Tuning Slide 5.9- Learning from Jazz

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

You have to take a deep breath and allow the music to flow through you. Revel in it, allow yourself to awe. When you play, allow the music to break your heart with its beauty.
― Kelly White

As any regular reader of this blog knows, I am a huge jazz fan. I was first introduced through Louis Armstrong, Dave Brubeck, and Al Hirt. I expanded with Buddy Rich and Maynard, then later with Miles. I was hooked when the jazz DJ at the college radio station started playing other musicians and then my good friend Glenn opened the whole jazz world to me. It is a musical language I understand at all kinds of levels and has enriched my life in countless ways. (It’s in my earbuds as I write this!)

Over the past 10-12 years I have been working hard at taking that language into playing it in groups. As I was surfing the other week I came across a post on the Piano Power site on how learning jazz can give us musical superpowers. Overall jazz takes us into all kinds of different nuances, styles, and emotions than we are used to. As I looked over the list all I could say was, “Amen! That IS true.” Here's the gist of it, starting with the question:

How will jazz make me a master of my instrument?

The answer to that is so simple as to defy imagination. Improvisation! (I said simple, but far from easy!) Improvisation moved me away from the printed notes into thinking, listening, feeling, and then playing the music. When I attempt to improvise I end up with a far more physical and even spiritual connection with my instrument and what it can do. Which leads me to see what I can begin to do. Like with any language, it takes practice and it can seem like a long road ahead when you start. The easiest way to start working the sounds and chords is through the blues- and then moving up from there. You get it in your head and heart and you become the composer. As a result I have found that I am also better able to hear the sounds of other music and more easily fall into the rhythms and scales. I become a better trumpet player in all styles I am playing.

Lucas Gillan said in the post, “If all you ever do is read notes on a page, you’ll never quite know what your instrument is capable of.” Nor will you discover what you are truly capable of across the whole range of the instrument.

Another post by Austin Consordini on the Making Music site took me into a different area- about the Seven Everyday Tasks That Every Jazz Player Must Do.

1. Clean Your Instrument
2. Practice Scales
3. Play Something by Ear
4. Practice Improvising
5. Listen to Music
6. Increase Your Repertoire
7. Practice Multiple Instruments

I don’t know whether he put these in this order for any particular reason, but I was struck by #1. Only in the past few years have I paid much attention to that one. How does regularly cleaning my horn make me a better musician? Personally, I have found that taking care of my trumpet is an expression of my caring about the music I am making. I don’t know if my sound or style changes with regular cleaning, but my feeling about my playing does. This reminded me of something else I have long observed. When I take my car to the car wash and get it cleaned inside and out, it “feels” like it drives better. I know it is my perception and reaction, but I feel more comfortable driving a clean car. My horn helps me make music! I need to be kind to it and take care of it!

The second item on the list takes me back to the idea of improvisation and knowing music overall. It is one thing- and an important one thing- to do the scale exercises in Arban’s. It is another to do the 12 major scales by doing them without music in front of you. Sometimes I work my way around the Circle of 4ths (C, F, Bb,…); sometimes I start at middle C and work up the notes to the next C and beyond; sometimes I start on G on the staff and expand down and up one note at a time. All this without music in front of me. It is “relatively” easier to do it from a written page, but I think I learn it more deeply when I don’t use the music. BUT, I found I also have to do scales from the written sheet so that when I see a piece of music in one of the scales, I know what I am looking at! It’s a “Both-And” situation.

I still have to do some work on the minor keys, though.

Playing by ear and practicing improvising have been covered earlier but they lead to the next two for me. The more music I listen to with attention and intention the broader becomes my understanding of music overall. That has then led me to the increase of my repertoire. Sometimes I do that through new or different etude books or some of the solo and etudes I have worked on in the past. Pulling out Mozart or Haydn or taking a fake book and working through the melodies can increase what I am discovering about music. A friend recently mentioned an etude book I had never heard of. I borrowed it and played through some of the pieces. I found them significantly different from any of my other etude exercises in ways that changed my listening skills.

In the end Consordini says in his post:

Becoming a jazz master takes living and breathing jazz music every day. You must be willing to dedicate time each day to mastering your instrument and sound. Being able to integrate these 7 steps into your everyday life will help you to be immersed in jazz and be on your way to becoming one of the greats yourself.

I may not become a jazz master, but I am improving as a musician by doing these things. Amazing how that works.

Tuning Slide 4.35- Health is Physical and Mental

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I’ll start with a confession from last week- I didn’t get to post anything. We have been traveling on our end of the winter “vacation” and things were going in all kinds of wonderful directions in Savannah, GA, that it never happened.

Two weeks ago I started a three-part series on life lessons to take away from being a musician. In that one I riffed on a post from the website, The Odyssey Online, where Amanda Gribbin reflected on Eight Life Lessons Through Music.

This week I turn to the website, Musicnotes Now.

[From their page: Musicnotes Now – A Noteworthy Blog for Seriously Fun Musicians. Bringing music lovers the latest news, tips, and products to help nourish their love for music.
“Now” is a blog brought to you by Musicnotes – the world leader in digital sheet music.]

