By Jamey Andreas (www.guitarprinciples.com)
Well,
at the risk of employing a terminology that could lead to endless and possibly
embarrassing metaphors, I will adhere to a little principle of teaching that
seems to be quite successful. That is, when I latch onto a useful and
sometimes revelatory concept, I will use the same imagery and verbal
translation that occurs naturally to me, to make someone else aware of the
same thing. It seems to work. For myself, I have to give some kind of name to
everything that I experience, in order to begin to really grasp it and get to
know it. Of course, feel free to create your own imagery and phraseology.
One
such concept arose just recently in a lesson with my student Cathy, who is
working through Mel Bay #1, and is halfway through it. I think of this concept
as "getting the juices flowing" for the music you are playing, and I
mean the "emotional juices". In this lesson, Cathy played through a
piece in the book, a chord melody arrangement of "Careless Love",
(p.34) which had the melody being played by the thumb, and accompaniment
chords with the fingers. She played it quite well technically, but it had
nothing musical about it. Even though Cathy had spent a lot of time doing
correct practice on this, so that she was able to play the notes in time, and
technically, it sounded like music, their was one ingredient she was leaving
out: herself.
Now,
in all fairness, this is a very normal occurrence at this stage of
development. There are a whole lot of technical things that Cathy is dealing
with at this point, and when dealing with so many technical issues it is easy
to "forget" the entire reason we do all the practice that we do,
which is to give life to the music, to make it alive. And this only happens
when we give ourselves, emotionally, to the music.
Let
me elaborate.
Especially
because of the way I teach, with its emphasis on the physical and technical
aspect of playing, it is very easy for someone to get the impression that the
non-physical and non-technical aspects of music, what we would call the
musical, artistic, and spiritual aspects of playing, are of lesser importance.
So, let me make this perfectly clear: that is NOT TRUE! That is no more true
than that the beginning of a journey is more important than the middle or the
end. Or that the bottom of a building is more important than the top. That is
wrong thinking.
But,
it is true that we don't get to the middle or end of the journey without going
through the beginning. And we can't build the top of the building until we
build the bottom. And the bottom of the guitar playing building is the
physical dimension of playing. It's just that plain old fact that we play a
physical guitar with our physical body, and if that part isn't working right,
you can have all the feeling inside you want, but you're not going to get it
out, at least not through the guitar (maybe air guitar can help).
In
addition, there is a pitiful lack of proper guidance in the physical area, and
that is why I stress it so much and so often. But, and here is the BIG BUT: if
you don't begin to relate to the music emotionally, as quickly as possible,
your development as a guitarist will be severely stifled.
It's
just like learning a language. How good do think you could possibly ever be at
speaking a foreign language, if you never actually understood the meaning of
the words you were speaking? You would not be able to express any emotion with
your speech, that's for sure.
The
"meaning" in the language of music is emotion, its what we feel. If
I am playing music, and I am not feeling anything from that music, and from me
playing it, then you as a listener are not going to feel anything either, in
which case, we would probably all get up and wonder what we were doing there!
Music IS emotion, and if you play it, you are obligated to have an emotional
relationship with it, and the deeper the better. Would you want to be in the
audience listening to someone give a speech about something they didn't even
care about? If you are playing music, especially for other people, and you are
not feeling anything about the music as you play, then don't bother.
You
cannot learn to play the guitar if you are not having an emotional experience
from your playing. Without your emotional involvement with your playing, the
music will be like a lifeless corpse. You breath the spirit into the music
with your involvement.
After
Cathy played, I had to wonder what the level of her involvement with the music
was. I said, "Cathy, do you know this song? Do you know the words? Do you
know what they mean? Do you even know what the melody is. (I suspected not,
because she played the accompaniment chords as loudly as the melody. It should
be softer, to bring out the melody.) No, she didn't know. Now, I don't mind
the fact that it is my job as her teacher to make sure that she is doing her
part, and is relating to the music emotionally, but I hope that she goes out
of her way to make it happen next time.
