The Best Way to Practice Music
Prompt 14 — Write about something you know
Write 500 words or less about a subject matter that you know very well. It is best to limit the topic to something that could fit in 500 words and is basic and simple. For example: “The best way to start a campfire”, or “How to structure a workout routine”, or “Why a walk in the woods is the best medicine”.
It should be assumed that the audience knows little about the subject and will rely on your expertise.
One of the best ways to learn or begin to master a musical instrument is to learn one of your favorite compositions. This may sound obvious, but in practice, this is often not what is done. Musicians — especially beginning or intermediate — tend to focus on particular scales or patterns and practice this over and over or fall into a rut by only practicing songs they know. While learning scales is foundational, I think once it is learned, you shouldn’t spend too much time on it. Learning all or part of one of your favorite musical pieces can be difficult, but it will pay dividends far into the future, and you usually get more out than you put into learning. This applies to musicians of any level, and you can do this for a song of almost any difficulty. If the piece is too fast or complex to play up to speed, slow it down or only learn what is immediately accessible.
Learning a new piece of music achieves several things. It gives you a wealth of musical vocabulary. Take one phrase or series of chords that you love. Unpack all the elements of the phrase. What moves you about the melody or chords? Play it slowly with a metronome and gradually speed up the tempo. Once you can play it up to the speed of the song, learn it in all twelve keys. From an improvisational standpoint, practice using the melody or phrase over different chords. Alter the beginning or ending of the phrase. These methods will help you internalize what you’ve learned.
This will also add to your musical sensibility. It gives you ideas to draw from when improvising or writing a new piece of music. It will add to your own distinct style of playing. As an example, though my primary instrument is guitar, when I was in college I learned a Franz Liszt’s “Liebestraum” on piano. I could never really play it up to speed on piano, but learning the song was extremely valuable nonetheless. It gave me a good understanding of the chord structure of the song, and it inspired chord patterns on guitar and many melodic ideas.
Ultimately, learning new music makes playing your instrument fun. It isn’t enjoyable to just play scales all day, and people don’t want to hear you do that. It gives you a sense of achievement for your effort. You can learn a song piece by piece over the course of a week, and by the end of it, you would have something to show for your practice sessions. It’s always difficult to see tangible results of practicing an instrument, but this is a sure way to do that. So the next time you listen to a piece of music and wish you knew how to play it, stop making excuses: sit down and learn it!
