only in the morning, or if you practice too fast and make mistakes.
Also, some people suggest that you practice the music in small bits by identifying the difficult passages and starting there, repeating them over and over, gradually adding back more and more of the parts before and after. This is supposed to be more effective than playing a piece in its entirety several times. It also takes less time because it is more focused.
So, if you practice the difficult parts repeatedly, then play the whole piece slowly without mistakes before going to sleep, you should improve faster.
I have found this to be effective myself when I discipline myself to do it.
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by sbhikes
Re: Self Improvement
O.K., I'll be serious...
The process of doing small bits is called "chunking" and it does help the brain/fingers learn. It was/is a popular topic in learning theories, brain stuff, been around for years.
Also, when driving, I have listened to tunes and tapped them out on the steering wheel, gently. Interestly, I do it with both hands, not just my left.
And yes, if you can hum the tune, it certainly helps.
I'll have to try the sleep thing...
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by Wyogal
Re: Self Improvement
p.s. just did a google, using the words: brain chunking
try it, you'll get many sites that will explain
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by Wyogal
Re: Self Improvement
There's also the concept of "ideomotor movement" which could be of use to a musician. Basically, it means that if you mentally focus on a physical task hard enough (without actually doing it) the muscles involved will start making small movements without you consciously being aware of it - perhaps the neural connections are being exercised at the same time, who knows.
So, as you think through a tune in your head you could also be vividly imagining the finger and arm movements involved with the playing of that tune, and when you come to practice that tune later on for real, then some of the work will have already been done.
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Self Improvement
I think I meant, "the neural connections are being developed..."
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Self Improvement
thanks you all, that was some seriously good info for learning. though i love it when you are wise-cracking too. guess i want the world to be full of the fun and the serious, and indeed they often overlap
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by full measure
Re: Self Improvement
More about ideomotor movement on http://www.barrettdorko.com/articles/ideomotor.htm
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Self Improvement
The greatest leap forward happens when you take off your clothes and jump into bed with it. Everything else is toying with a distant concept.
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by mcknowall
Re: Self Improvement
get a gripmaster,you can strengthen your fingers while not practising.
listen to yourself.
use your practicetime thought fully,allocate a time to working on specific areas of technique,parts of a tune you find difficult ,isolateand practice seperately.
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by Dick Miles
Re: Self Improvement
Remember the old joke:
A man on the street in New York asks a passerby, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The passerby answers, "Practice, practice, practice."
That being said, as you practice you muscles will remember the movements. Chunking is a great thing. It's how we learn to type and even when I sang in a chorus, we learned parts at a time, not the whole piece at once.
(Years ago I got to sing at Carnegie Hall. They rent out the hall for high school graduations. I was in the high school chorus at the time and we performed "And the Glory of the Lord" and the "Hallelujah" from Handel's "Messiah." It was a wonderful experience. )
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by grumblingoldwoman
Re: Self Improvement
no, other training won't help.
Take up the kazoo.
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by millionyears_bc
Re: Self Improvement
"You can't play a tune you don't know"
How do composers and improvisers do it then?
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by geoffwright
Re: Self Improvement
When I'm at a jam session (not an ITM session) and improvise over a tune I don't know, I'm not really playing the tune. I'm playing stuff over the chord progression. But in order to improvise better, it is beneficial to know the tune.
as far as composers...more than likely, they know the tune in their head before they write it down, maybe even just moments before, unless they are using a different method for getting the notes: mathematical equations, for example.
# Posted on November 4th 2007 by Wyogal
Re: Self Improvement
You can play a tune you don't know using the sheet music. Buwhuaawhuaahuwaawuaa
# Posted on November 5th 2007 by sbhikes
Re: Self Improvement
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!
# Posted on November 5th 2007 by Wyogal
Re: Self Improvement
I have experienced quite a number of specific things that have helped me jump forward in ability. All of them involve practice.
But a couple of specific things that can help:
* practice with a metronome. I don't do this anymore, but when I was first starting out, it helped me play evenly, and steadily. And I could use it to try to push myself faster than I could play, and then ease back to where I could play OK. I also would use it to practice more slowly than normal sometimes too.
* play a lot with people that are way better than you, if you have the chance. Getting "dragged along" in a session that is above your ability can be fun - kind of like a rollercoaster, where you feel out of control, but you're still on the track. You can "latch onto" a stronger player's rhythm, and that frees up your mind a bit to concentrate on other things.
* practice other things besides playing - like listening. Try listening to tunes in your car on your way to work (or on your iPod on the train, or whatever). Practice listening to it in different ways. Most people listen to music in a passive way - they let it wash over them. Try listening actively. Do things like listen to the A part of a tune, and try to lilt along with it the second time through to see how well you listened. The third time through, see if you can pick up the bits that you missed.
* teach tunes to someone else. There's no better way to learn a tune better than to teach it to another player, in my experience.