There I discovered a post titled:
17 Surprising Health Benefits of Playing an Instrument

In the first section they talk about possible physical benefits including improved breathing, exercise, improved immune response, hearing, and stress reduction. The one item that I have had some experience with centers on the breathing and muscle improvement. I am a whiz at your normal, everyday standard “plank” exercise. My trainer was amazed the first time I did a solid two minute plank. He commented that not too many people my age (or even younger) could do a two-minute plank. A few weeks later we were discussing it again and he said, “I wonder if part of why you can do that so well is because you are a trumpet player and need to use your core?” I don’t know if that is true or not, but it gives some truth to the physical side of playing an instrument.

Perhaps the clearest benefits, and life lessons, however, can be found in the second area mentioned on the website, the mental benefits. Here these are with the comments from the article:

✓ Mental Performance
⁃ Playing music is like doing a workout for every part of your brain. It helps improve your mental performance and memory. There’s even evidence that music can help a patient’s brain recover from a stroke, as well as slow the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.

✓ Coordination
⁃ Using your fingers, hands, and feet in a rhythmic manner for a sustained amount of time, while also being conscious of playing the correct tones, can be a challenge for even the most coordinated people. Over time though, playing music refines your motor skills that go beyond the hand-eye.

✓ Time Management
⁃ Learning an instrument requires practice, of course! But more specifically, it requires consistency and routine. Figuring out how to fit practice into your busy schedule and really stick to it helps you develop better time management and organization skills.

✓ Reading Skills
⁃ Reading music helps strengthen your ability to process information by creating new connections between the synapses in your brain. As a result, reading and absorbing information from other sources becomes a lot easier.

✓ Listening Skills
⁃ Learning music doesn’t just improve your ability to hear details; it also makes you better at listening. Whether you’re practicing on your own or playing with other people, you have to listen for timing, expression, and whether you’re in tune. This can make you a better listener even in everyday conversations as well.

✓ Concentration
⁃ Focus is a necessary part of learning an instrument. Improving your musical skills forces you to use all the parts of your brain involved in concentration, making you better able to concentrate in other life situations. This is another reason why music is beneficial for those with disorders like ADD (-Link)

These are not empty ideas. There is a great deal of research as well as anecdotal observation that can point in these directions. Now, one must always ask, are people who improve in these ways drawn to music because they can do that? No, I think it is more than that. Sometimes I think there are people drawn to music because they know it will benefit them.

For example, I am aware of a young person who had some significant learning concerns, possibly on the autism spectrum. They were somewhat reserved and uncertain. Somewhere around 5th or 6th grade they decided they wanted to be a trumpet player. We all know of the reputation we trumpet players have for being front and center and obnoxiously self-centered. That does not seem to be the best way to go for a person who appears just the opposite. Yet, I knew that this young person was about to do something remarkable. I was right. I saw them regularly over the next six or seven years and the change was clear and consistent. They became a trumpet player in all the best ways and expanded into other musical endeavors. It worked to change this person and help them find new and exciting ways to enter into social and school situations.

Yes, it’s an anecdote, an observation made from short and infrequent contacts. But it is not unusual as the above ideas propose.

So, for you and me- we are already musicians. We have learned how to play the instrument. Perhaps we have had to struggle with time-management or focus. Perhaps we know that we could be sharper in our mental performance- we get lazy thinking periods- or we just get lazy. Is that how we want to live? Is that going to help us move forward in music AND in all the other areas of our lives?

I have learned more from being a musician about living and thinking and development. I know that musicians (and often other arts-types) have to do a great deal of work to become more than just mediocre. We know we can do it! We have been doing it. Some of us for a few months or years, some of us for decades. We are not done yet, but we are moving.

Probably in the end, the most important life lesson we get from music is that we can succeed. It is the sense of achievement that builds confidence that helps us move to other levels of achievement and on and on.

Nike had it right, “Just do it.” Then, when we have done it, keep doing it. Why? Because you know you can do it!

4.21: Tuning Slide- Creativity: Beyond Mastery

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you're passionate about something, then you're more willing to take risks.
— Yo-Yo Ma

We come to the tenth and last of Barry Green’s ten pathways to music mastery from his book, Mastery of Music.

10. Creativity: The Journey Into the Soul

Green starts right out by naming the problem:

Creativity is elusive. It is hard enough to describe, and difficult if not impossible to command. And yet when people tap into it, their thoughts take on a universality that can touch all of our lives.

He goes on to say that creativity fueled by curiosity that leads to answers from within:

[T]his business of looking inside is the key to an exploration of one’s own creativity. When we learn where to listen for the answers, we may hear the answers more often.

The end, he says, is to find a path to travel “deep into the soul.”

It would be nice to think that creativity is simply “do what moves you.” While that is part of it, it is only a very small part. Creativity, as Yo-Yo Ma says, is built on passion that allows one to be willing to take risks. But I for one don’t believe a pathway into the soul is aimless, narcissistic, or chaotic. There is, as we talked about a few weeks ago, a flow to it. There is getting “into a flow” and not just some wandering with no aim or hope of resolution. (Though sometimes in the midst of creative moments it may feel like that.)

Reading through Green’s chapter on creativity I found the following four ideas as essential on which our creativity is to be built in music.

✓ Sound
The perennial starting point of music. Sound is always the most important. But in creativity it is different than pulling out the tuner to be sure the sound is “in tune” whatever that might mean. Sound is the overall picture, the image the music is presenting, the emotions and feelings.

