Everyone of us hears, feels, and learns music differently. Some of us tend to analyze before we play, others just 'feel it' without understanding. Most of us combine both of these approaches -- our analytical powers and our musical instincts -- to learn and create music. Sometimes I have students who seem a bit stuck in one extreme or the other. I wrote this article to help students find the balance. Here's an excerpt where I use a couple students as examples:
Peter came to guitar with an amateur singing background. He could already sing a handful of tunes and had a good ear for harmonic changes before he even picked up a guitar. Peter approaches the structure of a song purely from knowing how it sounds. Tell him to play three measures of Am and then two of Dm, two of E7, and end on Am, and he would lose track counting. Ask him to memorize an introduction written out with a strumming pattern and chord names – impossible. Nevertheless, he always knows where he is in a song and what the guitar should be doing, even when he is struggling technically.
Tina, in contrast, needs everything spelled out clearly before she can begin. Just listening to the song is too overwhelming. But show her the chords, write out how the intro goes with clear measures and strumming patterns, and she'll have it memorized in a week. Hearing the chord changes in a new song challenges her, but her memory for chord progressions and concrete information helps compensate. As long as she keeps count of the measures and listens carefully for the beat, she can play along with a recording.
It's always interesting to guide 'extreme' learners like these two in exploring the side that is less instinctive to them. Do you see yourself in either of these two students? What are your strengths as a musician? What are your weaknesses? Do you like understanding and analyzing the music you learn, or do you find it tedious and beside the point? Have you ever made an effort to strengthen the side of your musicianship that comes less naturally to you? What helped you the most in that process?
