Adaptable Practice Plans - Part 2

This is a simple follow up on my previous article. I had demonstrated how to approach each section of the practice plan, but I thought some further clarification is necessary on how to develop the plans for upcoming sessions. I have also made a print-out copy of the practice plan ready to fill in for your next practice session(s) which you can download here or use as a reference to make your own by hand.

Each category in the main practice plan is divided into sub-categories listed numerically, alphabetically, and in roman numerals.

For example, the section on arpeggio exercises is 4-D-II. 4 is Technique/theory, D is the sub-category of technical exercises, and II is the sub-sub-category of arpeggios.

So, to develop your upcoming plans. It helps to maintain this convention. So here is an example of the plan I have written for today's upcoming practice session:

1. Repertoire:

    A) Classical - Prelude in C Major, Solfeggietto in C minor.

2. Composition:

    A) Melody - Write a melody in D Major.

    B) Harmony - Write harmonies according to a 2-5-1 progression.

    C) Rhythm - Practice writing with tied and dotted notes.

3. Aural: 

    A) Chord progressions - Egao by Ikimonogakari, and Girlfriend by The Pillows.

    B) Melodies - Same as A.

    C) Riffs/phrases - The interlude riff from Vortex by Megadeth.

    D) Transcription - The intro melody to Rainmaker by Iron Maiden.

4. Technique and theory:

    A) Transposition and modulation - Solfeggietto in C minor, transposed to F minor.

    B) Harmonic analysis - Write the chord degrees of The Other Half by Within Temptation.

    C) Etudes - Czerny's School of Velocity exercise 1.   

    D) Technical exercises

        i. Scales - Write an exercise in D harmonic minor

        ii. Arpeggios - Write an arpeggio exercise using a DminMaj7 arpeggio.

    E) Sight-Reading - Pieces from Mikrokosmos by Bela Bartok.

    F) Metronome:

        i. Tempo - 75 BPM.

        ii. Time signature - 5/4.

        iii. Subdivision - Quavers.

5. Mental exercises:

    A) Visualisation.

        i. Instrument - Visualise the music in my mind on piano and guitar.

        ii. Notation - Visualise the music in my mind being transcribed, extra emphasis on tied and dotted notes.

        iii. Performance - Visualise myself busking.

        iv. Career - Visualise myself teaching one-on-one lessons.

    B) Hearing music in your mind - Allow any music to come to mind. Visualise it on piano, guitar, and being transcribed to notation.

    C) Positive affirmation - Remind yourself: "I love transcription, it is fun and easy", "Practice makes everything fun and easy".

    D) Journaling:

        i. Reflection - Write whatever is necessary post-practice.

        ii. Goals - Write thoughts on achieving fluency in reading, writing, and transcribing in musical notation.

    E) Imaginary practice - Imagine, visualise, and hear myself fluently reading, writing, and transcribing music.

Adaptable Practice Plans - Part 1

I recently devised a general practice plan, not only for myself but for others. You can download it here. This may not seem like much at first glance, but it is really something special when it is used as a framework to develop more specific practice plans adapted for each practice session.

In this article, I will demonstrate how to use this practice plan to optimise your individual practice sessions. It's pretty simple, as it essentially just boils down to writing down what you plan on practicing for your next session, and notating anything relevant.

Section 1 "Repertoire":

For repertoire, four categories are listed: Classical, jazz, music you like, and your original compositions. You can add or remove what ever style of music you prefer to work on, these are just suggestions that promote well-rounded musicianship.

An example of repertoire choices for an upcoming practice session could look like this:

• Classical:
• Solfeggietto in C minor by C.P.E Bach.
• Prelude in C major from The Well Tempered Clavier.
• Music I like:
• Plastic Love by Takeuchi Mariya.
• The End of This Chapter by Sonata Arctica.
• Originals:
• The Young Boy and the Little Muse.
• I'll Be Your Friend
• Happily Ever After

Those with a keen eye may have noticed I didn't choose any jazz repertoire like the general plan suggests. I purposely chose to omit something just to show that you don't need to practice every single thing every single time. It is up to you to create your own plans that work best for you in that given moment.

To augment your study and practice of new repertoire I highly suggest notating challenging passages and phrases to analyse, alter, and transpose to other keys.

Section 2 "Composition":

Composition doesn't need to be something complex. Just notating a bar or two of melody, a rhythmic pattern, or working on a chord progression, is a great start. With regular practice, this exercise naturally progresses into composing passages with greater depth, and that in turn progresses into composing entire pieces of music.

Here are some examples of what one might compose for the three compositional categories of melody, harmony, and rhythm:

Example of melodic composition:

Example of composing harmony:

CMaj7 - - - | Am7 - - - | Dm - - - | F - - - |

Example of composing rhythm:

Section 3 "Aural":

This is quite straight forward. Just try to try and translate what you hear musically onto the instrument, as a chord chart, a lead sheet, or as pure notation. 

Just a little bit of this practice often, in conjunction with other fields of practice, will sharpen your aural and transcription skills significantly.

Of course, this can't be done without choosing a song or a piece to study aurally. So it is vital that before your practice session, you write down the piece(s) you desire to study aurally in your practice journal as a reference.

Section 4 "Technique and Theory":

Transposition, harmonic analysis, etudes, and sight-reading practice are pretty straight forward. As usual, it is ideal to journal and notate your findings and ideas. Some examples could look like this:

Transposition examples:

• Play a minor 7th chord in all keys.
• Transpose the Prelude in C Major to D Major and F# Major.