✓ Structure
Then there is the structure. What are your ideas that your creativity is forming? Structure is the dwelling place of the sound. It sets the boundaries, the highs and lows, the extremes and the solid base on which everything is to be built. Structure is not limiting, but gives the creativity the room to grow and move. Only then can creativity reach new ideas and new directions.

✓ Harmony
After structure we get into the next basic of music- harmony. Structure may tell us the key we want to play in, but harmony tells us how the chords and keys and notes relate to each other.

✓ Rhythm
This is where “flow” begins to be felt. How does the creative flow? What is its tempo, its variations in sound, its cycles of chords in a particular order? What does the movement of the idea feel like? I have been playing around with some composing and I found myself starting with a rhythm, a particular movement of different length notes. I didn’t know what structure it would have (eventually it became a variation on 12-bars). I didn’t know when notes would ascend, descend, or strike into dissonance. In this case it was the rhythm I wanted.

Last- but always:

Don’t forget the Soul!

That’s where we move beyond just creating, or just being creative and getting content. It is time to make some decisions. It is time for the depths of our persons and ideas and experience to begin to apply to what we are creating. Recently, the blog/newsletter Brainpickings referred to writer/doctor Oliver Sacks who talked about the early stages of being creative but who then understood that

Often, creators — be they artists or scientists — content themselves with reaching a level of mastery, then remaining at that plateau for the rest of their careers, comfortably creating more of what they already know well how to create. (Brainpickings)

Then they quote Sacks and his reflections:

Why is it that of every hundred gifted young musicians who study at Juilliard or every hundred brilliant young scientists who go to work in major labs under illustrious mentors, only a handful will write memorable musical compositions or make scientific discoveries of major importance? Are the majority, despite their gifts, lacking in some further creative spark? Are they missing characteristics other than creativity that may be essential for creative achievement — such as boldness, confidence, independence of mind?

It takes a special energy, over and above one’s creative potential, a special audacity or subversiveness, to strike out in a new direction once one is settled. It is a gamble as all creative projects must be, for the new direction may not turn out to be productive at all. (Brainpickings)

Sacks is telling us that in the end the growth and movement of creativity goes beyond simple mastery of the instrument, the form, the rhythm, whatever. It can, if we are willing to go there, tap the energy of your own life. He is telling us to keep at it. Let it grow, incubate, rumble, until, when ready, be born.

Barry Green ends the chapter, in essence moving beyond mastery:

When we open ourselves and our souls, by practice and inspiration, but also by listening and letting go, music comes to us not as something we command, but as a gift. It is a gift, too, that we should pass the gift of music along.

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out your horn.
— Charlie Parker

4.20- Tuning Slide: Confidence, Ego, and Humility

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

If you got a trumpet, get on your feet, brother, and blow it!
— Nick Cave (punk-rock musician)

That’s a call to confidence if I ever heard one. Barry Green in the book Mastery of Music that we have been looking at over these months lists the eighth and ninth pathways to mastery this way:

# 8: Confidence: From Bravura to Integrity (Trumpet)
# 9: Ego and Humility: From Fame to Artistry (Opera, Jazz, and Theater Singers)

What really is confidence? Green quotes a definition this way:

An accepted and unheralded evidence within a person that gives a person the unconscious knowledge that he/she is able to produce outstanding results in his/her chosen career under almost any circumstances. Full technical control is a must: this “evidence to oneself” provided by preparation and determination is what fosters confidence and it becomes stronger with experience.

He then lists some of the ways we develop confidence. Among them are:

◦ Preparation by Overpreparing
We are back at practice, practice, practice. If we think we can escape from that or make it optional because of how far we have advanced, forget it. Right now. Some truly advance players may get by with a daily “warm-up.” But that “warm up” will always include scales, chromatics, long tones, and all the basics. And it will usually be at least two to three hours a day. So practice is where confidence must start, not on some self-interpreted view of how good we are. This also includes knowing more than just what we are doing. Sometimes that means studying the music, reading about it, listening to recordings in order to find out where and how your part fits in. It’s all in the over preparing! As Green puts it, we are not just a “right-note” playing machine. We are making music.

◦ State Your Case with Passion and Meaning
Because of the over preparation, one does move beyond just playing the right notes. One also beings the excitement, the passion, the meaning of the music to life. My interpretation of that will be different from yours. If we are in a group together, we learn to state our understanding in relationship to the other musicians. That brings in the ability to listen and learn.

◦ Confidence is a Journey of Learning
Learning is what confidence opens us up to do. Paying attention in practice, rehearsal, and performance opens us to know what we need to do to move forward. Since we have over prepared, we have moved beyond “right-notes” to expressing ourselves. But that doesn’t always work. We get lost, make a mistake, get stuck. So learn from it. The next time, when we get it the way we want it, our confidence will be back.

◦ Stay Within Your Limits, (then) Don’t Think, Just Play
Needless to say, Green, as one of the teachers of the Inner Game, brings us around to allowing Self 2 to be in charge. Thinking is Self 1. By this time we have learned (Self 1) that we can do what we want to do. We then trust ourselves (Self 2) to do it. If we are honest about what we can do at this moment, we will know what is ready for public performance and what isn’t there yet. Staying within limits is NOT about only playing what you used to be able to play, it is about not moving on until Self 1 can shut up and let Self 2 move on.

