How do we learn to play a musical instrument?
From my early teens, when I was becoming more aware of popular music and the record industry, I recognised a distinction between people who played a musical instrument and those who didn’t. Rock bands, jazz combos and folk groups were being formed at school, where previously there had been only classical chamber music and the school choir. One year (1962) there was a piano in our classroom and one of the guys turned out to be an already very capable pianist and singer, entertaining us at break times with numbers by Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Kidd and the Pirates and the hit of the day, Nutrocker by B. Bumble and the Stingers. And I was particularly taken with the guitar playing of another friend, especially because it seeemed to be a more homely and comprehensible instrument with just six strings which he played with a flatpack.
You can probably see where this is going, because “homely and comprehensible” also describes old time and early bluegrass music. Bruce Campbell developed this theme in his Welcome Column on April 12th entitled ‘Music From the Dust’. Particularly importantly he encouraged people to learn to play a musical instrument for themselves. I would like to run with this topic and add some further words of encouragement to would-be pickers.
You will know yourself if you have an urge to play a bluegrass instrument (I’m using ‘bluegrass’ here as an umbrella term to include old-time music, blues and beyond). Please take comfort from the knowledge that playing will probably seem very difficult at first. As well as help and encouragement, also expect to receive some criticism for your efforts, including remarks from your nearest and dearest, not to mention more experienced musicians who sometimes ought to know better. Accept that you will sound bad before you begin to sound good. Don’t expect a teacher to do it all for you – those small, delicate and finely controlled movements of your fingers have to be perfected by you. A good teacher will help and encourage you. A not-so-good teacher can put you off for life – and this is the teacher’s fault, not yours.
If you are a professional teacher of anything, you quickly come to realise that students learn in different ways. What is a brilliant method for one student is meaningless to another. Personally I progressed with leaps and bounds when tablature started appearing in quantity in the 1970s, but I know that tab is a bugaboo for lots of students, including many musicians who have progressed far beyond my own meagre attainments. I think it is important to realise that music is what you hear, not something written down. As David Bromberg once said, “There is no written music. There are symbols for sounds, you see, but that’s not music. You can’t listen to paper.”
I can’t do better than to follow this up with more advice from David Bromberg. “It should be obvious that beautiful music is not necessarily difficult music and that you can make beautiful music with a minimum of technique.” Of course you will want to practise and improve your technique to play pieces of increasing levels of difficulty as time passes, but the primary purpose of playing is to sound musical in whatever you are doing. If, so far, you can only play simple pieces, that is fine. As David puts it, “You should always be striving to get the most out of your notes, getting the most ‘musicalness’, to transport yourself and your listeners with what you’re playing. That’s what you have to be trying to do all the time…”
To add to the quotations in this column (I seem to be doing a lot of quoting this time round), I go back to Bruce Campbell. “If you can play music, keep it up. If you can’t, take it up. If you have children, encourage them to play music.” And a columnist in Banjo NewsLetter once commented that as you progress as a musician, there will come a point where you realise that you have not turned into a second Earl Scruggs. However, you will be very happy with what you have become after years of devotion to your instrument. I can do no better than wish this outcome for all amateur musicians everywhere.
Footnote
David Bromberg’s remarks come from an article published in Guitar Player Magazine in the 1970s entitled “A Guitar Workshop”. IMHO this article says it all. The article was reprinted in The Guitar Player Book (First Revised and Updated Evergreen Edition 1979) by GPI Publications ISBN 0-394-17169-1 Sadly this edition, edited by Jim Crockett, is out of print. The 2007 edition of the book is available on Amazon, but while it contains some of the 1970s interviews, David Bromberg is not included – shame! Can any of our friends in California help with this one?
