Seven habits of highly effective beginners

ByBret Pimentel
Photo, Michael @ NW Lens

A few weeks ago I wrote about seven habits I’ve observed in my most successful university music students. The popularity of that article has been gratifying—to my surprise, it even briefly displaced my list of woodwind doublings from Broadway shows as the most popular thing on this site.

What I wrote was about university music students—students who, generally, have at least a half-dozen years of playing experience behind them, and who are planning to  pursue a career in music. But I think it’s also worth considering the musical beginner (child or adult). Students who get a good start with their instrument have a better chance at success, no matter their goals.

Here are some habits that are characteristic of successful beginners, plus a bonus tip for woodwind doublers:

  1. Get a teacher. This is the best money you can spend or your (or your child’s) new musical pursuits. And the sooner the better—don’t assume that you need to struggle on your own for a while before a teacher will take you on as a student. A good teacher can guide you through purchasing or renting your instrument, teach you good playing and practicing habits, troubleshoot problems, and model excellent playing. And you may be able to get good instruction cheaper than you think. Contact a teacher of reputation in your area and find out what they charge, and, if it’s more than you can spend, ask if they can recommend one of their top students as a beginning teacher. I’m a university music professor, and I charge more than some beginners would be willing or able to pay, but I’m pleased to recommend my advanced students who are anxious for some teaching experience, who work cheap, and who will teach you the same things I’m teaching them.
  2. Get good advice on equipment purchases. See habit #1 for the best solution to this. Be extremely wary of advice from mail-order catalogs, internet message boards, eBay sellers, and commissioned music store salespeople who don’t play your instrument. My beginning woodwind students who start with inferior or poorly-adjusted gear often develop poor playing habits in an attempt to compensate for the instrument’s/mouthpiece’s/reeds’ shortcomings, and are far more likely to get frustrated and quit. You don’t need a fancy car to learn how to drive, but you do need working brakes, steering, and signal lights.
  3. Practice smart. Be aware that practicing on your own is essential—you cannot learn to play a musical instrument well if you only play during a weekly lesson or a school band rehearsal. I advise my beginning woodwind students to shoot for about a half-hour a day, which can be broken up into smaller practice sessions. (Motivated students will quickly graduate to a slightly more intensive schedule.) Figure out the 20% of your practicing material that is the most difficult for you, and spend 80% of your practice time on it.
  4. Listen. Learning a musical instrument is a little like learning a foreign language: a book can teach you some basics, but you won’t speak like a native until you have really absorbed the language’s unique sounds. Acquire some recordings of your instrument that you enjoy, and listen to them often. Attend concerts, too, if you can. Ask your teacher to demonstrate good playing in your lessons. Try using your instrument to imitate what you hear. Listening and imitating is the most effective, efficient, and enjoyable way to improve your playing.
  5. Be patient. Musical skills are developed over the long term. Take the time to thoroughly learn your scales, exercises, and other practice material; spending time to really get these right will accelerate your future progress. If you find yourself getting frustrated with a particular passage, slow down and take it one note at a time. Consider keeping a practice journal, so you (and your teacher) can identify what’s working for you and what isn’t, and so you can see your improvement over time.
  6. Filter “information” from questionable sources. The internet is full of ideas from well-meaning people whose advice may or may not be accurate or appropriate. I frequently cringe at advice offered to beginners on music message boards. Sometimes the most enthusiastic advisers are beginners themselves, or are parroting bad advice they heard somewhere else but haven’t tested. More advanced players sometimes offer advice that is useful for someone who plays at their own level, but that doesn’t apply to a beginner in the same way. Pedagogical approaches change over time, as well, and what was considered good advice a decade ago may reflect an approach that has fallen out of favor today.
  7. Play for somebody. Music is a sharing thing. No matter your ability level, jump on opportunities to expand your comfort zone as a performer. As a brand-new beginner, your first audience might be a patient family member or even a well-behaved pet—this is a good start! Butterflies in the stomach or a few missed notes are par for the course, and the more you perform, the smaller the problems will get.
  • Bonus tip: To woodwind doublers (or aspiring doublers) who are learning a new instrument, don’t forget to be a beginner on each new instrument. Even if you play another instrument or instruments at a very high level, it’s worthwhile to establish each of these habits with each newly-acquired axe. Study your new instrument with the focus, discipline, and patience you wish you had used when you learned the first one. Shortcuts don’t work.

Have fun and practice every day!

