We are what we eat.
As we’re learning to speak, how do we learn? No one opens a dictionary in front of you and feeds you words by definition as you slot them into your memory bank. You hear them spoken, you imitate the sounds, and over time they grow to mean something.
Why would music be any different? Music won’t tell someone you’re hungry or that they should’ve cleaned the kitchen, but it will communicate things we often don’t use words for. Crying, laughing, sighing, screaming, facial expressions and body language. These things are often more powerful than words and when accompanied by words, help to show their true context.
I often listen to other players and completely connect with what it is they are saying. It may be that I can play every note they just did, or that I’m aware of the function of a lick they are using, but for the life of me, I can’t say the same thing. This is where we go back to learning to talk. Me must imitate! And the greatest thing about this is that when you imitate someone else, you can get pretty close, but you’re never going to sound exactly like them. Why? Because you are you.
Over time, you become an accumulation of what you listen to, but expressed the way that your body (technique) and gear to a much lesser extent, will allow. I think you can further solidify this process by diving head first into it! Take note of what moves you, and absorb it as much as you can. It’s not stealing or plagiarizing, because if you’d never heard anything before, then you wouldn’t be able to play. This is the approach I’m going to focus on in my own playing in the future as there is so much music I’m discovering at the moment that moves me. I want to be a part of it and I want it to be a part of me. I love the sound, and the feeling, and I want that under my fingers (or voice or in my trumpet for that matter). The importance of this process hasn’t really been illustrated to me until this year, and I wish I’d known earlier! But to quote an earlier blog, we must keep our minds in the present and move forwards!
Now alas, I have a cold and must go to bed if I want to have any chance of singing at all on Friday the 13th. (Prog 2.0 at Happy, it’d be nice to see you, yes YOU, there)