How do we maintain and continue to build confidence? If we only rest on what we did last time, we will not grow as a musician nor develop confidence to do more than we did last time. Here are some of the ways Green mentions to help confidence grow:

◦ Focus on the Music, Not on What People Think of You
◦ Focus on What You Have Accomplished and What You Can Do
◦ Enjoy Your Anxieties- You are Not Alone
This last one can be tough. This may be where many give up, lose confidence, stop growing. I am not the first player to have flubbed playing Taps on Memorial Day (an old story.) But when I allowed that to become m identity as a solo trumpet player, my anxieties became too great and I couldn’t move beyond them. We grow in confidence when we we are honest with ourselves and move on.

Look, man, all I am is a trumpet player.
— Miles Davis

Confidence can build the image that trumpet players have been accused of. Green calls that “bravura,” the swagger and overt confidence we present even when we don’t have it. Trumpet players are not known for their quietness and humility. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! If anything it is a call to maintain our proper place in the band. That leads to humility. Humility, of course, can have a couple definitions. One is humility means that we are willing to be teachable. A second is to have a proper knowledge of our strengths and weaknesses. Confidence, built on humility is powerful. It will ring out with the sound of, well, trumpets.

It takes a healthy ego to become confident enough to be humble. What a seemingly paradoxical statement that is! Low self-esteem does not build confidence. Low self-esteem presents our weaknesses and uncertainties and set in stone. “Poor me, that’s just the way I am.” Healthy ego allows us to be truly humble. Oh, by the way, I am not sure we can work on becoming humble. “Look how hard I’ve worked and how successful I have become at being humble!” Not!

I have put these two pathways to mastery together because I believe that when one reaches the pathway of confidence the logical next step is moving away from negative ego to true humility. One cannot, or better not, become so enamored of one’s own sound on the instrument, especially trumpet, that we think we are far and above others. THAT is not confidence. That is unhealthy ego. But neither should the musician, especially the trumpet playing musician, be so shy as to hold back when they need to stand up and blow! Humility does not mean taking a back seat or being reserved when the situation calls for leadership. Musical leadership, whether one is a lead trumpet player or third clarinet, is found in the attentiveness to the music, the focus on one’s sound, and the ability to play well with others.

The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision.
You can't blow an uncertain trumpet.
—Theodore Hesburgh

4.18 Tuning Slide- Mastery of Music #7: Concentration

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

If you are interested in something, you will focus on it, and if you focus attention on anything, it is likely that you will become interested in it. Many of the things we find interesting are not so by nature, but because we took the trouble of paying attention to them.
― Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Pathway seven in Barry Green’s Mastery of Music is one we have talked about in many forms in a number of posts. Whether we are talking about mindfulness or the Inner Game we end up discussing

Concentration: The Spirit of the Zone.

Green describes zone as that point when a musician, artist, or athlete finds themselves moving through their tasks with an

assurance and presence, a sensitivity and precision beyond normalcy…. The focus shifts into a fluid awareness which seems able to tap effortlessly into the highest levels of artistry. The brain is the key to this state of peak performance, in music and in life.

One of the musicians Green interviewed said it is when the “performer is completely absorbed in the act of making music.” He goes on to point out that in spite of what we often think, concentrating on more than one task at a time just doesn’t work.
This of course is at the heart of Green’s writing on the Inner Game. When we can allow Self 2 to do its thing and not be distracted by the technicalities and criticisms of Self 1, we can enter into the flow.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi named the concept of “flow in 1975 and has been widely referred to in any different fields. It is also known as “being in the zone.” Flow

is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting loss in one's sense of space and time. (Link)

Requirements for flow can be:

◆ Intense and focused concentration on the present moment
◆ Merging of action and awareness
◆ A loss of reflective self-consciousness
◆ A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity
◆ A distortion of temporal experience, one's subjective experience of time is altered
◆ Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding

Owen Schaffer in 2013 proposed 7 conditions for flow that summarize the above list:

◆ Knowing what to do
◆ Knowing how to do it
◆ Knowing how well you are doing
◆ Knowing where to go
◆ High perceived challenges
◆ High perceived skills
◆ Freedom from distractions
(Link)

Just exactly what Barry Green and Timothy Gallwey have been saying about the Inner Game. There is an intuitiveness about flow, or perhaps better, a falling into a comfortable place where the tensions and issues around us fall away and we just do what we know how to do.

Some of the challenges to staying in flow include states of

◦ Apathy
⁃ Challenges are low and one's skill level is low producing a general lack of interest in the task at hand.

◦ Boredom
⁃ Challenges are low, but one's skill level exceeds those challenges causing one to seek higher challenges.

◦ Anxiety
⁃ Challenges are so high that they exceed one's perceived skill level causing one great distress and uneasiness.

These states in general differ from being in a state of flow in that flow occurs when challenges match one's skill level. Consequently, Csíkszentmihályi has said, "If challenges are too low, one gets back to flow by increasing them. If challenges are too great, one can return to the flow state by learning new skills.”
(Link)

Sadly, most of us do not get into “flow” as often or for as long as we would like. I have had it happen in concerts when we are playing some great work that I know well- like Holst’s Second Suite. I just “flow” into it with little thought to what I am doing. I put the trumpet to my face and blow with joy!

