I’ve struggled to be musical all my life–took lessons, took college classes, did ear training, etc.

I think I finally cracked the code, and it’s surprisingly simple:

  1. Learn to play melodies by ear (starts with singing)
  2. Learn only enough theory to:
  • know your way around your instrument (scales, arpeggios)
  • understand chords
  • understand song structure
  1. Experiment (ie have fun!)

The most anal formal exercise I’d recommend is learning to hear relative scale degrees (two very good apps available for that)–though I think that skill would be developed by transcribing (playing by ear), it’s helpful for your confidence level to have graded exercises you can have some success with.

But my experience with most of my music teachers is they fall into one of two traps:

For classical music, it’s:

  1. Learn how to translate written notes into notes on your instrument.
  2. Go to 1.

For instance: I was taking clarinet lessons and I remember my teacher saying goodbye to his last student–a kid–and the teacher said, “If you bring me the sheet music for it, we can learn to play it.” And I thought what a missed opportunity that was for that girl to learn to hear and transcribe music–obviously not a skill he thought was important to the teacher at all. And I’d understand now wanting to do that for piano, which is really complicated, but learning to play a melody by ear on a single note instrument is a very achievable goal, especially when you have someone that can tell you what key it’s in and what the first note is.

The trap for jazz music is:

  1. Learn what are the “right” notes to play.
  2. Play them in any random order.

I used to blame teachers for just being bad at their jobs, but I think students (and maybe parents/administrators) are also to blame.

I ran across a senior guy who was trying to get back into piano. He’d played for a few years and it was clear he had no idea of how to be musical–no idea of how to construct a simple bass line, no knowledge of how to define a chord. So I said, “Hey, I’ll work with you even though I don’t play piano, I think you need to learn this song and just play the root and the five in the left hand, and sing the melody while you play, and use a metronome.” What an amazing exercise I thought: it would help teach him timing, develop his ear, develop his feel, let him be expressive with his voice, let him embody the melody, lear to work the bass, etc. Aren’t I brilliant teacher?

You know what this guy did? He pulled out his phone to show me some recordings he did of him playing the song the way his music teacher had written it out for him; it was what I expected–just haltingly reading the music with no sense of time. I wasn’t sure, but I think he wanted me to praise him for playing such a complex piece.

For him, and maybe for a lot of students (and certainly for parents and administrators), they don’t actually want to master music, they want to impress people. And maybe for the musically disinclined, haltingly playing a complex written piece is more impressive than a 2-note bassline in time with an expressive voiceline sensitive to dynamic; since most people in charge of music education (parents and school administrators) don’t know music, maybe they would promote a teacher who taught the former and fire a teacher who taught the latter…

For jazz programs, I think they’ve got a lot of theory they’ve got to cram into the kids heads, and we can learn theory a lot faster than we can develop musically, so if you’re going to be judged on “performance” of your students, you’ll be rewarded for having them be able to pass essentially paper exams set to music more than for having them skillfully play pentatonic blues.

I don’t know what the answer is, but for some reason, actually mastering music is very low on the list for both teachers and students.

What’s all y’all’s experience with music and music education?

  • RoddyStiggs@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    2·
    3 days ago

    I think you’re failing to give anywhere near enough credit to formal music education. Lots of Dunning-Kruger going on here.

    Maybe you had bad teachers. However, you don’t know the reasons behind their methods either.

    Maybe your clarinet teacher was working to the priorities of that student. Maybe that student SPECIFICALLY struggled with reading notation and the teacher was looking to bridge the gap by using repertoire the student would like. Furthermore, you pay a clarinet teacher for clarinet lessons, not for dictation practice. Maybe that clarinet teacher tutors other students on dictation and is being paid by that student specifically for clarinet.

    Did that clarinet student understand intervals? Basic fingering patterns on the clarinet? Half step vs whole steps? Did they have literally any of the foundational knowledge to approach melodic dictation? You don’t know.

    You might as well say “Doctors focus on all this extra stuff you don’t need. All you have to have to survive is oxygen flowing to your brain.” Or “LLMs are conscious because they form grammatically correct word salad”… Okay that one hits home a bit hard.

    Here’s an exercise for you.

    Sit down with your instrument and choose exactly one pitch, and then tell me a story with it. Fill 5 minutes, and don’t bore me.

    Now explain to me every choice you made about what you did with that pitch every time you played it and every silence when you didn’t play it.

    Now justify every one of those choices by comparing it to a similar choice made by another musician - with citations I can verify. Remember that music is communication. With no frame of reference common to both parties, communication is impossible. Spell out that frame of reference.

    Now, justify the form of your composition by aligning it to a historical form. If it doesn’t align, start over. Do that at the composition level, then again at the thematic level, the phrase level, and the motivic level.

    Remember, one pitch.

    When you have the tools to do that, then you can talk to me about the process of learning to do music. Until then, have some respect for the people who know what they’re doing, because right now you don’t.

    • schipelblorp@sh.itjust.worksOP
      1·
      3 days ago

      I’ve had plenty of music teachers that focused on reading music to the exclusion of transcription. It’s a pretty common problem. I’m not basing this opinion on a one-off exchange with my clarinet teacher, but it’s just my last run in with music education, and I’m pretty confident that little girl is never going to transcribe anything with him.

      As for your exercise, it sounds interesting. I might have to try it. The explanation component really is more on the academic side than the musical side. Music is a conversation, but first and foremost from the musician/composer to the audience, though it can also certainy be among musicians.

      You sound like you’ll have (or have had) a sterling career in academia.