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 13^th. (Prog 2.0 at Happy, it’d be nice to see you, yes YOU, there)

Dave's Insights communication, learning, music 2 comments

I’ve been doing a lot of self-analysis and awareness seeking in the last wee while as I feel it is a great place to start when improving you’re writing, playing, and ultimately your quality of life in general.

I felt I should write a few words on the topic as many people I have spoken to go through the same hindering brain patterns as myself. Maybe you do too?

I find that my mind is usually in one of two places (the gutter does not feature here).
I’m either evaluating the past, or critiquing something I’ve just done, or I’m thinking about the future, and what it is that I want to do, want to be able to do, or want to prevent from happening. What happened to the present? There is so much joy in the present that many of us don’t allow ourselves to enjoy very often. I find the present is forced into you when watching a movie, because you’re distracted from your time travel. Also when you’ve hit your substance of choice, the past and future dissolve temporarily. Both of these instances can’t be a part of your everyday moment for obvious reasons, so learning to enjoy the present I feel is a must.

Now this is all quite heavy, I know! But what I’m getting to here is that the way my mind sits in every day life, is a carbon copy of the way I think when playing music, obviously on a much smaller scale. Playing music, and everyday life are paralleled in so many ways. I think about music pretty much all the time anyway!

If you’re playing music, whether it be at rehearsal or on the stage, your conscious mind is a great big pain in the gluteus maximus. If your mind is in the future, you stress about what you’ve got to play, and if you’re assessing the past, your mind isn’t on the job. Therefore everything comes down in a crashing heap. My trumpet teacher at university called it ‘paralysis by analysis’. And man was he right. I’m currently working on sitting back and watching my fingers do what they do on the guitar, without getting involved. And for the few moments each day that this happens to me, I feel I’m making ‘real’ music. It sounds that way to me anyway. The sounds I hear in my head start to jump off the fret board (and a mighty fine fret board it is too! But I’ll geek up a storm about my gear in a later blog for those so inclined).

This is all a bit of a journey for me so if you’re interested, let me know and I’ll update this one as I go along.

Assignment for the week! Everyone check out the Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers recording of Caravan. It’s blowing my mind how cool this is. A 6ft 5 drummer who dwarfs his kit, growling out loud, every solo phrase he plays. Bliss.

Photo Credit Brain_Blogger

Dave's Insights art blakey, brain, caravan, creativity, jazz messengers, life, music, self help 2 comments