Harmonic analysis example:

• Find the respective chord degrees for your original compositions.

Etude practice:

• School of Virtuosity Op 365 by Czerny - Exercise 3.
  

Sight-reading practice:

• Mikrokosmos by Bartok.

For technical exercises of scales and arpeggios, I highly suggest coming up with your own. This can be as simple as one or two bars of a scale or arpeggio pattern. I also suggest writing it in one key of your choice, but practicing it across all keys and discovering the most natural fingerings for each pattern.

Here are some examples:

A scale exercise in C Major:

An arpeggio exercise in C Major:

Metronome practice is also quite straight forward. Just choose a piece you have some familiarity with and alter the tempo. Faster is not necessarily better, as slowing down a piece may often reveal passages in which you have poor technique or excess tension which may then be resolved in order to play it more comfortably and with greater speed when it is appropriate.

Currently, I am working on my technique for Solfeggietto to ease the tension, build comfort, and increase the speed of my performance. This is achieved not only by incrementally increasing the tempo on the metronome, but also by playing at a slower tempo to refine the areas that I often rush and play hastily.

Improvising with the metronome is also good. Experiment with new time signatures like 7/4 and subdivisions like pentuplets. If you can't play it, slow it down.

Section 5 "Mental Exercises":

No access to an instrument, music, or pen and paper? No worries, just imagine it.

You can even plan ahead by writing in your practice journal what you plan to visualise and imagine hearing in those moments when you have no instrument or paper present.

If you're a multi-instrumentalist, you could perhaps choose to focus on visualising just one instrument for the day, or several instruments.

You could also choose to visualise notating music, it helps to have some kind of guide on what you will notate. You could plan "today, I will visualise quavers exploring the C major scale on the bass clef in 4/4 timing, and I will imagine that I can hear the notes that I choose in my mind".

Even your goals and career can benefit from visualisation exercises. Your next performance or music lesson will go along so much smoother if you can visualise and imagine it being fun, engaging, and going smoothly. Try to keep an open mind.

Positive affirmations are great to combat potential errors in our self image and impostor syndrome. Simply reminding yourself positive (but true) statements like "I have been practicing regularly, I am improving, and my goals are being achieved" is a great trick to wire your brain into being more motivated and less worried about poor performance.

Be positive, but be realistic. Nobody likes somebody who affirms they can achieve anything without putting in the practice.

Keeping a music journal is vital. If you aren't journaling your reflections and pursuit of goals, you are robbing yourself of a goldmine of insight, control, and progress. Please, I beg aspiring musicians who do not yet journal to embrace this practice, you will not regret it.

And lastly. Any area of your practice can be done mentally. Whether it is repertoire, composition, aural, or whatever. It will give you something better to do than gaze at your phone while on public transport.

Advice to Young Musicians - Robert Schumann

In the digital copy of Schumann's "Album for the Young", it introduces the pieces with a selection of quotes from Schumann.

For the sake of sharing these great insights, I have decided to post them here. My favourite quotes at the time of posting this are in bold text.

ADVICE TO YOUNG MUSICIANS

BY

ROBERT SCHUMANN

• The cultivation of the ear is the most important. Labour early torecognise notes and key. Endeavour to find what notes the bell, the window-pane, and the cuckoo express.

• Practise assiduously scales and other finger exercises. There are, however, many people who fancy they attain perfection by spending, even until an advanced age, several hours daily in mechanical execution : that is as if a person should exert himself to repeat his A, B, C, faster and faster. Employ your time better.

• " Mute " instruments, as they are called, have been invented. Try them awhile, just to see how useless they are. The dumb cannot teach speech.

• Be steady in keeping time. The performance of many virtuosi is like the gait of a drunken man. Follow not their example.

• Learn betimes the fundamental laws of harmony.

• Be not deterred by the words Theory, Thorough-bass, Counterpoint, &c. ; approach them as a friend, and their response will be most cordial.

• Never jingle. Play with ever-freshened eagerness, and always finish the piece.

• Slowness and hurry are both great faults.

• Take pains to play easy pieces well and prettily ; better this than a mere ordinary performance of difficult ones.

• Always keep to a well-tuned instrument.

• Be not satisfied with knowing your piece manually ; you must also be able to hum it without the aid of the instrument. Stimulate your imagination, so that you may retain firmly in the memory not only the melody of a composition but the harmony which accords with it.

• Exert yourself, even although you have but little voice, to sing at sight without the help of the instrument ; by this means the quickness of your ear will constantly increase. But if you have a good voice, neglect no opportunity of cultivating it ; consider it as the most valuable gift that heaven has conferred on you.

• You must not be content until you succeed in reading music without playing it.

• When playing, be unconcerned who hears you.

• Play always as if a master listened.

• Should any one place a composition before you to play for the first time, read it over previously.

• If you feel exhausted after having done your daily musical task, strain your faculties no farther. Better to rest, than work without inclination and cheerfulness.

• As you grow older, play nothing merely because it is the fashion. Time is precious. One must live a hundred lives to learn everything that is good.

• Children do not become healthy men by being fed on sweetmeats. The mental as well as the bodily fare must be simple and strengthening. The masters have sufficiently provided for the former ; adhere to them.

• Mere passages change with the time ; they are only of value when fluency leads to higher objects.

• You must not circulate bad compositions ; on the contrary, you must help with all your might to suppress them.

