A Music Guide?
Let’s envision one
I probably wouldn’t be half the musician that I am if it weren’t for the internet. To all those whose generosity has helped me reach this point, thank you!
A Bit of a Problem
It hasn’t been all roses though. There’s so much information online that it can be hard to understand what the next step in your musical journey should be, even if you’re crystal clear about your goals.
Most resources that I’ve come across over the last decade or so are focused largely on genre-specific music skills.
This is a good thing. I think of genres as languages; and when you’re looking to learn a language, you’d like a guide that doesn’t meander too much into foreign language territory.
On the flipside, what I haven’t been able to find so far is a guided map for comprehensively developing general musical skills that are applicable across genres. The ones I’ve found are either too general or too specific in my opinion.
The closest that I’ve come across a map of this sort has been in audio production and sound engineering. Engineers with so-called ‘golden ears’ are prized for their listening and analytical capabilities with regards to sound.
I’ve tried getting some of my friends on that path but they’ve been put off by the “technical” nature of such guides. I can empathize. Sometimes, too many terms can be overwhelming.
More importantly, the main issue I have with such guides is that they’re geared more for audio engineers than musicians (though there is an increasing number of those of us who embody both roles nowadays).
A Solution
The primary aim that I have been trying to work towards for a number of years has been: expressing myself through musical patterns.
Long story short, not having found what I’ve been looking for, I’ve begun outlining a guide on musical skills, which will (hopefully) get anyone who practices its contents to reach the above goal :)
While there are many ideas on how to proceed with the writing and organization, I thought it best to make it an incremental process that gets documented online. Yes, another blog :D
Getting feedback from interested readers will help me refine it to the point where it can be a well-tested, clear and concise path that helps anyone interested in getting to the goal.
This is one way I can give back to the internet and the community that helped shape a large part of my musical (and other) thought.
Largely Pragmatic
Instead of making the guide so generic (and theoretical) that it feels distant from any genre/tradition of music, I’m thinking of including examples from musicians and musical traditions — old or new, established or ephemeral. That way, it’ll be connected to real music and will likely be practical.
Since it is primarily a guide or map, it will be very focused on practice and real examples. I tend to get a bit abstract so I will do my best to rein that tendency in :)
A Rough Overview
Right now, these are some of the main musical skills I’ve outlined. Feel free to suggest more:
Mental music skills
- musical modeling (time, timbre, loudness, space, pitch…)
- musical memory
- music visualization
- mental hearing
- musical intention
- general listening
- improvisation
- composition
Verbal music skills
- singing
- sargam (solfege)
- solkattu (rhythmic solfege)
Physical music skills
- general instrumental technique
- intent-to-instrument mapping
- expression
- movement
- collaboration
If some of these terms are unfamiliar to you, please follow the upcoming posts that will comprise the guide :D
Let the games begin!
