Learning the musical languages...

[Jim Price]

This isn't any new wisdom, and I'm sure many other music-playing Rockpagers arrived at this concept before, but I thought I'd share how I got there.

Since I have more time to work on it this summer, I've been practicing and learning/re-learning several instruments in addition to my hand-drumming: the ukulele, harmonica and guitar. (The guitar is lagging behind the other two, but I'll continue to work with it.)

I have been coming to the realization over the past few weeks that learning an instrument is not much different from learning a new language. The best way to learn a new language is to learn basic key words and phrases until they become automatic in your head, so you don't have to think about them. You learn the technical aspects of the language as you go along, but mastering the basic communication in that new tongue is the biggest thing.

I've been discovering that in music as well. Getting the basics down to the point where they are automatic is the biggest thing, whether on the hand drums, ukulele or harmonica. Once your hands automatically do what they are supposed to do without you having to think about it, the technical aspects become easier to integrate. As you learn more skills and widen your musical vocabulary on any instrument, the easier it is to communicate on it.

On the uke, the big challenge for me so far has been to master the chord fingering so that I don't have to think about where my fingers go, it becomes automatic and they just go there. I've gotten it down for a few chord combinations, enough so that I can have some fun with it when certain songs pop into my head. I keep repeating and practicing chords each day so that more of them become automatic as well.

Just this past weekend at the Smoked Country Jam Bluegrass Festival, I had just broken down my campsite on Sunday morning and the folks at the nextdoor campsite put a live Lynyrd Skynyrd album on their pickup truck CD player. As I finished packing up, "Free Bird" came on. I went into my car and got out my uke, and sat in my folding chair and started playing the chords as the song went on, and went on to do my own "Free Bird" homestretch finale on the uke before leaving the festival site. I was more able to keep up with the song as I went along, and it felt good!

That sense of music becoming automatic was a theme that several of the performers during Smoked Country Jam shared as well, and that you're more free to express yourself on your instrument if you don't have to think about what you're doing. And you could see it with some of the most skilled players there, that their skills had become so automatic to them that it was effortless to do the dazzling stuff they could do, and they were having fun with it. (Fiddle player Ty Jaquay and banjo picker Dave Asti of the Hillbilly Gypsies are great examples of this, you witness what amazing stuff they do on their instruments and see them laughing and having fun while doing it...It's second nature to them!)

It's just been exciting so far for me to accomplish certain basic skills on any of these instruments, and then take on the next skill. I look forward to practices and discovering new skills. Even this "old dog" can learn some new tricks, and in the process, some new instrumental "languages." I'm hoping to soon study some basic musical theory and start to implement that into what I'm doing as well. The process of learning these "languages" has been rewarding so far, and I hope to keep it going.

[bassist_25]

I remember Victor Wooten once said something very similar. He likened it to talking. He said that when he starts soloing, its natural and he isn't very cerebral about it because it's become like a second language to him. It's like when you speak, you're not constantly thinking, "Okay, I'm using a gerund here, and I'll put the direct ojbect here." Hopefully Captain G can appreciate the analogy.

Now if only I could apply that wisdom and play like Vic.

[Gallowglass]

One of my favorite relevant quotes stems from Carlos Santana. They asked him how he managed to keep up while playing with a technical giant like John McLaughlin. He basically said that he didn't think about it, and really neither did John. Playing together for them was like a conversation.

Like most people speaking a language, we learn the grammar while we're young or training and then basically forget about it. Very rarely am I diagramming sentences in my head while I'm conversing. If you stop me and ask what the subject, verb, or object of the sentence that I just spoke was, I can tell you, but I wasn't thinking about it while speaking it.

When I'm in the pocket and flowing, playing is the same way. I know what I want to say or sound like, and I do it. If you ask me after the fact, I can tell you what I played, but that's secondary and after the fact. Sure there's a bit more foreknowledge going into it, I know what key I'm, etc., but when I'm really on, most of it is almost instinctual. That's certainly not to downplay the importance of learning as much as you can...but to be really fluent one must drill and instill that knowledge until it flows as freely as speaking one's native tongue.

[songsmith]

When I sell an instrument like a guitar to an adult beginner, they invariably say they wonder how their favorite guitarist can make it look so effortless. I have a standard analogy for that:
It's like driving a stick-shift. When you first start, you have to go over a million little instructions in realtime. Shifter in first gear position. Give it some gas while slowly letting out on the clutch. Once it gets up to a high-enough rev, depress clutch, let off gas, move gearshift to second-gear position, let out clutch, while giving it gas again... etc.
After awhile driving, you don't even consciously think about what gear you're in, or even shifting gears, for that matter. Your hand senses what gear position the shifter is in, and your ear hears how the motor's revving, you don't even think about it. You're busy reading the road, and traffic, or whatever else you do when you drive. It's automatic.
A few months ago, I heard somebody say the old jazz guys used to say, "if you're thinkin' you're stinkin'. That made perfect sense to me. practice until you don't think it, you feel it.

[eagles]

rock on jim ! You'll get it just keep on -a- practicin every day and dont be afraid to experiment and improvise but most importantly HAVE FUN!!!

[PanzerFaust]

Awesome post JP!!!!!


Very True !!!