• Neither play bad compositions, nor, unless compelled, listen to them.

• Never strive in execution for the so-called bravura. Try to produce in a composition the impression which the composer had in view. More should not be sought. What is beyond is caricature.

• Regard it as something abominable to meddle with the pieces of good writers either by alteration, omission, or by the introduction of new-fangled ornaments. This is the greatest indignity you can inflict on art.

• Respecting the selection of study pieces, ask older musicians, and you will save much time.

• You must gradually make yourself acquainted with all the most important works of all the celebrated masters.

• Be not led astray by the approbation which great virtuosi, so-called, often secure. Esteem the approbation of the artist more than that of the multitude.

• All that is merely fashionable goes out of fashion in its turn; and if you continue to cultivate it till you are old, you will become a simpleton whom no one values.

• Much playing in society does more harm than good. Scrutinise the company ; but never play anything of which you feel in your conscience you would be ashamed.

• Neglect, however, no opportunity of practising duets, trios, This gives freedom and compass to your execution. And accompany singers frequently.

• If every one would play first fiddle, no orchestra could be got together. Let each musician keep his proper place.

• Be fond of your instrument, but without the vanity of considering it the highest and the only one. Remember that there are others, and quite as good. Remember also that there are singers, and that the most elevated music finds expression through the choir and orchestra. 

• As you grow older, have more to do with scores than virtuosi.

• Play assiduously the fugues of good masters, especially those of Job. Seb. Bach. Let his " Forty-eight " (Fugues and Preludes) be your daily bread ; you will then surely become an able musician.

• Seek, among your comrades, those who know more than you.

• Read poetry with diligence, as a relief from your musical studies. Take frequent exercise in the open air.

• Much can be learned from singers, but do not yield them unlimited credence.

• The world is large. Be modest ! You have not yet discovered and contrived what others before you have not already imagined and found out. And even if such should be the case, look on it as a gift from above to be shared with others.

• The study of the history of music, seconded by hearing the actual performance of the master-pieces of different epochs, will prove the most rapid and effectual cure for conceit and vanity.

• A charming book on music is Thibaut's treatise on ''The Purity of Musical Composition." Read it often, as you get older.

• When you pass by a church, and hear an organ played, go inside and listen. Should you be fortunate enough to obtain a seat at the instrument, try your small fingers on it, and be amazed at this omnipotence of music. 

• Neglect no opportunity of practising on the organ. There is no other instrument which inflicts such prompt chastisement on offensive and defective composition or execution.

• Sing assiduously in choruses, especially taking the middle parts. This forms the good musician.

• But what is it to be a musician? Not to have the eyes bent on the notes, and play the piece laboriously to the end ; not (supposing anyone happens to turn two leaves instead of one) to stick in the middle, without being able to go on. You are, however, a musician when with a new piece you almost divine what is coming, when you know an old acquaintance by rote—in a word, when you have music not only in your fingers, but in your head and heart too.

• But how does one become a good musician? Dear student, the chief thing, a good ear and quick comprehension, comes, as in all things, from above. Still, the natural ability may be cultivated and enhanced. Not by secluding yourself for days together and prosecuting mechanical studies, but by holding enlarged living musical intercourse—frequent engagements in choir and orchestra.

• Acquire an early and accurate knowledge of the compass of the human voice in its four principal registers ; watch it well in the choir ; study closely in what intervals lies its greatest power, in which others it glides into the soft and tender.

• Listen most attentively to all popular songs ; they are a mine of the most charming melodies, and afford an insight into the character of different nations.

• Apply yourself, as soon as possible, to reading the old clefs. You will otherwise leave untouched many treasures of by-gone times.

• Give early heed to the tone and character of the different instruments ; try to impress their particular sounds on your ear.

• Never neglect to hear good operas.

• Reverence what is old, but have a warm heart also for what is new. Indulge no prejudice against unknown names.

• Do not judge a composition from the first hearing; what pleases at the first moment, is not always the best. Masters require to be studied. Much will become clear to you at an advanced age only.

• In forming a judgment of compositions, distinguish between those which belong to true art, and those which are intended merely for the entertainment of amateurs. Abide by the first; do not quarrel with the others.

• " Melody" is the amateur's battle-cry, and certainly music with-out melody is naught. But understand clearly what they mean by it ; an easily comprehensible, agreeably rhythmical one, is all they care for. But there are melodies of a different stamp, and when you peruse Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, they flash before you in a thousand different lights. You will, it is to be hoped, soon grow weary of the thread-bare monotony of the so-called new Italian operatic melodies.

• Should you succeed in combining little melodies on the piano, that is already something; but if they come spontaneously, not on the piano, then rejoice still more, then stirs within you the instinctive sense of music. The fingers must perform the behest of the head, not the contrary.

• When you begin to compose, do all in the head. Do not try a piece on the instrument before you have it well prepared. If the music came from your soul, if you felt it, it will have this influence on others as well.

• Has Heaven bestowed on you a lively imagination, you will often, in solitary hours, sit entranced at the piano, longing to express in harmonies your inward fervour ; and the more mystical are your feelings, while you are drawn as it were into magic circles, the more obscure perhaps will the realm of harmony appear. These are youth's happiest hours. But beware of giving yourself up too often to a faculty which may insensibly mislead you to waste on phantoms your powers and your time. The management of form, the power of clear representation, can only be secured by the fixed stamp of writing. Be therefore more of a writer than a visionary.