Most recently I was pleasantly surprised in a gig with one of the big bands I play in. I have a solo in one song that I have never been able to play well. I get lost, I lose concentration, I start judging myself. That often leads to a disaster. In the recent gig the piece came up and, a few songs before I could feel the tension rising. (Overly focused on Self 1) Then there was a change in the music order and I wasn’t sure when it would happen. (Lack of control took over!) I stopped wondering and just played the stuff in front of me. I was enjoying myself. I was as close to flow as I could get. Then my solo piece came up. No time to think. No time to get nervous. Put the horn to my lips and play like it was Holst or “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

It worked! I flowed through the piece. When I got lost, I still knew what I was doing. Skills have increased as did the ability to keep Self 2 out of the picture. I enjoyed it. Immensely. Was it a great solo? Well, greatness is relative. Compared to Wynton, no. Compared to that other me, well maybe it was at least good. And as we all know, in jazz there are no wrong notes- some just sound better than others!

How then do we get to the place where “flow” can happen? Well, working on my general principle of how we do anything is how we do everything, it is important to build opportunities for flow into all of our lives. No matter what it is, if we build it into our lives it won’t matter if we are playing music or digging post holes in the backyard. We can be in flow.

I think it is important to expect flow to come. That’s where deliberate practice comes in. That’s where intention and self awareness come into play. All the things we talk about here are put into action. Following what we said above- Increase skill and/or increase the challenges. We can avoid apathy, boredom, and anxiety.

More than that, develop a personal practice that involves some kind of mindfulness or meditation help. If we learn those type of things, they will work their way into your musicianship as much as the rest of your live. Acceptance, staying in the moment, living one-day-at-a-time kind of approach, will also build a reservoir of skill in this. Like Barry Green, I have also found that Tai Chi/Qigong are ways to build this attitude of flow. Yoga can be a more active way, as can riding a bike or running, to build experiences of flow.

And let’s not forget putting the earbuds in and enjoying good music.

[Note: Thought I would at least give an update on my return to playing after that 8-day hiatus last month. It took just about four weeks to get back to the basic level of range and endurance I had before the surgery. Admittedly I didn’t push it to get back more quickly. After all this is supposed to be fun, right?]

Tuning Slide 4.15- Mastery 5 & 6- Passion and Tolerance

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Real understanding does not come from what we learn in books; it comes from what we learn from love— love of nature, of music, of man. For only what is learned in that way is truly understood.
— Pablo Casals

I am looking this week at numbers 5 & 6 of the pathways for mastery of music from Barry Green’s book by the same name.

First:

Passion- The Power of Love

Apart from the other ideas, Green talks about three kinds of passion that relates to the theme:

✓ Passion for Life
Green shares the quote from Pablo Casals at the top of this post. It says it all. While it is not directly connected to music, without a passion for life, the learning from love, we don’t truly experience the passions involved in music. How does my passion for life infect and grow my music?

✓ Passion for Music
Am I “in love” with music? One of the reasons that music can often inspire others is that the musician has a passion for it. It can be an expression of our own souls. Passion compels us, moves us, helps us do what we are “passionate” about. In that we grow- and, reflecting Casals, it is how we learn best. With passion like that, music can even define who we are. There are groups of excellent musicians who play mechanically, and there are those who play passionately. When the two come together it is a moment of grace.
That may be the reason why a “live” performance sounds more alive than a recording from a studio session. It may explain why the remarkable Miles Davis album, Kind of Blue, is so alive. It was done in few takes and continues to be an expression of the passion in that studio.

✓ Passion Within the Music
Music itself touches feelings that words alone cannot. Some music is so passionate that a simple phrase or measure from the piece can cause goosebumps. Others can make us get up and move. The music triggers things that go beyond simply emotions to the heart of who we are as humans. I know my soul is grabbed and moved, even when I don’t understand why. When that happens I am participating in the music I am hearing. Green says:

As musicians we get to put our lives down, set our personalities aside, and jump into the middle…, to join with others in recreating [the] great moments in musical history. This is way beyond fun. At its best it is a spiritual experience, an act of human passion and skill that can be as beautiful as a crystal, a rainbow, or a brilliant sunset.

What an honor!

While our passion can and does come from all kinds of experiences and places, it must be alive within our imagination, says Green, when we first look at the piece. This is part of what I said last week about learning the piece before playing it. It should start, he says with imagination, not the technical. What is the best sound of the piece? Then organize it. Make it into art. He quotes a soloist who points out that you can throw a bucket of paint on the floor in a fit of anger. It will express anger, but it won’t be art. Art takes discipline along with the imagination.

In my mind that is why practice involves discovering the passion in my soul that is touched by the passion of the music.

In the end, says Green, passion is love. That, he says, is what

brought most of us into the wonderful world of music in the first place. One of the greatest challenges, whether in life, work, or relationships, is to keep that love alive.

The seventh pathway Green talks about is

Tolerance: The View from the Middle

This is the “quietist” and least self-assertive of the ten pathways. Yet it is a critical component for achieving “interpersonal and musical harmony in any ensemble.” Management needs to have this in any ensemble, and the people who exhibit it become the glue holding the orchestra, band, or ensemble together. The support they give, the work they do both within the music and the group as a whole, is what gets people to work together. You all know the “solid” group member, the musician who, while not flashy or out-front, is the one we all count on to keep the group focused and moving.

