The majority of people reading this article would likely be fluent or sufficiently adept at the English language, as most people reading this would likely be from English speaking societies, and those reading this from abroad may have learned English as it is this generation's lingua franca. But although so many of us have fluency in a language, it seems that many musicians struggle to become fluent in the language of music.
Imagine the potential of making music with as much articulation and as little inhibition as you have with your primary language:
- Instead of struggling to read music, imagine the ability to read as easily as you are reading a book or this article.
- Instead of being clueless of how to improvise in an ensemble, imagine the ability to easily contribute interest and value to the musical conversation, as if you're speaking with your friends, family and colleagues.
- Instead of being unable to transcribe or play by ear, what if you could hear musical phrases and write or repeat them just like spoken word?
- You can think, reflect, have an inner monologue, listen to your conscience, and act upon your thoughts. Imagine being able to think in musical language and what kind of actions may follow.
Anybody who is honestly serious about music would no doubt desire these qualities, and as any of us know, practice is necessary. But let me remind you that there's a cool phrase going around lately about being efficient in your work: "Work smart, not hard".
What I'm trying to imply here by "work smart", is that doing tonnes of practice may not necessarily be the best method in achieving musical fluency - after all, did you really have to work that hard just to speak fluently? It's simply the common case of quality vs quantity.
The fact that we all learn and use language so effortlessly prompts a couple of important questions, and equally promising answers:
Question: Is English intrinsically easier than music?
Answer: No. It is evident that whether we are fluent in English, or Japanese, or Arabic, or any other language, that we have attained fluency by means of learning and practicing the language in a manner that many musicians ignore in their own learning and practice. It is for this reason that our skills in natural language often surpass our skills in musical language.
Question: How then, can we employ the same methods of learning and practicing our primary language to learning and practicing music?
Answer: There are multiple facets to these methods, and that is why I have decided to publish a series of articles that will expound on these methods to clearly explain and demonstrate how to use them. Each method used in learning/practicing language and it's musical counterpart can be listed as follows:
- Listening to the language - Listening to music.
- Repeating simple phrases - Repeating musical phrases/motifs.
- Speaking the language - Playing music.
- Understanding the language - Relating to the music.
- Thinking in the language - Consciously hearing music and theorising.
- Communicating with intent - Playing music with thought and emotion.
- Creating and holding meaningful conversation in the language - Jamming with others.
- Reading the language - Reading notation.
- Spelling and grammar - Music theory.
- Writing the language - Writing notation.
- Altering/variating phrases - Evolving and recycling musical ideas.
- Writing essays and reciting works - Composing and learning entire songs.
"Practice" can be such a vague term, one can see this list and think "duh", assuming that I've completely wasted their time by telling them what they need to do (practice). Once again, I must make it clear exactly how and what to practice. It is my goal in each article to define exactly how and what needs to be practiced so that I and other musicians can avoid the pitfalls of potentially meaningless and useless forms of practice that scarcely result in any kind of progress.
The order in which I present these methods roughly mimics the order of how one learns a language from childhood, in school, and continues to develop their abilities in thinking and communicating for the rest of their life. These skills and methods overlap, so by working on one area it will help the others synergistically. In the upcoming articles I will cover information and exercises on how each method works in conjunction with the others.
Get ready, you're just about to really unlock your musical potential.