• Become acquainted betimes with the art of directing an orchestra. Watch good conductors frequently ; endeavour even to accompany the direction in your own mind. This conduces to accuracy.

• Be diligent in the study of life, as well as of the arts and sciences.

• The laws of morality are also those of art. 

• By industry and endurance you will always rise higher.

• From one pound of iron, which costs but a few pence, many thousand watch-springs are made, and the value is increased a hundred thousand fold. Make faithful and profitable use of the pound which God has given thee.

• Without enthusiasm nothing genuine is accomplished in art. Art does not exist for the acquisition of riches.- Aim ever at becoming a greater and greater artist ; everything else comes to you of itself.

• Only when the form grows clear to you, will the spirit become so too.

• Perhaps it is genius alone that understands genius.

• Some one asserted that a perfect musician ought to be able to see, as if before him, at the very first hearing, the score of an orchestral piece however complicated. This is the greatest height that can be conceived.

• Of learning there is no end.

Increase your musical vocabulary at least 168 times more effectively (I'm not kidding).

Hanon. Charles-Louis Hanon's "The Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises".

Stop right there, don't run away. I agree that Hanon has some severe drawbacks and limitations, I am here to explain how to overcome those limitations and draw on Hanon's method to develop what is objectively the most comprehensive way to develop not only your musical dexterity as Hanon intended, but also your musical vocabulary and fluency.

By objective standards, this method has the potential to increase your musical vocabulary by a factor of 168 or even more.

Now, let's look at Hanon for a second, the bane of every pianist. The first twenty exercises in The Virtuoso Pianist follow a particular method which has a surprising quality to it that is often overlooked. The method that the first twenty exercises follows goes something like this:

1. Begin with a fingering pattern of semiquavers in 2/4 with two hands in unison starting in C major an octave apart.
2. Ascend the diatonic modes of C major using the same fingering pattern for two octaves.
3. Reverse the fingering pattern and descend the modes for two octaves.

What Hanon has effectively made every pianist do with this exercise is multiply a basic phrase by:

1. Playing it through seven modes
2. Across two octaves.
3. Altering the phrase.
4. Playing the altered phrase through seven modes
5. Across two octaves.

So, he has given you one phrase that has been multiplied by 7 modes x 2 octaves = 14 new phrases, and then provided you with another 14 phrases, giving you a total of 28 phrases for the price of one! This may seem trivial but ask yourself this, when was the last time you seriously studied a phrase and played it in a different mode, different octave, different key, rhythm, scale, wait... Hanon didn't change keys, rhythm or scale in his first twenty exercises, his strict use of semiquavers in 2/4 in the key of C is precisely one of the reasons his method warrants so much criticism, along with the claim that 60 exercises total is all it takes to develop a virtuoso technique.

What I am getting at here is that Hanon had something right all along, and because us musicians tend to avoid critical thinking in favour of being opinionated egotists we never noticed! What Hanon has laid the foundation for is for us to effectively remove the limitations of Hanon's method and replace them with methods that make them theoretically limitless.

Let's focus on those limitations and systematically improve on them:

Hanon only provides sixty exercises.

There is no way that only sixty exercises are going to make anybody a virtuoso. That's like saying you can be fluent in a language by mastering just sixty phrases. Anybody who practices Hanon or any other technical exercises will use it as a supplement to learning and creating real music. So by learning Bach or composing your own music you're already increasing and improving your musical vocabulary. There is an innate problem with this though that most musicians are neglecting which I have mentioned in this article, which is the fact that when most of us learn or create a phrase we tend to ignore that it has at least seven times more value if we play it in all seven modes.

Hanon's exercises are limited to only a few scales.

To my immediate recollection, Hanon only uses the diatonic, melodic minor, harmonic minor, and chromatic scales. Most of the exercises he provides aren't even mentioned to be played in other scales.

You can go beyond this by changing the scale. Using Hanon's exercises that are in C major for an example, we could take that first exercise and once it has been played as it is written, play it in harmonic minor instead. Now we have taken a phrase, played it in 7 modes x 2 scales = 14 exercises.

Hanon's exercises use only one key per exercise (with a few exceptions).

So, Hanon has already given us a method that can effectively increase our musical vocabulary and musical dexterity by a factor of seven. But for the most part, his method avoids playing each exercise in all twelve keys.

By doing so, we can effectively multiply one phrase or exercise by 7 modes x 12 keys = 84 new phrases!

If we change the scale, then we can further multiply those eighty-four phrases by each scale that we use. So a phrase that is usually diatonic that can provide us with 84 phrases/exercises, provides us with another 84 for each new scale we assign to it. Playing a phrase this way just across two scales will yield us 168 ways to play just one phrase.

Hanon's exercises may possibly restrict hand independence.

Most of Hanon's exercises utilise both hands in a way that they will play the exact same notes at the exact same rhythm one octave apart. Honestly, I think this is a bad practice and may restrict the musician's independence of each hand. This is simply remedied by playing the exercise with one hand of your choice, and then providing accompaniment with the other hand. This accompaniment could be improvised, it could be pre-arranged and notated, the world is your oyster.

Hanon's exercises are rhythmically unimaginative.

Now, I can see why Hanon may have chosen the first twenty exercises to all be a set of eight semiquavers in bars of 2/4. It does provide uniformity but in my opinion that's kind of like training wheels.