* practice learning by ear, instead of from written notation. The more you do it, the better you get at it, to the point where you can start picking up tunes in sessions, and one day, you'll find yourself playing a tune in a session, ask what it was when it is finished, only to realize that you never sat down and learned it, you just started playing it by osmosis.
But the biggest "plateaus" of improvement in my playing early on came after large amounts of practice and/or playing. Not immediately, but maybe a week after or so. I would practice for a couple of hours every day for maybe 3 days in a row, and in about a week's time, my playing would have hit a new plateau. That still happens to me to some extent. I spent 2 weeks in Ireland earlier this year, and played in sessions basically every day. I felt like I played fairly poorly the whole time I was there. But a month after coming back, I had a number of people comment on how my playing had hit another level.
Pete
# Posted on November 5th 2007 by Reverend
Re: Self Improvement
"gripmaster" - to strengthen the fingers (actually it's the muscles in the forearm) - best for the beginner who really needs that strengthening under advice and supervision. The poster of this discussion certainly wouldn't need such strengthening.
Pete, "plateaus" - it's been my consistent experience, too, that I make progress a week or so after a good workshop or playing in sessions in Ireland.
# Posted on November 5th 2007 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Self Improvement
Reverend, thanks for this: "Try listening actively. Do things like listen to the A part of a tune, and try to lilt along with it the second time through to see how well you listened. The third time through, see if you can pick up the bits that you missed."
I'm heading out of town later this week (something I do often), and leaving the fiddle behind (something I haven't done in ages), which I'm already dreading, in part because I'm plagued by this irrational fear that when I return, I'll pick up the fiddle upsidedown or backwards or somesuch and have to relearn everything from scratch. So I'm going to try to do as much practicing as I can, without the fiddle. (I'll be bringing the oft-neglected ocarinas with me, too, so hopefully that will help, too.)
# Posted on November 5th 2007 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Self Improvement
The only shortcut I know is to stop wasting time trying to find easy ways to improve, pick up your instrument and play and play and play and play..........
# Posted on November 5th 2007 by AlBrown
Re: Self Improvement
"How do you get to Carnegie Hall/The Albert Hall/Sydney Opera House".......the directions can't be the same to each, can they ?
I do agree with Reverend, not least because we share the same name, that sometimes you reach a new level, or plateau, of competence, but also that it's not apparent to yourself, only to other people.
# Posted on November 5th 2007 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Self Improvement
The short answer to the shortcut is: Release. Learn to relax.
Players get in their own way due to tensions, some caused by playing their instrument. Release your tensions, and you improve up a level without trying.
Expect sudden change, then plateau; repeat.
Release of tensions and the emotions associated with them create a more open person, in body, mind, spirit. So your hands will feel more open, for example.
Your sound automatically opens and is larger, more loving, in step with your expansive person.
Note that tension is inward. Musicmaking is constant expansion, so release is necessary.
Advice to Practice, practise, practice comes with a caveat: Tight playing will hurt you, especially if you hammer at it for long periods. It is you hurting yourself, so do what doesn't hurt, and you can always play (rather than becoming injured, or stuck in your ways).
So release solves all the physical problems. It's much easier and quicker to use fingers when they are released and ready. Poised.
One of my mottos is: Comfortable, Musical.
Play in a way that feels comfortable and right, even tho it looks different. Avoid learning by sight. Musicmaking is an aural, a feeling art.
Learning tunes: There is discussion of this elsewhere on this site. Perhaps the following have not been pointed out:
Tunes have Form. There may be analysis of tunes on this site. You can quickly come to your own conclusions. Usually 2-bar sections are heard again in specific places, such as end rhyme closing each section.
When learning by ear, expect to hear similar turns of phrase in similar places in the tune. Learn the first 4 notes. Learn the last 4 notes. Follow the shape of the tune. Learn what and where the highpoint is. Find handles throughout the tune so you can grab it and keep it. Be ready for surprises, because that's what makes each tune unique.
Find a way to remember the tune. It's your brain on music.
And Yes, The Think Method does work. You can always practice without an instrument or a page.
Mostly practice release.
- vlnplyr
Study of ourselves never ends.
# Posted on November 7th 2007 by vlnplyr
Re: Self Improvement
* play a lot with people that are bigger than you. You will tighten up your style out of “respect.”
* play a lot with people that are smaller than you. This will give you confidence you are
* play a lot with people that are better at intonation, but you are better at rhythm and chops. That will make you happy that you have ability, but sad that the music is held back by classical musicians with no beat.
* play a lot with people that are better at rhythm and chops, but you are better at intonation. That will give you a benchmark to strive for of how the music is supposed to sound.
-dogma
# Posted on November 7th 2007 by dogmageek
Re: Self Improvement
This will give you confidence you are
<fill in the blank>
-dogma
# Posted on November 7th 2007 by dogmageek