In almost any musicians training, regardless of skill, stage of development, chosen genre, or age group, there is certainly always more ways to improve. Many musicians (if not all), eventually can get in a rut, or sometimes be artistically stifled. Whether or not you find yourself within this given situation, or would simply like to get stronger as a player, I've gathered 5 techniques to sharpen overall musicianship. A few of them could be self-explanatory, some probably not so Check 'em out!
In no order of priority they are:
1. Become an active listener! The easiest but most efficient way to develop your musical horizons and vocabulary, as well as total musical scope is to listen to music. Check out all styles, most notably those other than your area of expertise, as well as all eras. Identical to gaining knowledge of a foreign language, just like as we all began to speak our native tongue, we accelerated our learning simply by experiencing everybody talking all around us. Focus in terms of the melodies, harmonies, rhythms, inside lines, instrumentation, feel, and shades of color, etcetera
2. Pick-up another instrument. Even if you're just a novice at whatever new musical instrument you pick up, give it a try. This might be beneficial for you in a great deal of ways. An example would be: Viewing a new visual layout of notes, in addition to getting to know them in variety of colors and timbres, may give someone a fresh visual and aural mindset, and can presumably offer new ideas and creativity. Not to mention also, supplying you with new thankfulness for your existing measure of playing on your primary instrument. By choosing a whole new instrument just like a total beginner, you are able to recall the minute your primary instrument had been inside our fingers for the very first time. Do you remember that? The mind-boggling quality, that's new and exciting in addition to unlimited space with respect to growth. Attempt to transport all those thoughts and feelings back into your main instrument.
3. Play with 1 note. There's no better (and perhaps simply no other) solution of completely extracting everything except for pulse, shape, phrasing, timbre, tone, etc but merely by working with exclusively 1 note. Give this a try: choose a note, and put on any backing track, recording, metronome or almost anything which has a pulse, and improvise by using just the 1 note. Harder than you assume right? You will be made to become musical in your playing since you have no another other option, and nothing else to fill up space with! You will find and hear right away that you will have to generate rhythm which can hold it's own. You just cannot fake it when using 1 note!
4. Take a week off. If you can afford it, try it out (literally and figuratively, for many people this could be logistically almost impossible!) Let's assuming that you are an active player, and practice or perform with others or at home on a regular basis. Try taking a couple of days to a week off, the benefits of this could be vast. You may (hopefully find) that often in coming back to your instrument you will end up creatively refreshed, excited, and motivated. It could take a short while to physically get your chops back to where they had been, but nonetheless, emotionally you will be in a good spot. I see this to be identical to restarting your laptop or computer after having many applications running for a long time and consuming all your memory!
5. Improvise with a CD. On quite similar lines of the first tip (Be an active listener), playing with recordings will definitely open up your ears, and set you in among the greats. The majority of us already know that in fact performing with musicians better than us elevates the bar, so what better than playing with the very best and our influences? Turn on a record and join in with it. Similar to the "learning a new language" analogy, listening to the language and vocab of our heroes pleased us in the beginning by merely listening, and can now seep right into our playing by directly playing alongside them. Our ears and our playing is likely to on a conscious level and subconscious one, react to the melody, rhythm, harmony, color, and energy of what we're listening to, and will inform our playing directly.
Good Luck and enjoy!
In no order of priority they are:
1. Become an active listener! The easiest but most efficient way to develop your musical horizons and vocabulary, as well as total musical scope is to listen to music. Check out all styles, most notably those other than your area of expertise, as well as all eras. Identical to gaining knowledge of a foreign language, just like as we all began to speak our native tongue, we accelerated our learning simply by experiencing everybody talking all around us. Focus in terms of the melodies, harmonies, rhythms, inside lines, instrumentation, feel, and shades of color, etcetera
2. Pick-up another instrument. Even if you're just a novice at whatever new musical instrument you pick up, give it a try. This might be beneficial for you in a great deal of ways. An example would be: Viewing a new visual layout of notes, in addition to getting to know them in variety of colors and timbres, may give someone a fresh visual and aural mindset, and can presumably offer new ideas and creativity. Not to mention also, supplying you with new thankfulness for your existing measure of playing on your primary instrument. By choosing a whole new instrument just like a total beginner, you are able to recall the minute your primary instrument had been inside our fingers for the very first time. Do you remember that? The mind-boggling quality, that's new and exciting in addition to unlimited space with respect to growth. Attempt to transport all those thoughts and feelings back into your main instrument.
3. Play with 1 note. There's no better (and perhaps simply no other) solution of completely extracting everything except for pulse, shape, phrasing, timbre, tone, etc but merely by working with exclusively 1 note. Give this a try: choose a note, and put on any backing track, recording, metronome or almost anything which has a pulse, and improvise by using just the 1 note. Harder than you assume right? You will be made to become musical in your playing since you have no another other option, and nothing else to fill up space with! You will find and hear right away that you will have to generate rhythm which can hold it's own. You just cannot fake it when using 1 note!
4. Take a week off. If you can afford it, try it out (literally and figuratively, for many people this could be logistically almost impossible!) Let's assuming that you are an active player, and practice or perform with others or at home on a regular basis. Try taking a couple of days to a week off, the benefits of this could be vast. You may (hopefully find) that often in coming back to your instrument you will end up creatively refreshed, excited, and motivated. It could take a short while to physically get your chops back to where they had been, but nonetheless, emotionally you will be in a good spot. I see this to be identical to restarting your laptop or computer after having many applications running for a long time and consuming all your memory!
5. Improvise with a CD. On quite similar lines of the first tip (Be an active listener), playing with recordings will definitely open up your ears, and set you in among the greats. The majority of us already know that in fact performing with musicians better than us elevates the bar, so what better than playing with the very best and our influences? Turn on a record and join in with it. Similar to the "learning a new language" analogy, listening to the language and vocab of our heroes pleased us in the beginning by merely listening, and can now seep right into our playing by directly playing alongside them. Our ears and our playing is likely to on a conscious level and subconscious one, react to the melody, rhythm, harmony, color, and energy of what we're listening to, and will inform our playing directly.
Good Luck and enjoy!
About the Author:
If you want additional info on becoming a better musician, check out articles on online music lessons and the benefits of private lessons!