Tool kits

When we make music there are many different mechanisms all going on at once, many different skills we need. Since I've been teaching I've been thinking about these as "tool kits", I want to give my pupils the tools to make music for themselves as well as see what I am missing. This is as far as I've got with identifying the different elements and what you can use to develop those skills. This is unashamedly biased towards learning traditional music.





Musical toolkit
immersing yourself and becoming incredibly familiar with the music you wish to make


Learn how the music you want to play works by immersing yourself:

Sources:

• Recordings
• Score
• Live music (gigs, sessions, playing with friends)

Passive learning / absorption

• Listen listen listen - on in the background
  
• Mp3 player for convenience
• Carefully managed set lists

Active Involvement

• Active listening - observe details
• Diddle along with it
  
• Clapping rhythm of it
  
• Dance to it (ceilidhs, your living room, the session)
• Practise

Mental toolkit
attitudes, hearing and reading clearly, recall,

Hearing music in detail and clarity:

• Practising listening and identifying elements by ear
• Listening to slowed down audio files to hear more detail, then listening at full speed again
• Recalling the music in great detail
• Transcription - make yourself notate all the detail
• Imagining how you want pieces to sound
• Being able to tell where the home note is and what note in a scale is being played at any given time
  

Retaining music and being able to recall it at will:

• memorising
• practise starting sets
• learn it more than one way - by ear, then in hands
• categorise what you know - mental filing

For any improvised art form:

Pre-set ideas

• Rhythms
• Harmonic sequences
• Melodic fragments
• Hand shapes

Knowing where the notes map on your instrument - i.e. scales, arpeggios

Performance:

• sense of drama
• presence
• communication with audience
  

Understand the mechanics of playing your instrument intimately - as much a mental skill as a physical one

• Fingering patterns
• How your hands work
• Ergonomic postures!!!
• Know the potential injury trouble spots and what to do
  

Attitudes:

Focus

• Being able to play under pressure
• Paying attention to other people
• Focusing on the music, blocking anxieties

Expectations

• Find out and set realistic expectations

If it's not fun then have a rethink - music has no other purpose than for us to enjoy it.


Physical toolkit

Condition

• Warm ups
• Relaxation exercises (so you recover from all the playing!)
• Stretches
• General exercise, rest, food - be generally well

Coordination

• Practise
• Mental practise
• Always look for unknown / unexplored shapes
• Improvisation
• Rhythm and accent practise
  

Mental interface - ears to fingers

• Improvisation

Hand shapes

• practising hand shapes, learning feel of each
• chunked practise - practising within placement groups

Touch

• Physical feedback
• Contact with harp
• Slow still practise
• Improvising with dynamics
  

Speed

• Clarity of movements (mental practice, aiming for beautiful movements at a slow pace first)
• Gradually building up speed 2bpm at a time
• Remember: the fastest safe speed is determined by how relaxed you can remain whilst playing

Anymore ideas are very welcome! This is just a start.

Hand update

Well it's four months on from the operation I had on my hand. My finger joint is way better, I have active movement to 90 degrees and passive to a little more. This has exceeded the aim of the operation. I have a stronger grip and I can get into playing the way I want too.

I still have to manage the workload on both my hands. While one hand was mildly disabled, the other hand had to compensate. Both were closer to their maximum workload. Even now I'm still building up stamina and rest and recovery time is very important. That said it's really positive and I can see loads of routes through any problems. I'm using mental practise a lot more and the best thing is... you can practise warm and cosy in bed!

Recreation

What is the point of an artistic activity? It doesn't feed us, clothe us or keep us warm. It might make us more healthy. It might provide us other useful skills.

I think the most important point is the arts give us a way of enjoying ourselves. It's fun, it's recreational. Through the arts we create a safe social space, we do activities that take us outside ourselves and give us a chance to forget the worries. It's important to forget yourself a little bit.

Artistic endeavour also gives us a safe space to re-engage, to try something new, to prove to ourselves that we can be more than we are now.

I can't think of a more useful social tool than voluntary for fun activites. So many of my friends come through music now, but if they didn't then they would come through some other hobby or activity. There's something in the mix of structure and freedom of expression that collaborative artistic efforts offer that is really good for people, that gives them a breathing space.

Recreation
Re-creation
Regrow, start afresh

Neuroscience of music

I went to university to study music because I wanted to know how it worked. In a fairly standard BMus degree this was never tackled or even hinted at (though I did manage to sneak the topic very briefly into an essay).

I'm delighted to find there is now a field of study of music from a scientific view point and even popular science books on the topic. I've also occasionally met researchers in this field and I'm really looking forward to hearing more as the study unfolds.

I find music as a phenomena fascinating - there are so many layers of processing to make it all work, none of which even necessarily tell us why it grips us massively. From a political / education (and financial) point of view, I hope proof gets found for why learning music is so important, what it can bring cognitively of benefit.

Time to introduce one concept - your mind synchronises with every rhythm it hears. Therefore in a room of people listening (or playing) the same music, everyones mind is synchronised. I intrigued as to what this does to us, particularly the fairly fanciful idea that those in the room might briefly be part of the same neural network. Triggering this synchronisation is certainly a powerful tool. This week New Scientist ran an article reporting that performing activities in unison within a group can increase your loyalty to that group (full article here How to control a herd of humans by David Robson).