Green calls this tolerance. It is an attitude. It is not about convincing or changing others. It is about maintaining our own personal balance even in the midst of uncertainty. Tolerance comes from being comfortable in one’s own skin. It recognizes that none of us is essential to the group as individuals. No one of us can be an ensemble. Music is made in community where hostility and tension must be addressed and defused or the music will not happen. Flexibility and collaboration enter in.

We can all share a part in this. When we develop our own “tolerance” and openness to the group as a whole, we are providing a safe place for taking chances and a space for each to grow. Green says that this even includes support and tolerance even for your competitors. A musical performance is not a competition among the musicians. It is a common experience where we discover what happens when our passion is woven together with the passion of others.

Then we are an ensemble- a working, organic group, not just an assembly of individual musicians. This is more difficult than it sounds, but each musician can help make it happen. It is a quiet, but essential pathway to making better music.

Tuning Slide 4.14- Finding Motivation

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Amateurs Practice Until They Get It Right;
Professionals Practice Until They Can’t Get It Wrong
- Various Sources

Last week I focused on Barry Green’s insights on discipline as one of the pathways to mastery of music. While I didn’t talk very specifically or at length about it, we all know what discipline means.

Practice.

I have had a love-hate relationship with the idea of practice no matter what the area of discipline. I played basketball (very poorly I must say) in my sophomore year in high school. Practice was lousy! No fun! Boring! The lack of willingness to really practice was the reason my parents in 4th grade decided I should quit piano lessons. Then came the trumpet. It would be fun and neat; then it would be dull and boring. Anytime I hook on to something new in my trumpet playing it goes along well for awhile, then it gets, well, the same-old-same-old. In other words- boring. Let’s see how fast I can play my long tones so I can move to something else. (What an ironic statement!)

Then I get interested again, for example in improving my sound and back I go to the more disciplined version of long tones, Clarke #1, etc. The new excitement, even of the same routine, can last for weeks, even into months, but it may easily get lost again. The question will always become, “What is motivating me at the moment and how can I expand and extend it?” Green raises that question in his book and went searching for answers from other professional musicians. These are the four sources of motivation that he found:

◆ Competition: Like Green, I am not a big fan of competition, but an audition or enforced competition between musicians by directors can be a motivating factor. I think The third and fourth motivators below are actually what make it work.

◆ Required Performance: Personally, this is probably my biggest motivating factor. When I know I am going to be playing this piece in public performance, I will make sure I know my part and become familiar with it. Again, the next two factors are probably most at work.

◆ Pride (i.e to prevent embarrassment): If I believe I am a good enough musician to play the piece, I don’t want to embarrass myself, either in rehearsal or in performance. My pride could take a hit and down goes my skills. I have related before the incident playing Taps when I was in high school that had more of an impact on my skills than any other single, negative event. That was a Self 1 issue, but I was embarrassed and have worked ever since so it doesn’t happen as often as I am afraid it will.

◆ Fear: The last phrase in the last one may say it all- afraid. The source of anxiety that has perhaps motivated more of my practice than anything else.

Of course my greatest motivator is the music itself. I continue to play music and work at improving my musicianship because I really do love it! The week I had earlier this month when I was unable to practice or play due to surgery was really tough. The evening I picked up the trumpet and produced a tone was a release of tension that I really needed. I play because of the music and the fun I get from it, but the other motivators move me to improve and grow as a musician and as a person.

Which leads to think again about disciplined practice. Those four motivators that Green described are what keep me digging into new things and taking lessons when and where I can. If all I wanted was to just play and doodle around on the instrument, I wouldn’t have to do those long tones or the Clarke, Schlossberg, and Arban exercises. I wouldn’t work on the Getchell pieces to see what I can do next. I would just pick up the horn and blow. But I wouldn’t be getting any better. I would feel as if I was just “good enough,” and that’s okay. But it isn’t. At least not for me.

We learn what we practice and we practice what we learn.
We spend too much time practicing our mistakes.

I saw one of those memes on Facebook that said I hate to give up my bad habits or mistakes. I spent a lot of time doing them. When I rush through the long tones or play a Clarke exercise as a throw-away, I am simply ingraining my mistakes, or at least my less than good habits. When I pay attention and work at it intentionally, I am rewiring my brain (and fingers, lips, etc.) to do it better.

Therefore: don’t practice mistakes

Green has a number of insights into this as well:

Learn first, then practice. Study the part before you play it is what he’s talking about. This is the first step of “sight-reading.” We know how to do that, we just don’t do it as often as we need to. Look at:
◦ key and time signatures
◦ key changes
◦ dynamic markings
◦ Repeats and coda

In a sense, as Green suggests, we need to “practice away from the instrument.” This may mean singing the piece. No, you don’t need to sing the right pitch, etc., but after you have sung it through, you will no longer be sight-reading!

He then suggests that we use the acronym STOP to help us focus, especially when we get to difficult parts or are having some problems in an area:
Stop
Think
Organize
Proceed

In other words, don’t go barreling through and learning the mistake instead of the right way.