Along
with the Mel Bay, we happen to be using also a folk song book that has this
song in it. I played the song, sang it, and even explained the inner meaning
of the words to "Careless Love", about the time-honored theme of
someone having to suffer the results of bad judgment in their love life. I did
whatever I had to do to start to get her to have some feeling about the notes
she is playing.
So,
everyone out there, those working through the Mel Bay, and those not: know
that it is your responsibility to be enjoying yourself when you make music, it
is your responsibility to be having a musical experience when you make music!
And that means having an emotional experience. Now, maybe some of you are
saying, well hey, everybody's not the emotional type, you know. So, here's my
answer: if you're going to make music, GET emotional. Figure it out somehow,
and start doing what you are supposed to be doing as a musician: being the
conduit, the bridge between the feeling and emotional power in the music and
the human beings who are listening because they want the power of that music.
Don't forget, it is the power of life, that's why all human beings crave it.
And also, as study after study shows, music is one of the greatest healing
powers known to man, because most of mankind's problems are emotional in
nature, and music heals and transforms our emotional selves.
Do
not make the mistake that so many guitar students make. Do not carry around,
unknowingly, the belief system that says "I need to wait until I qualify,
until I can play really fast and impress people, to be able to say I am a
musician, and I am making music and enjoying it." Do not wait, get to
that place as soon as possible. Just get the right attitude and information
about what it really takes to become a good musician, and let the process
unfold. You'll get better as you go along, but don't put off enjoying the
actual music you are making.
Once
someone knows how to practice correctly, and the body begins to be trained and
come under your command, as Cathy is experiencing, and the notes are,
gradually being transformed into music because of your developing
skill, then, seize the moment. Listen to yourself, enjoy it, add the emotional
element, enjoy combining your own self with the music to make it your own, as
you would if you were studying a character in a play that you had to act in,
and you were deciding upon your interpretation. Discover what the music means
to you, and what it makes you feel.
If
the answer is "nothing", you need to take a serious look at your
ability to be present with the music, your ability to "get
involved". That can be worked on, like anything else, but you need to
know its importance, and exactly where you do stand with it all. Understand
that even if you start to play the notes clearly and in time, if you are not
emotionally involved, it will not become music. And if you are not emotionally
involved, well then what are doing it for anyway?
For
myself, if I am preparing a piece of music for a concert or for recording, I
have to play it for a while, get to know it, bond with it. I have called this
Level Three practice in "The Principles", where practice is,
essentially, playing, and a full emotional relationship to the music is
explored and established (as opposed to Level One practice, where the
microscopic details of technique are dealt with). Level Three practice is the
fun part.
Get
your juices flowing for the music as soon as possible with everything you
play. I was trying to get this across to another student, who has played for
about a year and had played increasingly complex pieces from some method book
before lessons with me, but had never done anything as simple as try to pick
out the melody of some song he loved. He was amazed as I helped him do that,
kind of trial and error finding his way to the notes. It reminded me of the
time when I had been playing for probably about two weeks, and I figured out
the notes to a song I loved "Long Black Veil". I was hysterically
happy to play it on the guitar, even single notes! I wasn't about to wait
until I was really a guitar player to start enjoying it!
Always
know the melody of anything you are playing. Don't play something like the
little arrangements in a method book like Mel Bay, and not be clear on what
you are doing musically. Know when you are playing a texture that has a melody
with supporting chord accompaniment, and know which fingers are doing what.
Ask your teacher for help on that. Be able to sing that melody, and sing it
often. Many professional musicians spend a long time just studying the music
before ever actually touching the guitar.
Don't
wait to enjoy yourself playing. It doesn't have to be perfect, it will get
better. And it doesn't have to be complicated. Musical feeling is real simple.
Unless it is added to the process, the process doesn't occur. Not anymore than
you could eat a steak without your body showing you its involvement in the
enterprise by starting to salivate just looking at it and smelling it. Make
sure those emotional juices are flowing when you play, and the sounds you are
making will become alive, for your self, and your listeners.
.
http://www.guitarprinciples.com/Taking_Lessons/Taking%20Lessons.htm
Copyright 2002 Jamey Andreas.