I always tell my students that the only thing you have to offer music is to be completely yourself and play or sing from that space.

 

Nobody needs to hear copies when we can go to the original source.  (Ok, so cover or theme bands are fun, but they cater for a different entertainment niche).

 

I come from a Jazz music background and one of the things that I love about this art form is the uniqueness of each artist.

 

When you hear Ella Fitzgerald, there is no mistaking it’s her, the same with Billy Holiday or Charlie Parker (despite his numerous imitators) and Louis Armstrong.

 

You could say the same for any artists who live on in music’s memory.  Amy Winehouse, Michael Jackson or bands like, Radio Head, not to mention many of the ‘80s bands such as Culture Club or the Cure (loved them when I was a wee teen!) and I can think of so many more.

 

In fact, these artists, who have made it onto the pages of history, have one thing in common – they all have a distinctive and instantly recognisable voice.

 

When you call someone you know on the telephone, they recognise your voice, so we are all original and authentic but it’s up to us to be able to let others see and hear that.

 

Being authentic can be challenging because it means you have to:

 

• Allow people to see who you really are;
• Be able to be present and in the moment;
• Develop an ability to listen on a deep level;
• Be unafraid and take risks;
• Make meaningful statements;
• Allow yourself creative freedom; and
• Play music from a place of generosity and positiveness – a place of love.

 

In this series I want to detail, and give you exercises on, each of these aspects so you may be able to cultivate them in within yourself.

 

I will also use a few examples to help illustrate the points made.

 

TRANSPARENCY

 

Many of us live our everyday lives hiding what we really think or how we really feel from people.

 

This has become such a habit, we don’t even realise we are doing it but the question is, why do we do it?

 

Most of the time, the answer to that question is fear.

 

We are afraid of what people might think of us or afraid of hurting others’ feelings or afraid of being hurt by others.  Therefore, we are not truly honest in a lot of situations.

 

Something I have learned is that all our actions either stem from FEAR or LOVE.

 

This is an interesting concept to ponder and leads us to the first exercise.

 

Exercise 1

 

The purpose of this exercise is to enable you to observe yourself and be aware of when you are truly being yourself .  It is vital to know, when you are  playing music, whether you are being free with it or restricting it.  This stems directly from whether you are being freely yourself or not.

 

For one day observe yourself and your interactions with others and ask yourself.

 

• Was I being totally honest in my interaction with that person?
• Why?
• Was this ultimately motivated by Fear or Love?

 

Get yourself a notebook and examine at least three aspects of your day and ask yourself these questions… I bet you get some good lyrics for a song!

 

You don’t have to delve into this deeply but just think about it and try to answer the questions.

 

Now, let’s look at this concept in regard to music.

 

Making music often confronts us with our fears and I think just about all of you will have an experience of fear in relation to music.

 

On closer inspection, often the fear is this:

 

We are afraid of not sounding “good” and therefore afraid that we are not “good” enough to be playing music.

 

But what does sounding good mean?

 

Does sounding “good” necessarily mean we will make good music?

 

What is good music?

 

How do we measure it? And,

 

Who decides what’s good?

 

Following are three very different and distinct distinct musicians.  Listen to them and answer the above questions.

“Fairytale of New York” was released as a single in 1987 and reached #1 in the Irish charts and #2 in the British charts over Christmas (the time of peak sales). The song has become a festive classic in the UK and Ireland over the years, and was voted the best Christmas song of all time three years running in 2004,[18] 2005[19] and 2006 in polls by music channel VH1 UK, despite not achieving Christmas Number One when it was released. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pogues

Although Waits’ albums have met with mixed commercial success in his native United States, they have occasionally achieved gold album sales status in other countries. He has been nominated for a number of major music awards and has won Grammy Awards for two albums, Bone Machine and Mule Variations. In 2010, Waits was chosen to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.[3][4]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Waits

Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan,[1] April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed “Lady Day” by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing. Her vocal style, strongly inspired by jazz instrumentalists and pioneered a new way of manipulating phrasing and tempo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Holiday

 

 

Here are my answers to the questions I asked you to consider.  You don’t have to agree with me and I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

 

What does sounding good mean?

 

It means different things to different people and is a matter of taste.  Something that  sounds good to you, won’t sound good to another person.  Therefore, you will never be able to please everyone with your sound.

 

Does sounding “good” necessarily mean we will make good music?

 

Sounding good really has nothing to do with whether music is engaging or not.  It seems to me that performance and honesty, or transparency, which these artists display, have a lot more to do with a quality end product than perfection or prettiness of sound.   They all simply sound like themselves.

 

What is good music?

 

Well, this is a hugely philosophical question which has no right or wrong answer.  Although, Duke Ellington did say there are only two types of music, “good music and bad music”.

