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Solving the Puzzles of Music

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Learn to Enjoy Music with Your Personal Music Listening Ritual

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Take some lessons with any decent, competent music teacher and you’ll very likely get the following advice:

  • practice (you know it doesn’t work without it)
  • train your ears
    (if you haven’t already, definitely try the functional ear training method)
  • repeatedly listen to great music
  • transcribe as much as possible
  • imitate and absorb the greats
  • increase your musical vocabulary

And eventually as a result you’ll start to spit out original music. Excellent advice – I totally support it and urge my students all the time to do the same.

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Functional Ear Training – A Great Way to Train Your Ears

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You need to develop many essential skills to move forward as a musician:

A classic picture of Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven contemplating functional ear training 😉
  • good technique on your instrument
  • a great rhythmic feel
  • knowledge of stylistic interpretation
  • improvising
  • reading music, chord charts, tab
  • the know-how to arrange music
  • an understanding of basic recording technology
  • “working” your equipment [synth(s), effects, software]
  • promoting your music
  • people skills (band members, managers, at venues)

But your most prized possession as a musician is…

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The Challenge of the Month Concept

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You do have a practice plan, right? It’s one of the most important tools for any musician. But what do you put on your practice plan?

You list the important basics, the cool playing techniques, all the styles you’d like to get into, the tunes to master… You put everything on your plan and you end up with a gargantuan practice schedule that’s totally impractical and even counterproductive.

Confused by the many options?

Why? Because it’s not sustainable.

You have a life to live. There’s family, friends, social activities, work (best case scenario in music), other hobbies. You have responsibilities and commitments that prevent you from practicing 24/7.

So basically there’s a limited amount of time available and a seemingly unlimited amount of material to practice. No wonder you feel overwhelmed and frustrated.

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Mind Mapping for Musicians

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A mind map about mind mapping for musicians
A mind map about mind mapping for musicians

2021-03-31 – Update: this post was initially published in 2011. (Time does fly.) The general gist and principles presented have held up nicely. But I’ve made minor edits and added another software alternative.

Mind mapping is an extremely powerful tool. It’s easy to quickly capture your brainstorms and then to organize them and get a visual overview.

The main idea and concept is to start from a central topic and branch out – grouping together all your associated ideas and thoughts. This lets you see and explore what’s in your mind and discover new ideas and relationships.

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