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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
MUSIC - what is Easy to LEARN and what is Hard ?
MUSIC - what is Easy to LEARN and what is Hard ?
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Frank
4756 posts
Jul 03, 2014
1:22 PM
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Lets face it - Learning the art of music making can seem like a monumental climb, always trekking a little further up the musical mountain desiring to reach a better level of proficiency.
1) What do you believe are the easiest components of music to learn while on the journey of becoming a musician?
2) What do you feel are the hardest things to learn about music making... that are just hard concepts etc, to really get a hold of?
3) What are the things pertaining to musicianship which you think you'll probably never be able to do musically for what ever reason?
Last Edited by Frank on Jul 03, 2014 1:26 PM
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nacoran
7851 posts
Jul 03, 2014
2:08 PM
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-It took me forever to get my first bend and then forever more to get my first overblow (and I still can't use them musically).
-I've gotten much better at grabbing the right key harp fairly quickly but it's still not automatic. When I started learning I focused on learning what the different intervals between the holes sounded like and if I'm playing alone (so I don't need to be in the 'right' key) I'm good at picking out melodies quickly. Generally, if I know the melody well enough to sing it I can play it.
-I've got much better at learning when to play, when to just chug along, and when to lay out.
-I've gotten much better at knowing when a note should sound dirty, when I should use a chord, when I should use a hand effect, but I'm still frustrated that I can't explain 'when' to anyone else. I'm doing it totally by feel. I remember asking a while back for advice on the topic and not getting any responses. There do seem to be patterns to it that work, and I wish I could articulate them because I think it would really be useful to someone starting out.
-Rhythm is an issue for me. I'm good at the rhythm inside a measure, at least playing alone. I can play complex triplets and syncopations and keep to the groove I'm playing when I'm playing alone, but sometimes, particularly on patterns where I have to come in ahead of the beat (I seem to write a lot of songs like that) I get thrown by the other instruments. I get it eventually, but we have to run through things a lot. Over the course of the song my rhythm is a little less regular. I've got some songs where I deliberately change the tempo a bit, but some other songs, particularly when I'm on stage alone, well, I get a little too excited and speed up as the song goes on. The crowd doesn't usually seem to notice, but, for instance, we had some problems on a tune last week when the audience started clapping along!
-I can remember lyrics. I can play the harp. I have a very hard time doing both at the same time.
-If I can prepare myself quietly before I go up my stage patter is pretty good, but if I have to sit and listen to a bunch of acts first I lose my focus.
-Even with the circle of fifths my dyslexia seems to screw with my ability to remember which harp to grab when someone calls the key.
-My tinkering inside my harps, well, when I finish it it comes out as an improvement, usually, but wow, I have a lot of harps apart lying all over the place at any given moment.
That's my journey. Your milage may vary. I've been on the harp journey just about since when this site went up. Overall, I'd say that if I can practice a song enough I can get it, but I'm still really uncomfortable 'winging it' and jamming.
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Nate
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First Post- May 8, 2009
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Chris L
53 posts
Jul 03, 2014
5:09 PM
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Easy: piping out a simple melody.
Difficult technique: as a TB'er, bending was a chore, first to get the bends, then to control them. Also, playing Lip Blocked after learning TB takes a surprisingly long time, but a few key articulations and better control on blow bends make some effort there worth while.
Difficult lesson: Anything can be achieved given enough time and focussed attention.
More difficult lesson: I have limited time and attention, so I have to choose carefully what I learn.
Corollary to "more difficult lesson": Producing useful over-bends that don't sound like two magpies locked in mortal combat, may have to wait until I have a lot more time and I have mastery over every other technique I could wish for! :)
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The Iceman
1804 posts
Jul 04, 2014
8:31 AM
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It took me many years, but I've discovered that all music components are easy to learn if you work off the premise that your brain is already full of music played properly (tv, radio, movie soundtracks, concerts, etc).
All that input is rattling around in your brain already - the small challenge is to "label" all this stuff with music theory words.
A much easier task than to think you have to learn all that music theory stuff from the ground up.
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The Iceman
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mr_so&so
842 posts
Jul 04, 2014
10:04 AM
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This topic is apropos for me, because I'm going to start teaching. I agree with The Iceman that our brains already know a lot about music just from being alive. Most of us have not learned to label things. In my learning process, I have found theory helpful to organize concepts. I know that some others like to keep it intuitive. Whatever works for you, you still need to be able to communicate with other musicians and play in key, so there is some basic info you need to know there. My challenge to myself is to distill out that bare minimum: enough to build a foundation, but not so much as to build a box.
Personally, I have found it much easier to learn the techniques of playing than I have to play musically. I'm still learning a lot about playing music, improvisation, and keeping time. To me that remains the hard stuff, that comes from experience, that you can't learn from a book, but you can learn with your ears.
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colman
309 posts
Jul 05, 2014
9:06 AM
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listening to riffs and licks and working on them is easy and part of the process,and scales bring on speed in playing,but if you don`t work on the TONE you control in your mouth down to your gut you will never have a good blues voice on a harp.
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