 

How do we measure it?

 

I think any piece of art that evokes a strong emotional response, either negative or positive, is doing its job.  If music doesn’t move you in any way, I think we could say it’s not good.

 

Who decides what’s good?

 

You do.

 

These musicians accept their sound, who they are, and are not afraid to share it with us, even if it doesn’t conform to the notion of “beauty”, “good” or “right”.  That’s what I admire and strive for in my own music.

 

Exercise 2

 

In your next practice session, play a song in the “ugliest” way you possibly can.  Record it if possible and listen back.

 

You will be surprised at the results and you may even find the great inner musician lurking within!

 

The first step to creating authentic music is to learn to accept yourself and be that person.  However, before that can even happen you need to know when you are truly being you.

 

I hope these exercises help you to become a bit clearer on this point and in the next article we will look at what it means to be present and in the moment and what it means to listen.

A couple of days ago I was driving and I happened to hear this talk on the radio.  I thought it was vital that I share it with you….

 

Since then, I have given Arianna’s talk much thought and tried to put into practice what she is promoting.

 

This is not always easy with a 14 month old baby and to all you parents out there, yes, I hear you.

 

However, as with anything else, when you give sleep a bit more priority in your life, you can actually do yourself some big favours.

 

I believe what Arianna is saying is the truth and it’s vital for all of us to hear.

 

It is much too easy to be sidetracked in the evenings by activities which do not really add to our quality of life but can actually diminish it.  These include;

 

• Watching too much television – you could read a book, which usually does the trick of putting me to sleep!  Or, make sure you only watch one show, not two or three making you stay awake at night.  It can be so easy for this to happen, then you are missing out on the vital sleep you need to be more productive and creative.

 

• Staying on the computer and surfing the internet – Again, this activity is sure to help you miss out on essential sleep and is not very productive.  I think it is important to be very aware when on the internet, to stay focussed on what you wish to achieve and be hyper-vigilant about being sidetracked.

 

• Socialising and drinking etc – I am not saying “Don’t do this.”  but for those of you who are  living in shared households, beware, doing this every night or even four nights a week isn’t going to help you with your studies or your life goals.  Sleep will!  You are just going to have to be strict on yourself and limit those late night talks.

 

I have been making myself go to bed earlier and I am getting slightly more sleep and yes, it has made a difference.

 

I have more ideas about what I want to write for you and generally feel better.

 

What Arianna is saying and what she is dedicating her time to is a very simple idea.  Perhaps so simple, we rarely give it much thought but I think she puts a very good case forward as to why it is so important to get enough sleep.

 

So please, do an experiment on yourself.  I promise you will enjoy it.  Try to get  at least four hours a week more sleep and let me know what difference it makes to you.

 

Please leave your comments below and if you like this article, RSS to my feed!

About a month ago I  posted a Practice Challenge which was to practice everything at half speed.

 

As you know, I regularly take on the Challenges, which have been great motivation for me and are constantly changing the way I work on my music.

 

By far the most beneficial of these challenges has been the Slow Practice, which I now implement in every practice session I do.

 

In this article I want to tell you about the discoveries I have made by implementing this technique, as well as some of the barriers you may come across when you do it.

 

Beginning your session with Slow Practice

If you are a regular visitor to this blog you will know that I recommend that you begin each practice session with a breathing exercise which is intended to relax and focus you for your music to follow.

 

I usually follow this with some technical work, which could be scales, Hanon or contrary motion exercises from the Tankard Harrison book (or all of the above, depending on what my goals are for that session).

 

Now, when doing any of the exercises, I significantly slow down the metronome.  For example:

 

• scales with metronome, I used to do at 50 bpm.  Now I do them at 35 – 40 bpm.
• Hanon exercises are recommended at 60 to 118 bpm.  I now do them at 50 to 60 bpm, and speed them up occasionally.
• Tankard Harrison, I just do very slowly.

 

Benefits

By slowing these exercises down I have noticed that my rhythm with scales is more precise.

 

Most significantly, slowing down has helped me to better understand feels and grooves.

 

For example, when I divide the beat into 12’s, I really can feel the divisions of four lots of three.  So, this is how one would interpret the time signature of 12/8, with a slight accent every three notes.

 

Odd time signatures like 7/8 I now really comprehend.  It’s not just a matter of fitting the notes in but feeling where the notes belong in that division.

 

If you are not quite up to those sorts of times or do not really understand them, what I am saying you can understand as the same feeling as when you are playing a note on every beat of the metronome, slowly, really knowing where each beat fits in the scale and in time.

 

Music is 90% about rhythm, so if you can feel rhythm on a deep level, which slow practice helps you to do, you are 90% on your way, on the right path.