Practice slow, is what he suggests next. The age-old adage that we seldom do. Slow it down. The faster I play, especially as I am learning the piece, the more likely I am to learn the mistakes. And once I do that, I will be certain to play the mistake more often than the correct way because that is what I have learned. Green quotes another musician that “legato is a doorway to velocity!”

In the end he is saying that we are to find “the beautiful voice inside” each one of us. The instrument, we all have been told, is an extension of the voice within us. It is an external version of the song and music that is part of who we are. Effective and efficient practice allows that voice to expand and live.

These thoughts on motivation and practice are actually more important than we realize. Most of the time we think we have to rely on “will power” to move us to do things like this. In reality will power is a limited quantity. We can get tired, exhausted, by exerting will power. That is when the motivation of fun can make all the difference. I have found that the better I get at being a musician, the more fun I am having. The more fun I am having, the more motivated I am to practice so I can have more fun.

What a great cycle to be part of.

Tuning Slide 4.13- Mastery # 3 & 4: Discipline and Joy

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability.
-Roy L. Smith

Last month I posted the first two in a series discussing the “pathways to true artistry” that Barry Green outlined in his book, The Mastery of Music, his follow-up to the groundbreaking Inner Game of Music. In each of them he looks at musicians and outlines a different pathway they embody. The first was communication, the second was courage. For the third and fourth pathways he talks about Discipline and Fun. First let’s look at

Discipline: The Way of the Will

Just by the name, this sure sounds like it’s going to be a lot of work. Discipline! Nose to the grindstone! All that wonderful stuff that sounds dull, boring, and keeps us from enjoying life. Yet a quick search for quotes about it finds more motivational statements than we can ignore. Without it, we are told over and over, we get nowhere! We will never get to where we want to go! We will never reach our goals.

In short, as Barry Green notes, discipline is simply another way of talking about maintaining focus. We lose our focus, we lose sight of what we want and what our intentions are. We lose the interest and excitement of the possibilities- and we stop. Green describes this in Inner Game terms by saying that loss of discipline or focus is taking Self 1’s criticisms as gospel that we will never make it to where we want to be- so why bother. Discipline instead, he says is choosing to follow Self 2’s assurance that “I can do this!”

He of course talks about goals in all of this. Discipline for the sake of discipline may make us focused and intentional- but to what end? Why do we want to do this? Why do we want to discipline ourselves, often taking the more intense road when we could just sit back and relax? What are my goals? Of course, as we all know there are different levels of goals- long-, medium-, and short-term:

✓ Long-term goals: These are the dreams that we have. They can be years- or even lifetime-long goals.

⁃ Somewhere back in the dimness of my adolescence I committed in some way or another to the dream of being a trumpet player. It was more than just for the few years of high school and college. It never went away. My goal has always been to be a musician in more than just name. It was something that was deep inside me. It has informed and guided so much of what I have done as a trumpet player, but also as an amateur guitar player, or wannabe composer.

✓ Medium-term goals: These are the goals for the next 12- to perhaps 18-months. These are steps along the way to achieving that long-term goal.

⁃ At different points in my life I had some to none in this area. Usually it was just getting ready for the next Christmas or Easter at church. Then it was the summer community band season. Then it became a year-round community band season. That long-term goal was always underneath it all, but lots of other things kept me from really getting down and dirty with the discipline needed. Time- I was after all a full-time pastor, husband, and then father. The overall medium-term goal was simply not to lose what I had of being the musician I wanted to be. That meant I had to keep looking for times and places to practice, even without a concert or performance goal.

✓ Short-term: These are the goals for the next week to month. These are the goals needed to become more adept at the musicianship on an almost micro-level. Where do I need to focus (!) more specifically? What needs work? Where can I find what I need to learn?

⁃ Late last month, for example, I said my goal was to have a lesson sometime by mid-October. I had been working on the things from the last couple lessons and I needed to make some plans. A few beyond-my-control issues cropped up that have delayed this, but by the time this is posted, I hope to have one scheduled. I was also aware the other week that I needed to be more specific on the practice routine of slow and even, with discipline needed on making a fuller sound. That was my focus for the week before I had to take some time off due to surgery.

Even at my age and place in life, that first long-term goal has been maintained. It has gotten a little more focused thanks to The Shell Lake Big Band and Trumpet Workshops and I have discovered more tools and directions than I ever thought possible. I am probably the best trumpet player I have ever been. I am doing things that I only dreamed of. A long-term goal like mine can be an end in and of itself. I find incredible pleasure out of being able to do what I do and to play the music I am playing.

Over fifty years ago my HS band director assigned me the 1st Characteristic Study from the Arban’s book. If there has been an unspoken long-term goal for me over these fifty years it is to be able to play that. I have worked on it in various ways over the years, but never with discipline. A couple years ago I made a medium-term goal of working on it. I didn’t succeed very well due to a number of things. But I kept working on my musicianship, my articulation skills, my sound, my sight-reading. About a month ago I started a disciplined approach and found that I was actually closer to playing it than I have ever been.

After this brief surgery-caused hiatus my short-term goal is to make progress on the middle two sections of that study, the two that are my least polished. It is a very clear short-term goal, based on the medium-term goal of increased musicianship, undergirded by the long-term dream of being a trumpet player! Arban’s #1 will add one more example to my growth.