Whether you are using Hanon's exercises, a Bach melody, or your own phrases, it is worthwhile to use rhythmic variation so music doesn't always feel like it's being experienced through the same rhythmic lens. I imagine somebody who played Hanon the way he intended (all sixty exercises in one sitting every day) would suffer from perceiving all music as being slurred and modified variations of the sixty exercises. To be clear, I don't simply mean to just slur your phrases and play them rubato or staccato, I mean use completely different rhythms such as various time signatures and subdivisions. It could be interesting to add subdivisions or even omit or extend some notes.

It's called The Virtuoso "Pianist".

The music police (I hate those guys) will not arrest you for playing these exercises on your guitar, clarinet, trumpet, cello or whatever. I have had a serious talk with the chief at the music police station and he said it is completely acceptable by all standards of the music law to compose technical exercises for one instrument and arrange them for any other instrument.

This can yield some very powerful results, playing a phrase across twelve keys on guitar is significantly easier than on piano, but playing it across seven modes is significantly more intricate and thus will benefit your dexterity and musical abilities profoundly.

Hanon emphasises finger dexterity over musicality.

Dexterity is required to be an able musician, but the emphasis should be on creating and enjoying music, or else you're proverbially stuck riding with training wheels.

Trying to attain virtuosity just by increasing dexterity is like trying to be a better speaker just by practicing mouth movements, or trying to be a better writer by practicing correct pen-holding technique and writing out the alphabet with attention to form. These can be useful exercises, but the context and expression that accompanies the exercise is really what is at the heart of any practice whether it be music, painting, sports etc.

Moving on:

Improving your musical vocabulary by playing it in the multitude of various modal and tonal contexts is more than meets the eye. By practicing this way, we are not merely adding to a memory bank of musical phrases. More importantly, we are actually exercising our ability to perceive music in fresh new ways. I encourage you to consider that you aren't just increasing your vocabulary and dexterity, but you are expanding and developing your understanding of musical relationships in ways that transcend the idea of boosting your musical vocabulary. More important than having a large vocabulary is knowing how to use it, and this should innately occur through quality practice and reflection.

As I'm a big fan of thinking and getting other people to think, I thought of something new to introduce in my articles to encourage musicians to improve their music by thinking while also giving me more material for future articles. I thought I could end each article with relevant thought exercises such as considerations/questions and visualisation exercises to stimulate musician's abilities in navigating and creating musical possibilities. I am also considering making posts solely on visualisation exercises. Gee, I've got so much to work on.

Consider and question:

• In the future, when I learn a piece, I will practice particular phrases across across seven modes, twelve keys, and in various scales. Potentially multiplying my musical vocabulary by a factor of 168 or more.
• What would learning a major piece in harmonic minor or another mode be like? What new musical ideas, contexts, and patterns will I absorb? How can I use this new knowledge?
• What scales am I unfamiliar with? I will practice those.
• Let's make phrases in new time signatures and rhythmic patterns, and then play them through modes, keys, and scales.

Visualise and imagine:

• Hear and visualise your hands playing a simple phrase in C major. Imagine the same phrase across all the modes of C major. Try this for all 12 keys.
• Hear and visualise that same phrase but in harmonic minor. Imagine it through all seven modes of harmonic minor across all twelve keys.
• Imagine this with different phrases and scales.

Make Your Music Evolve.

In music, context is more important than the individual notes, phrases or other musical concepts. As musicians, it is vital that we are able to imagine and produce music that fits within the context of familiar and unfamiliar forms.

Take this note for example, a semibreve of middle C within a 4/4 bar.

What I want to show you, is that by altering this single note ad infinitum, we can discover and create different ways to relate to it, increasing our understanding of its potential context as we witness how just this one note can relate to other musical concepts. 

The first step I will take in the evolution of this note is duplicating it. This will allow me to demonstrate how the same note can work in two different ways.

We can give each of these two notes some harmonic information.

So for the first bar, I stuck with C as the root note and voiced it as a Sus4 in the root position. But the second bar actually isn't a textbook C chord at all, It's an inverted F major. I did this to show that adding harmony to C doesn't necessarily require C to be the root interval. But what if I removed the C entirely?

In these two bars, I removed the C and replaced it with the respective Major 7th interval of each chord. So the first chord has a B in the higher octave, making it something like a 7-1-3 voicing of a G7. The second chord replaces the C with an E in the higher octave, so it's like a 1-3-7 voicing of Fmaj7.

So. The formula I used to create these variations went something like this:

1. Start with a simple musical concept (in this case, middle C)
2. Alter it rhythmically (duplicate the bar).
3. Alter it harmonically.

I'll provide three more examples of running music through formulas similar to previous example.

This is a Major second interval in the key of D minor, expressed as minims. I will do something similar to the first example, which was expanded to fit over two bars.

This gives us a bit more breathing space to create further alterations. Lets turn each of these notes into arpeggios.

So as the first bar was D, and the second bar was E, I've transformed each one into their respective arpeggios within the key of D minor. D minor and E minor. I could make these arpeggios a bit spicier though.

The arpeggios now contain their respective 7th and 9th intervals within the key. So D minor now contains C and E, making a Dm9 arpeggio. E minor now contains D and F, making a Em7b9 arpeggio. And all of this came out just from two minims! On to the next one.

This is just a simple, ascending G major triad in crotchets. I have an interesting idea on how to alter its rhythm.