 

Barriers

I have to be honest and say it is not always easy to sit down and practice slowly.

 

Not long ago, in one of my sessions I sat down and made slow technical practice my goal for that session.

 

It was hard. I really struggled with staying at the piano because my mind was just all over the place.

 

Slow practice forces you to concentrate and slow down inside too.  So if your mind is racing or you feel particularly unsettled it can be very hard to do.

 

BUT after about 15 minutes, forcing through this barrier, it felt really good.

 

I settled down and my thoughts slowed and I got into the zone, which is the best (and only) place to be for deep learning to take place.

 

It was well worth pushing through the urge to get up and leave the piano.

 

Learning with Slow Practice

Benefits

The way learning takes place in the brain, put simply, is that the repetition of an action or a thought causes synapses (which are like very tiny nerve endings) to connect.  Once they connect this action becomes easy and automatic.

 

If you take this into account, by learning a piece slowly with little or no mistakes, and repeat that action, those connections are going to be made much quicker.  (If you want to read more about this, I recommend Slow Practice Will Get You There Faster.)

 

So, really, the only way to learn a piece of music is slowly.

 

It is much more important to be precise (and much less frustrating in the long run) when learning the notes, movement and co-ordination of a piece of music.

 

If you can play the music precisely when you slow it down, it means you get a deeper and more instant understanding of the feel and sound of the piece you are learning.

 

Once you know how the piece should sound and feel what it is like to play slowly, it is really a very simple matter of gradually speeding it up to it’s correct tempo.

 

Barriers

Again, the only barrier to this is our own expectations of learning, thoughts and impatience.

 

However, learning music is as much about understanding our barriers (if not more) than learning the material.

 

It is a deeply psychological process and if you know what is really going on for you when you are trying to learn something (like feelings of not being confident, impatience or unrealistic expectations) you will be able to overcome these in order to do what is required for learning to take place more easily.

 

This is why I recommend you undertake reflective learning in your practice, because it does help you to know how you are feeling and what is going on for you at a deeper level.

 

Results of Slow Practice

One thing I haven’t mentioned above is how a session of slow practice makes you feel, and I think this is the most profound benefit of practicing slowly.

 

I have noticed that when I implement slow practice for a whole session, which for me, is about an hour, that session goes incredibly quickly.

 

So often, I have looked at the clock, expecting only to be a third of the way through and an hour has passed.  This illustrates that two things are happening:

 

1.            I have entered the “timeless zone”.

Sometimes this is referred to as “flow” and it means that we are so involved in what we are doing that time passes very quickly without us noticing.  Think of the saying, “Time flies when you’re having fun”.

This is the best possible state you can be in for learning to take place because you are hyper-vigilant and concentrated on what you are doing, therefore those brain connections are being formed faster.

 

2.            I want more time to practice!

Well, that’s going to be a matter of priorities and something I’ll have to work on.  But it’s a great feeling knowing you could easily practice for two hours a day.

 

One last benefit I’d like to mention is that soloing or improvising is becoming a much more creative process because now, instead of following harmonic rules and not really knowing what the music is going to sound like, I am beginning to hear melodic lines before I play them and my fingers are just starting to go to those notes.  That’s probably the most exciting thing for me at the moment.  I’m not sure quite how that has happened but I do know that it’s because of slow practice.

I’ve had a few comments asking me how I came to establish this blog and how to become a blogger.

 

So for all of you wishing to make your own blog site, I hope you find the following information helpful.

 

Before I begin I have to tell you that I come from a pretty computer illiterate background and I have managed to do all of this myself with the help of a wonderful teacher and mentor.

 

His name is Yaro Starak and he runs the following site.

 

 

If you are serious about doing a project such as this, you really need to dedicate at least two hours a day and sometimes more to begin with.

 

The assignments given help you to build your blog and are all really interesting.  Writing “My Life in Music” was one of these assignments and it has proved itself to be one of the most popular pages on this site.

 

The lessons are well paced and accompanied by great support in the form of resources which include interviews, podcasts, video tutorials and a Members Forum.

 

All the resources offered help you to create a comprehensive vision of your blog and realise how your vision can fit in with current trends as well as what you may wish to create in the future.

 

So, like music, you will be studying:

 

• technique (how to set up your site and manage it),
• creativity (your content and what to include),
• harmony (the relationship of your site to other sites in the blogosphere),
• rhythm (how often you should publish articles and how to get Search Engine Optomisation), and
• reading (how to read your audience and market your blog)

 

I am currently about half way through the program and am still enthusiastic, as you can see, posting at least one article per day.

