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.

Immerse yourself in notation - Part 1/4

Guitarists are notorious for musical illiteracy, this is pretty strange considering the appeal of scale and arpeggio exercises and other theoretical knowledge to many young guitarists.

Stranger still, so many guitarists favour tablature so much that they become reliant on it to the point of hindering their ability to play by ear. Rather than repeating musical phrases by hearing them in their purest form they opt for tablature - what this article proves to be a very ineffective and detrimental method of interpreting music.

There are so many great ways to introduce and encourage ever-growing abilities in notation. To facilitate such an introduction, this article as part one of four aims to compare the benefits of notation versus the flaws of tablature.

Some key benefits of notation are as follows:

Rhythm.

In standard music notation, rhythmic values are explicitly dictated. This means that a musician that reads notation is able to correctly perform the rhythmic structures of a piece of music in written form without any previous listening. A musician that reads music well can accurately play a piece that has never been heard before.

Pattern recognition.

Skills in pattern recognition make you learn, play and create music with greater ease and connection to the music. Chords, intervals, phrases and rhythms become much easier and more natural to quickly recognise, perform and recreate. This also helps develop contextual understanding of the various elements that make a piece of music. 

Intention.

Notating your own compositions (covered in future articles!) gives you a greater sense of "knowing what you're doing". The music you like (whether creating or listening) has greater clarity, memorability and personal association.

With experience, improvisation also benefits from this. 

Professionalism.

It's easy for young guitarists to fall in the trap of wanting to make a career in music without putting in the effort. Many of us in the past, present or future have relied on our gut feelings, charisma and insistence that we have what it takes to be a star. We can look at classic rock stars and assume that reading music is unnecessary and will detract from our "feel" or artistic integrity.

I could go on about why living a humble life is more fulfilling than being famous but let's just focus on the practical aspect: A music career in performance or teaching requires the ability to quickly and accurately learn any piece of music. This skill can only be utilised through the means of notation.

In contrast, here are some key flaws of tablature:

No rhythm.

Tablature offers no indication of rhythm. It is impossible to accurately learn a song by tab without already listening to the song and various sections of the song multiple times to fill in the missing information regarding rhythm. This wastes a lot of time, effort and can make you hate the song from hearing it so many times.

Sabotaging aural skills.

As tablature encourages the guitarist to repeatedly listen to the track for rhythmic cues and then add it to the tablature's cues of finger positioning, pitch recognition is no longer an aural skill as it becomes a visual one. A guitarist that relies on tab no longer hears a major third interval on the subdominant in C major and knows how to play it, instead they must read a chart that says "put your middle finger on the third fret of the D string and your index finger on the second fret of the G string". It reduces musical information in favour of deciphering ambiguous numbers rather than audible or logical cues.

One may argue the same for notation but in fact the reverse is true. Performing notated music processes the written notes into music, in other words the process is transforming visual cues into what is audible music. On the other hand, performing tablature requires listening to music and then aligning it with written fingering positions, this process is turning the audible music into visual cues - it's completely reversed! This effectively makes tablature a counter-intuitive way to learn music as the logical process is not directed at creating audible and informed music, it's directed at aligning your fingers to the fretboard.

It's harder than notation.

Yes, you read that correctly. One may assume that tablature is easier because notation doesn't explicitly dictate finger positions and it requires reading symbols. These are very weak arguments.

Firstly, notation does provide information on fingering but it is done implicitly rather than explicitly. With practice, experience and perhaps a good teacher it is only natural to find the ergonomic options for all sorts of passages.

Secondly, tablature requires reading symbols too. Just because they're numbers it doesn't mean they're any easier. Tablature erases every shred of musical context, effectively making interpretation more difficult as abilities in learning and recognition in any field are dependant on context.

Using tablature over notation is analogous to listening to ten strangers speaking about nothing substantial as opposed to engaging in a meaningful dialogue with one person. On one hand there is an overwhelming abundance of useless information, whereas a thoughtful conversation is enriching to say the least.

Amateur is an understatement.

Tabs aren't mere training wheels, they will inhibit and regress your learning. Relying on an unorganised, ambiguous and ultimately illogical method to learn music will only develop rigid technique and bad musicianship. I understand I may sound like a zealot or a charlatan in saying that but I guarantee that anybody who has witnessed increases in dexterity through tab would have gained greater dexterity had they not learned by tab.

Conclusion and summary:

Since its conception, standard musical notation by its very design has remained the simplest, most rich in context, and logical way of written instruction in music.

Tablature is vague, unorganised, void of context and jeapordises a musician's technique by fostering a myriad of illogical and impractical habits.

Tablature offers nothing more than a negligent method of dexterity..

This is part one of a four-part series on immersing yourself in notation. I hope that this article may have clarified or even challenged your ideas on notation and tablature. As this series continues we will explore pattern recognition, sight-reading, composition, exercises in visualisation, interpretation and more.