I've introduced a new time signature, and as a consequence, the rhythmic values of the crotchets had to be altered by dotting them and distributing them over two bars. The 6/8 time signature works great with two pairs of three quavers so I would like to take advantage of that classic form.

In this case, I have turned the G and B notes of the first bar into ascending G major and B minor chords respectively. As for the second bar, the D returns to B and then D (descending and ascending minor 3rd interval) followed by another G major arpeggio, this time inverted and descending. Let's make one more variation.

I've turned each note into chords. Just like the F major chord in the first example, I decided not to use the existing note as the root interval. Instead, I opted to use it as a 3rd in a bunch of 3-5-1 triad voicings. Let's do just one more example.

For this last example, I have chosen an ascending G harmonic minor scale in 4/4 as crotchets. Let's do something crazy about changing the rhythm though.

I've taken the exact same notes, but split them across a bar of 5/4 and one of 3/4 instead of two bars of 4/4. Distinguishing them as uneven sets of 5 and 3 notes should greatly contribute to further alterations.

I continued to alter the rhythm by making the crotchets in 5/4 into quaver triplets, and the crotchets in the 3/4 bar into semiquavers. For the triplets, I added each note its respective 6th interval within the key of G minor and its octave. And for the semiquavers I just did some descending scale runs. Now for the last alteration.

The first quaver of each triplet has now been split into semiquavers, with the second semiquaver being a diatonic 3rd above the previous note. And for the semiquavers in bar two, I also divided the last semiquaver of each beat to add one more note to the descending pattern.

I highly encourage musicians to try these kinds of exercises in evolving musical ideas as a powerful and effective way to continually evolve their musical understanding, expression and ability. 

Immerse yourself in notation - part 4/4

This is the fourth, and final part of this series on immersing yourself in the practice of music notation. In the future I will surely provide even more insight, opinions and information regarding notation but there were some specific points I wanted to get across in a four-part series.

This article will conclude the series with some simple advice on composition and interpretation.

Sight-reading:

A great way to improve your familiarity in reading and writing on the stave is to combine both sight-reading and composition by developing your own sight-reading exercises.

This somewhat relates to the "Aim high, exaggerate and get it wrong" section of Part 2b in the sense that the sight-reading exercises you produce do not have to be the most thought-out and musically pleasing. As sight-reading is a practice in impromptu interpretation and performance, writing with little inhibition also requires the ability to process musical ideas in an impromptu fashion. So combining these two practices is very powerful when it comes to improving your ability to act fast.

In my opinion, it is such an obvious and easy way to develop your musical fluency that I'm surprised and disappointed that this is rarely mentioned. The aim is to identify what is holding you back in sight-reading to create exercises featuring the qualities that make you stumble. Are minor sixth intervals difficult to identify? Are particular rhythms catching you off guard? Are accidentals in the key of F# tricky to interpret? I don't think I need to write any more here because as I said, it's just so obvious what to do that you should do it!

Re-interpretation:

All musicians who read music will come across passages that are technically challenging and mind-boggling. It is easy to assume that the difficulty of a passage is just a technical issue, that the challenge is conquered by dividing its sections, playing them slowly, and building speed with the metronome. This is beneficial but there is a better way that will simultaneously familiarise yourself with the passage with greater depth and efficiency, and develop your musicianship beyond what is written.

The method here is to identify key elements of the passage and notate your own variations.

For example, if a passage features four-voice counterpoint, don't just stop at practicing the individual voices. Isolate and write one of the melodic lines, add your own harmonies or counterpoint, alter the rhythmic elements, or do any kind of musical alteration that allows you to examine and perform the passage from different lenses and perspectives.

Another example, lets say a passage contains some complex chords. You could re-write the chords in a different voicing, omit or alter some chord tones, or remove all but the root notes and develop some jazzy walking-bass.

The key is to notate it though. Of course there are no police to arrest you for experimenting and playing these alterations in the moment without notating it, but if it isn't notated you are more or less just playing around with fleeting ideas rather than thoughtfully calculating the possibilities and refining your musicianship.

Thank you for reading this article. If you haven't read the preceding parts of the series then give it a go if you so desire.

Immerse yourself in notation - Part 3/4

Allow me to introduce my secret weapon for discovering and utilising the stave.

I call it "The Table of Musical Elements" (or "TOME" for short). It is a concise, yet thorough, categorised reference of basic musical elements such as: 

• Key signatures.
• Rhythms.
• Scales and modes.
• Chord types.
• Intervals.
• Chord voicings and inversions.
• Polyphonic qualities.

The name is inspired by the periodic table of elements used in the field of chemistry. Although my table is by no means an exhaustive or perfect categorisation of all the elements that music is comprised of, I do believe it is more than sufficient for its intended purpose.

Immerse yourself in notation - Part 2b/4

Continuing from where we left off in part 2a of this four-part series about music notation, I have three more visualisation techniques to share. With some thinking and some practice, you may find yourself doing these things quite naturally and instinctively, deepening the relationship you have with music.

Technique #4 - Aim high, exaggerate and get it wrong.

I liken this to a baby babbling. Before an infant can speak, it just makes noises that feel right. In conjunction with their babbling, regular exposure to other people's voices, their inflections, and the situational context of the language they hear, young children learn how to create words, sentences and eventually have conversations with others in growing complexity.

Now let's imagine ourselves in a similar situation, as children learning the language of music - Writing music with little inhibition, with regular exposure and attention to the rhythmic and intervallic patterns in quality music (both audible and written), progressing naturally into creating musical phrases, motifs, movements and the ability to communicate with other musicians.