 

The Blog Mastermind lessons cater to all kinds of people, setting up all kinds of blogs and offers a lifetime membership which means that long after your lessons finish you can still have access to some great resources and support in the Members Forum.

 

Honestly, this is the project I have been waiting for as far as taking my teaching and writing that one step further, and it’s come at just the right time.

 

Yaro’s Blog Mastermind has joyfully guided me through every step and it’s been well worth the time and the money.

 

 

 

 

Originally from Lisbon, Portugal, Oli moved to London when he was seventeen and  there started to play percussion with several bands.

 

He has since become a master of Brazilian and Cuban music forms and has played with some great projects from all over the world including Airto Moreira (miles davis, Weather report), Dom um Romao (Sergio Mendes, weather report), Sly & Robbie, Roy Ayers, Sammy Figueroa (Miles Davis), Dele Sosimi (Fela Kuti), Tony Allen (Fela Kuti), Matt Bianco, Robbie Ameen (dizzy guilespie, seis del solar), Shakira, Pet shop boys and many other great Artists.

 

He also co-wrote and recorded the album ‘ Songs From The Tin’ with Liliana Chachian and Dalata and the ground breaking Arakatuba album ‘Brazilian Explosion’ with Bosco De Oliveira.

 

Since 2004 he has mainly been on tour with Basement Jaxx.

 

 

If you enjoyed Oli’s interview, you may be interested in listening to some of the artists he refers to:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A great example of free improvisation!!  (Although, it doesn’t always have to be like this).

 

 

Free improvisation is an exercise to help you accept and enjoy the music you play.  As a teacher, this is probably the one exercise where I experience the most resistance from my students …initially, but after a while they all grow to love it.  First, I will describe the exercise, which you can apply to any instrument, and then we’ll talk more about some of its deeper aspects.

 

 

How to Practice Free Improvisation

Close your eyes and play your instrument without stopping for at least two minutes.  Every note you play or sing is the right note.  Don’t think about trying to play anything you know, but rather just let your hands or voice flow freely from one note to the next.  You can play loud and soft and let your body move in a relaxed way while playing, just listening to every sound you make, not judging whether it is good or bad but simply appreciating sound.  You only have to listen.  If you have trouble trying to stay present, focus on your breath and body, identifying any tension and releasing it.

 

If you record your improvisation and listen back to it, you will be surprised that most of the time the music will sound a lot better than you thought.    This is an important observation.

 

Free improvisation will evolve as you progress to reflect changes in your technical accomplishments.  If you enjoy writing music, this exercise is useful because you may play ideas that you can later develop into compositions.  Here are some comments from students about the exercise:

 

 

“Free improvisation is my favourite part of any piano practice.  I love being creative, and free improvisation allows me to experiment with all the interesting sounds a piano can make.  This kind of playful and unselfconscious exercise instils a musical open-mindedness in the practitioner as well as being a relaxing and enjoyable addition to a practice routine.  But most importantly I feel that free improvisation has the special ability of being able to constantly rejuvenate my passion for playing piano.”  – Jo Witt, aged 18

“Free improvisation was the most challenging thing I’ve had to do because everything else you can practice out of a book but this is just so spur of the moment.  I think to do it well, you have to express yourself and this is especially hard when someone else is listening to you.  I find it easier to do now when I’m alone in my room.  When I first started I couldn’t even do that and it took me a while to even understand what I was supposed to do.  I didn’t like this exercise at all when I first started but now I enjoy it a lot. – Kieron White, aged 32

“To me it feels a bit weird doing free improvisation.  It sounds sort of wrong not to play from a piece of music.  I start to feel a bit timid and don’t really like making loud sounds that I have created.  It’s hard to play what you feel with others around you.  When there’s no one around I find it easy.  I know my teacher won’t tell me it sounds wrong or bad, because it’s not.  But I still feel awkward.”  Nina Cooke, aged 12

 

 

True artistic expression requires honesty and openness.  For many, even the well-accomplished artist, sometimes exposing the true creative self can be difficult and this explains why someone can learn to play music but may not be able to create music that touches those who listen.  I have attended some performances that were technically brilliant but failed to engage me.  Similarly, I have attended concerts where technical ability was not a strong point but there existed so much energy in the music that the performance was electrifying.  The most memorable musical experiences I have witnessed have been those artists who are technically capable and possessed the ability to let music flow from them unhindered.

 

It’s easy to get bogged down in the technical aspect of your instrument and forget what it is about music that drew you to it in the first place.  Music speaks to us.  It has the ability to soothe, to excite, to unite, and to communicate a complex spectrum of human emotions to a wide and varied audience. It was my desire to connect and relate to other people that led me to music, but if I am going to express myself I need to have something to say, something worth stating so that others will want to listen.

 

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