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    cue

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    "Excerpt

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    photo, Katy Wrathall
    photo, Katy Wrathall
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      • Are your reeds functioning well? Prioritize response-balanced-with-stability over more subjective and malleable things like tone. Many reed players use unnecessarily stiff reeds; consider trying something a little softer if you haven’t lately.
      • Is your instrument functioning well? If you know how, check the most important adjustment screws (oboe: left hand stack, left G-sharp key, F resonance; saxophone: bis, G-sharp, right hand stack). Re-check basics like alignment of bridge keys. And, of course, make sure your instrument gets regular (at least annual) maintenance checkups. Professional instruments should probably get full mechanical overhauls every 5-10 years.
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    2. Check technique. It might be you after all.
      • Have you warmed up thoroughly and correctly today? It’s best to do this at the beginning of your practice session, but there’s no rule that says you can’t warm up some more mid-session to double-check your tone production and reset your mental focus.
      • Have you reviewed all your fundamentals? Take a closer look at your posture, hand position, breath support, embouchure, voicing, finger movement, etc. Have you slipped back into a bad habit? Are you suffering the effects of a technique deficiency you know you should fix but haven’t gotten around to yet? If you don’t know how to fix it, check in with your teacher.
      • Can you release some tension? Frustration often goes hand-in-hand with tense muscles. Consider doing a little deep breathing, stretching, mindfulness practice, yoga, Alexander Technique, or whatever else puts your body back in balance.
      • Have you laid sufficient technical groundwork? If you are working on something especially difficult, is there something else you could practice as an intermediate step? Études, technical exercises, or other preparatory material can help bridge the gap between your current ability level and the ability level you need.
    3. Check your health. If your body isn’t responding well, your practice sessions will be difficult and unpleasant.
      • Have you been getting enough quality sleep? Implementing good sleep habits is a major upgrade to the function of your mind and body.
      • Are you eating balanced meals? Are you eating enough? Are you eating too much? Is your diet too low on good stuff and/or too high in bad stuff?
      • Are you getting outside for at least a few minutes of sunshine and “fresh” air? Sunshine is important to your body’s vitamin D level.
      • Are you stressed, or otherwise not at your best mentally? In some cases, professional counseling and/or treatment may be needed. If you are a college student, there is a good chance there are free, discreet counseling services available on your campus. In other cases, taking a break, getting a little exercise, talking something out with a friend or loved one, or just getting a change of scenery might be enough.
    4. Check your mindset.
      • Are you practicing mindlessly or without direction? Try making a short list of goals you would like to accomplish during this practice session. If you’re not sure where to start, make a quick recording (perhaps with the voice memo app on your smartphone) and listen to it to get some ideas about what needs improvement. If you don’t meet all your goals, you can tackle them again tomorrow or re-prioritize.
    5. Check your environment.
      • At what time of day are your practice sessions the most productive and pleasant? Do you practice best in the morning before your body is tired and your brain is full? Or do you get a second wind after the sun goes down?
      • What locations are most conducive to good practice sessions? Sometimes just changing the scenery can revitalize your focus and productivity. Practicing in places with different acoustical qualities can make you hear yourself in new ways and get your creative juices flowing.
      • What distractions are getting in your way? Can you reduce or remove them?
    6. Check your ego. Practicing should challenge you, but not overwhelm you.
      • Are you working on music that is inappropriately difficult for your current abilities? If you have some freedom to choose what you practice, consider working on something else for now and tackling this project later. If you are committed to a performance of something very difficult and have to make it work, be sure to include other things in your practice session that you can be successful at, to keep your motivation primed.

    Don’t let poor practice sessions bring you down—use them to refine your habits and make the next session your best yet.

  • Make your musical lines sing and dance

    ByBret Pimentel

    In “classical” and related kinds of music, we are often asked to make our instrumental music sing or dance. In fact, most music of this type should do one or the other.

    Singing-type music may be labeled as such with markings like cantabile or vocal-ish titles like “Aria” or “Chanson.” Or it may be characterized by notational features like long, slurred lines. In any case, playing through the melody, you can probably intuit whether it is song-like (or dance-like).

    To give your musical line a singing quality, focus on making long, smooth, elegantly-shaped phrases. They should sync with the underlying pulse without drawing attention to it.

    Dancing music might have titles named after dances, like “Waltz” or “Bourée” or “Rumba.” Or they might include high-energy articulations like accents or staccato.

    To make your lines dance, bring out the meter, by creating a sense that the beats are not all equal. This might be indicated in the notation with accents (dynamic, agogic, tonic, etc.). Or it might require some brief research into the kind of dance: for example, a quick search will show you that a Sarabande is generally in a slow three, with stress on beat 2. Some dances have rhythmic characteristics like clave that puts stress on certain subdivisions of beats.

    If your music seems to have an unspecified dance-like quality, start by bringing out the typical hierarchy of beats: in 4/4, for example, beat 1 is the strongest, beat 3 the next-strongest, beats 2 and 4 less strong, and the “ands” weaker still.

    It’s common for a multi-movement piece to have both song-like and dance-like movements, and even for both approaches to appear within a single movement or short piece.

    Here’s just one excellent example of singing vs. dancing in instrumental music. Listen to ToniMarie Marchioni and Jacob Campbell play the beginning of the first movement (“Aria”) of the Dutilleux oboe sonata, and notice the smooth, shaped, singing oboe lines that overlay the pulse without emphasizing it:

    Now skip ahead to the beginning of the second movement (“Scherzo: Vif”) and notice how the oboe line is accented, bringing the pulse to the forefront in a dance-like way:

    The next time you pick up your instrument, ask yourself whether the music should sing or dance, and what you can do to make that happen.

6 Comments

  2. Fantastic! I would like to link to this blog, your advice is spot on! My colleagues and I could not agree more with each of your suggestions and in fact chose the name MusickEd.com as an homage to an idea by Christopher Small and what you mentioned in #7 – Play for Somebody! Music(k) is a verb, it is something that should be shared and is valid at every level.

    Being patient (and persistent) in the learning process and choosing solid material are also terrific bits of advice. In fact, we built right in to our Kore Series instructions that ‘there are no shortcuts when it comes to learning music, but don’t let that fact discourage you!”.

    Well written – cheers from all of us at MusickEd.com

    Reply

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