Simple exercise 1:

Compose music with little inhibition. Lower your guard and allow yourself to just write notes with no worry about how they will sound, just as an infant would make noises with no concern if the words are coming out right.

Just as the proverbial infant absorbs and recreates the phonetics and context of the language around them, identify patterns within the music you hear, read, write and perform. Later to be freely transformed and channeled into written, musical form. 

Attempt to play what you have written and accept what you have created. Take note of the sounds and patterns in your composition that you like, grow in confidence as you witness your pure musical voice shining through the void of the unfamiliar. With practice this will inevitably manifest in greater detail, granting you the ability to write what you hear and hear what you read.

Simple exercise 2: 

When playing or listening to music, imagine seeing the notes being transcribed onto manuscript before your eyes.

Even if the vision is a bit faint and blurry or other evidence (such as practical abilities in transcription) suggest that the pitches and note duration being visualised may be largely incorrect, remain confident that it will inevitably evolve into greater skills of aural and visual recognition of music as you actively combine this practice with other foundational musical skills such as listening, reading and composition.

Even if you are unsure of the correct notation, attempt to see the manuscript in your minds eye with increasingly vivid and lively detail. 

Technique #5 - Cultivating synesthesia.

Synesthesia is a phenomenon in which the experience of one sense is associated with another. In my case, when I hear sounds I associate them with shapes and colours. Not until my teenage years did I learn that not everybody experiences synesthesia.

A concert pianist friend of mine who experiences very vivid synesthesia told me that he believes synesthesia can be cultivated. I believe this to be true based on the results I have witnessed in being able to experience my own synesthesia becoming more vivid.

Simple exercise: 

Write a short passage of music. Think of your favourite colour, imagine that you can hear the passage and see the colour as you hear it. 

Try to see the colour more clearly. As you continue to hear the passage and see the colour, ask yourself what shapes could represent the sound, imagine the shapes accordingly. 

Examine the notes, intervals, chords, scales, melodies and rhythms in isolation. Use your imagination to hear and see them represented with the choices of shapes and colours that you see fit.

Examining the same passage and its elements, begin to imagine different shapes and colours to the ones you have already thought of.

There are no objective standards on what to imagine these sounds look like. A G major chord could look like a large purple cloud one day, the next day you may see it as a gravelly texture of navy blue, and to another person it may seem like a stream of white and red streaks.

Technique #6 - Imagery, symbolism and fantasy.

It was the same concert pianist that I previously mentioned who suggested to "look past the notes, see what story the composer is trying to tell". This is what really transforms what might initially seem to be just a song into a captivating story and insight into one's imagination and creativity.

Symbolism can be very personal, intangible and mysterious. It is a powerful, insightful, and creative tool in developing understanding and expression of particular concepts in any given art form. Understanding somebody else's use of symbols and imagery helps to decipher thoughts and intentions they may otherwise find difficulty in expressing by other means.

Whenever I am creating, reading or listening to music I am always seeking to experience more than just mere sounds. I need to discover things about myself that I haven't yet discovered, revealed by examining and reflecting on the thoughts and emotions I have in reaction to music being created, studied and enjoyed.

Simple exercise 1:

This is similar to exercise 1 in cultivating synaesthesia but instead of imagining shapes and colours we will imagine themes like objects, scenarios, memories, words or characters.

Write a short musical passage, and imagine anything that seems meaningful to you. Ask yourself "what does this mean to me?". Particular objects might represent a particular use, or you may find that you attach particular depth of meaning and context or emotion into a given word. Reflect and explore your conscience.

Isolate and examine the elements of the passage and conjour more ideas to mentally assign to the various rhythms, intervals, chords etc. Think about how these new ideas may relate to the passage's primary theme.

This creative process can lead to very deep introspection and creative output. It is worthwhile to maintain a dedicated journal to record your thoughts in handwriting, and speak with your artistically-inclined peers about the fruits and endeavours of your creative process.

While we are on the topic of symbolism and fantasy, I'll have you know I've been working on a concept album. It is my musical representation of a series of short stories I am writing. The project is called "Everlasting". Each track of the album will musically correlate with each successive chapter in the story. The first chapter "The Young Boy and the Little Muse" has been written along with the majority of composition related to it. You can read chapter one here.

I use very simple and common symbolic, situational and character archetypes in Everlasting, in the hopes that even a casual reader may relate and reflect on parallels they may see between the story and their own way of thinking. It is a story meant to inspire creativity and introspection.

That is the end of part 2 in my 4 part series on music notation.

The emphasis of part 2 was to develop useful mental habits that augment skills and engagement in the expression and interpretation of music notation. Part 3 will cover practical composition methods in which you can integrate the techniques you learned about in part 2.

Immerse yourself in notation - Part 2/4

What if I told you, that you could significantly improve your abilities to read notation and play your instrument without actually doing either?

Now don't get me wrong, actually reading notation and playing your instrument are still vital if you want to, you know, read notation and play your instrument. But in those moments where you have no access to sheet music or musical instruments it is still possible to engage in highly beneficial practice. This technique isn't limited to musical practice either, even professional athletes also utilise this skill.

I hope that many who are reading this already know what technique I'm talking about and that they may be even more mindful and motivated to use it. But for those who are unaware, the technique I am talking about is visualisation. 