I will look more into the practice aspect of all this next week, but I don’t want to end without mentioning the fourth pathway to true artistry:

Fun: The Joy in Music

If this weren’t fun and fulfilling, I wouldn’t be doing it! I would have long ago given up and sold the trumpet. (I know- unbelievable, huh?) Fun is essential. As I said a few weeks ago- we “play” music, we don’t work it. Music touches my soul. It energizes and directs and moves me. Especially playing it. This past week of not being able to play has been difficult. I have been out of sorts. There is a piece of my joy missing.

But more on that next week. Until then- Stay focused. Be disciplined. Self 2 knows you can do it. So do it!

Tuning Slide 4.10- Mastery of Music #2: The High Road

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Success is not final, failure is not fatal:
it is the courage to continue that counts.
― Winston S. Churchill

A few weeks ago I posted the first in a series discussing the “pathways to true artistry” that Barry Green outlined in his book, The Mastery of Music, his follow-up to the groundbreaking Inner Game of Music. In each of them he looks at musicians and outlines a different pathway they embody. The first was “communication”- the silent rhythm as found in conductors and ensembles. For the second pathway he looks to the French horn and percussion for his ideas. They, he says, can teach us about

Courage: Choosing the High Road.

Music, Green tells us, has little (to no) tolerance for error. Unlike many sports where errors can win games (or lose them), music is far less flexible. Imagine if Doc Severinsen missed one of every 15 to 20 notes he played. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but we, the audience would get the feeling that it was time for him to retire. Every time we play in performance we get only one chance to get it right. We could come in early or late, loud or soft, crisp or mushy articulation, in one or out. All kinds of things can happen in the middle of the piece. Four measures before, we can’t call a time-out to make sure we are ready; we can’t ask for a do-over.

Green says it takes courage to face this performance after performance. He goes on to look at courage from the inside. Watching someone be “courageous” we may often think that they have no fear. In fact it looks like the opposite. In reality we are seeing fear that someone knows how to deal with. “Keep going,” the horn player reminds us as they play one of the trickier instruments. “Don’t stop,” says the percussionist who is almost always a soloist. This is, Green reminds us, “to go for it in spite of the fear of negative consequences should you fail.” That is “choosing the high road.”

That Green says is a “joyous choice.”

They “go for it” because of the “beauty of music and the joy of playing it.” Any musician who has played in a public performance knows that beauty and joy. Last week the director of the local community band arrived at rehearsal literally beaming. We were going to sight-read what he felt was one of the greatest wind band numbers- one that most of us have never played or even heard of. He was joyous that he could direct and we could play the piece. And no, it wasn’t a simple piece. But we played it- sight-reading the whole 15-minute piece.

Yes, it was a joy! Of course it didn’t take courage to do that in rehearsal. But it is in rehearsal that we learn the music and the beauty it has so we can play what it takes when it comes to the performance. Later in the same rehearsal we played another piece that was new to many of us. We got to the end and the three of us trumpets sitting together looked at each other. “That was hard,” one of us said with a smile. “Yes, but wow, was it fun!” another said. We all agreed.

The music goes on and the parts must be played! If we can’t deal with our fears and doubts we better decide to do something else. We will inevitably get stuck in that spot. I have told that story of my nearly 50 years of fear of a solo here before. It kept me stuck in many ways. It prevented me from taking a new leap into my musicality. I lacked the courage to fail. Again.

Let me be clear that the courage Green and I are talking about is not the courage to face those potentially life-altering events of ultimate success or failure. If I fail in a solo or play that F natural when it should be an F# the world, mine or anyone else’s is not going to fall apart. But courage is a very broad term that can have all kinds of subtle or explosive meanings. It takes my own courage to get through my fears. Even when it is “simply” playing the solo in the 2nd movement of Holst’s Second Suite.

When we come to those moments, Green calls it a fork in the road. (No Yogi Berra jokes.) One fork leads to the music in it’s beauty and power; the other leads to doubt, hesitation, or paralysis, says Green. So how do we move into the musical fork? He gives us four ways.

1. Be prepared. Practice- and then more practice- increases the familiarity with the music and reminds you that you are ready. Courage can often just be preparation. When you doubt you have the skills or haven’t prepared, Green reminds us, we are choosing to fail- to take the low road.

2. Don’t panic- keep focused. Stay with the music. Feel it, get its sense and rhythm and flow. Go with it. Know what you can do, not what you can’t.

3. Remind yourself of what brought you to this moment. Why do we do this crazy thing called music? Why do I take the time every day, day in and day out, to practice? Why did I get started in it in the first place? Play with that passion.

4. Believe in yourself. Self 2 can do this. Let it happen. When we have practiced and know the music, we can play with conviction and that will show in the music that comes out.

Channel your fear and courage. Take the adrenaline that pumps in the fear response and use it to the positive production of your music. It is extra energy that can be focused into heightened sense and increased awareness. The mindfulness that ensues will allow your self 1 to let go and trust self 2.

This is the courage to follow dreams. As we do this, we find that our soul will be enriched and skills will be strengthened that we can use to move the music into places we never thought we could go. In the end courage is not really overcoming fear, Green says, it is knowing that you are ready to give as honest a performance as possible.

And maybe even more!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is the piece that our director was excited about. It is Holst’s Moorside Suite. The third movement, The March, is incredible.