Playing music is lots of fun. This is not a news flash for anyone out that plays music. It is fun, at every level. More so, I think, than golf. Nobody’s keeping score in music. Nobody’s going to beat you at the game of music. It’s not a game – it’s a form of expression and that’s why it’s so fun.
But like golf, most of us who play music would like to play better, at some point. Make no mistake – however you play, it’s a joyous noise, and no one can take that away from you. But we’d like to hit the right notes, sing well, and enhance any ensemble we play with, right?
How do we do this? How do we get better? Here are some ways that really work.
Play with people
This may sound obvious, but you have to interact with other musicians to learn a sense of rhythm and sharing. I have met players who only played to records or from tablature,and they were flat out lost playing with other people. It’s a skill that’s worth cultivating, and you will learn something every time you do it. (And you’ll probably teach others at the same time!)
Go to Music Camp
This builds on the notion of playing with others, but at a music camp, the playing will be with actual teachers. You’ll learn from the teachers of course, but you laos learn watching and listening to the other players as they learn too. And you’ll make friends for life and be on a first-name basis with some bluegrass stars!
Practice
This sounds obvious, but are you playing every day? And when you play, what are you playing? Two common problems: Playing only stuff you already know well, and practicing mistakes. In the first example, you have your pet “go to” songs you believe you play well (you may be right!), and so that’s what you play, every time. You will get better at those songs (probably), but you won’t grow as a musician.
The second problem is very common – practicing mistakes. You learn a song, pretty well, but a certain part of it gives you problems – you flub it every time. So, you learn to play the rest of it well, and try and fudge through the flubs. What happens is, the flub becomes the norm. You have to revisit the flub parts until you get it right.
Bands can fall into this trap. They have a song and it never starts quite right – not everyone is sure of the arrangement or chords, so they run through it, and it sounds all right at the end, and that’s what happens every practice. In bands I’m in, we warm up with a gimme, and then plow into every song that had a mistake at the last gig, until we can play it without the mistake. It can be embarrassing, but better to be embarrassed in a practice than on stage, right?
You don’t have to aim for the stars. If you’re like most people, you have demands on your time that can supercede music: family, work, who knows? But if you’d to play a little better (or a lot better), a few good habits can pay big dividends!