Now, I apologise that this article lacks citation of relevant essays, medical journals and other evidence that back up this claim as I haven't bothered to research them. I believe there are more than enough available studies that are readily available to support this theory, let alone plenty of anecdotal evidence from musicians, athletes, and highly successful people.

As this series is focused on notation, the focus of this article will be on various visualisation techniques and exercises that will aid your understanding and progress in reading notation. These techniques and exercises are in no particular order of importance or effectiveness, and it is by no means an exhaustive list. I do believe that these do lay a decent foundation for you to get the gist of how to use visualisation to pursue your musical goals. You may find these techniques work best in conjunction with one another.

Technique #1 - Reading sheet music without an instrument.

I could argue that this helps bridge the mental connection between notation and your instrument more efficiently than actually playing your instrument with the sheet music - not that one should forsake one for the other as both are vital and even synergistic.

My reasoning behind this is because without the visual and physical aid of your instrument you are forced to use your imagination. Seeing your instrument while it isn't really there eliminates distraction and makes the process purely mental, what ever bad playing or thinking habits you may have attached to the instrument (such as those formed by dependence on tablature) are less present.

Simple exercise: 

Get some blank manuscript. Write your clef of choice, a time signature of 4/4 and a bar containing four crotchets of middle C. Now without touching your instrument, pretend you are playing that bar. Although a bit dorky, it is also a useful practice to employ physical action such as air guitar.

Technique #2 - Reading sheet music without... sheet music...

As I wrote the above exercise, I was actually practicing this technique - Reading sheet music without sheet music.

As I typed up "Get some blank manuscript" I could see myself getting off my chair, walking over to pick up some imaginary sheet music, returning to the desk and sitting down. As I typed "write your clef of choice" I could see a treble clef. As I continued writing I saw all of these things. I'm hoping that as I write these things that you can see them too.

Just like the previous technique, this one improves your ability to do the real thing by eliminating distraction and working purely on the mental connections behind the action so that you are more prepared to do the actual task. This is great when you are lacking motivation, it may not be an instant fix but continuously thinking and visualising yourself doing any task is a great way to kind of trick yourself into eventually taking action.

Simple exercise:

Imagine you are at your desk with some blank manuscript. See a mental image of the paper and your hand holding a pen. See your hand writing a grand stave, a key signature of G major and a time signature of 3/4. Imagine the first bar has three crotchets of G below middle C placed in the bass clef, now imagine the second bar has three crotchets of G above middle C.

Technique #3 - Hearing music without... music...

Hearing and seeing are two different things so if we are being specific with our definitions this isn't exactly visualisation. It is however similar to visualisation and is very conducive when used in conjunction with visualisation.

Whether reading or writing music, we can have greater confidence in our work knowing that we are correctly interpreting or expressing the notes given. Even outside the realm of composition, being able to imagine and hear music you have never heard before is absolutely vital as a musician.

Simple exercise 1:

Many people do this without thinking much about it. Hum or whistle a made up tune, it's so easy. Now, stop making noise and continue that action in your mind. Imagine the melodies are not made by your mouth and vocal cords but by a violin.

Simple exercise 2:

Visualise some blank sheet music again. Visualise your hand holding a pen, writing a grand stave, a key signature of D minor (F major) and a time signature of 6/8. Now as you imagine writing these notes, imagine you can hear them being played on a piano. Imagine in the first bar you are writing three quavers of D beamed together above middle C in the treble clef, followed by a dotted crotchet rest. And in the bass clef imagine a dotted crotchet rest followed by three quavers of D below middle C beamed together. Now that you have imagined completing the first bar, imagine hearing the bar being played in its entirety.

I have a few more ways to use skills in visualisation in musical settings but this post is getting a bit large and I need a break from typing. Stay tuned for part 2b.

Immerse yourself in notation - Part 1b/4

From the title, you may see that this is part 1b and not part 2 of the 4-part series on notation as I originally intended. The reason for this is because I realised I had yet more to say about the clear and logical nature of music notation versus the folly of tablature. The key realisation regarding this occurred to me during study of JS Bach's Fugue in C Major from book one of the Well Tempered Clavier:

Music notation is just intervals, rhythms and dynamics.

This is by no means any kind of groundbreaking discovery, as this is the very nature of music notation by its design - a conventional way to indicate all the necessary information of musical instruction in concise written form.

Music is comprised of three elements: Melody, harmony and rhythm - The intricacies in how intervals, rhythms and dynamics relate are what distinguishes these three elements and the degree of isolation or overlap between them in any given passage of music.

Tablature is void in expressing any of the aforementioned qualities which are vital in the most fundamental definition of music. In other words:

Tablature presents zero musical information. It reduces musical instruction to nothing but a convoluted method of hand-eye coordination.

A common insult hurled among guitarists is that somebody plays "like a robot". Now consider, isn't performing music purely by instructions on hand-eye coordination quite robotic? Music is far more than just moving your hands, music has the ability to influence people's minds and emotions. Interpreting notation will teach you by pure experience why particular music makes you think or feel a certain way according to the intervallic, rhythmic and dynamic information provided. It is the more thoughtful, emotional and "human" way to read and write music. Tablature does nothing but hinder abilities in musical interpretation and expression, effectively reducing aspiring musicians that rely on tabs to think and play robotically. 

I hope you found this article entertaining and maybe challenging. Part 2 in this series will be about the techniques on how to cultivate visual relationships and mental associations between music, notation, and musical instruments.