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What Question Can I Ask About African Art and Music

Have you e'er heard the phrase, "Seek and you shall find"? What if it were admittedly truthful.  What if what we expected and looked for, nosotros often establish?  If our attitudes really did shape reality, what might we do differently?  What would change?

Science has repeatedly institute that our beliefs, curiosities, perspectives and attitudes accept a significant consequence on outcomes. This is why placebos work and then well.

–As a funny side annotation, Richard Bandler (the brilliant yet somewhat creepy co-inventor of Neurolinguistic Programming) tried to bottle placebos, clearly labeled equally placebos, and bring them to market.  (After all, they piece of work also or better than many of the drugs on the market place.)  But the FDA wouldn't corroborate them, calling them unethical!

So why not use the nature of curiosity and expectation to expand our musical capabilities?

By request open-ended and expansive questions, our minds and neurology go to work seeking answers.  And while in that location are often no definite (or perhaps infinite) answers to notice, the very process of asking these questions initiates a creative process that leads to new insights, abilities, and possibilities (musical and otherwise).

Nosotros can discover new levels of technique, musical interpretation, and enjoyment in our practice and performances.  Asking the right questions can make our practice heady and fresh!

Open-ended Questions

An open-ended question is one that has more than 1 reply.  Many can have an space number of answers.  The easiest way to create them is to start with "How could…." or "How well am I….".  The point of these types of questions is not to find an answer, but to raise sensation, create curiousity, and stimulate creativity.

Great teachers inquire slap-up questions

What'due south more, it is here that we find i of the principal benefits in working with adept teachers.  They are often listening and looking for things that nosotros are non, and in bringing them to light, requite us ways of expanding our awareness of our music.  Essentially, they teach us new questions to ask.

As an example,

I oft visit my musical passenger vehicle, a concert pianist, thinking I have a new piece all worked out.  I strut in assuming that he is going to have aught to say, because I have reached the absolute heights of musicality and musicianship, that he is going to fall on his knees and inquire if he tin can pay me instead. And information technology never happens.  Mark (my motorcoach) can immediately point me in numerous directions that I hadn't considered.

Information technology is not that I "could not" have considered them (after all, he's been telling me the aforementioned things every week for the terminal five years, and I'm still learning from them), it is that I simply didn't consider them directly with that piece, at that fourth dimension, in that item way.  Essentially, I forgot to enquire the question that would take led to a certain solution, or thought, or created a more than constructive musical effect.

Over time, as I more ofttimes remember to ask the question (i.east. "How well am I listening to the ends of my notes?") I class habits of awareness that reflect it (i.eastward. My notes are more often well-connected.)

notation: This is why information technology is extremely rare to hear truly accomplished, cocky-taught musicians.  We may not know what nosotros don't know.  Self-taught musicians are seldom request the questions that will lead them forward.

It is too why the more than mature a musician gets, the more humble they may become (though not all, of form).  High levels of achievement oft demands that nosotros ask more than and meliorate questions, and go fewer physical answers.   So the more we know, the more nosotros realize how much we don't know for sure, and nosotros accept to get comfy with that.

The subconscious' role in learning music

Your sub-conscious goes to piece of work night and twenty-four hours to answer any question you lot ask.  And so asking open up-ended questions sets the sub-conscious in move.  Answers often come "out of the blue", as ideas or notions that yous might not have had otherwise.  We can larn and find all kinds of new information quickly and hands, only past putting our subconscious heed to work on it by asking the question.

You tin witness this in your own life:  The proper name of a book or flick or person is on the "tip of your tongue", simply you but tin't remember it.  So yous give up and motion on to thinking or talking about something else.  Then former soon, the respond pops into your head when you are not thinking well-nigh it at all.

Your subconscious was working on information technology all along, while your witting mind was busy with other things.   (Thanks Subconscious!) Or, equally another example:  Y'all have some problem or dilemma.  You call back nigh information technology before bed, and in the morning you wake with the solution.  (Thanks Hidden!  Way to earn your keep!)

Asking good questions is music psychology in action

Request good questions also takes united states from a "know-it-all-already" state to a more than inquisitive "student/adventurer/explorer" state, which is much more likely to create something worth listening to.

And equally a bonus, this state also tin release a whole cocktail of experience-proficient drugs into your brain, helping you to feel better, learn faster (manner faster!), and in general have a groovy time.

This is often how kids are learning all the time.  Information technology is also how the greatest inventors, scientists, entrepreneurs, and leaders are thinking much of the time.

It works at all levels, from beginning to avant-garde, and is the most natural way for the learning procedure to evolve.

Committing to the unknown road is not e'er the easiest road, in fact information technology may need more than of you than any other.  Yous may be compelled to work harder, or focus even more intently.

Only the rewards tin seem like magic.  All of a sudden you tin practice things that y'all couldn't before, or something that used to be difficult is now easy.

Remember, ask early and ask often!  It can accept a little time for the question to sink in and for y'all to receive strokes of insight.

Musical Questions

What follows is a list of questions (in no particular lodge) that seek to open us to possibilities in our playing.  If you have not worked with some of the ideas below, they may non make sense to yous.  That is okay.  Some of them are more than advanced.

The point is that y'all create habits of exploration and marvel by frequently asking open-ended questions that aggrandize your possibilities.

It is all play, and there are no wrong questions, so long equally they open yous to new possibilities.  Brand up your ain.  Put ideas y'all get from lessons into open-question form and read them before practicing.

I recommend first simply reading through these hither, then press them out, adding to the list as questions ascend.  In your practice, cull just one at a time, and focus on a passage, section or whole slice of music with that one question in mind.  And so switch the question, and focus on another.

You don't have to get everything at once.  Just exist curious and most importantly: Have fun!

(A give-and-take of warning: If yous are a life-long player with massively entrenched ego, you may want to ease into these gently, then you lot don't crack your fragile crush.)

Here we get:

ane. How tin this be easier?

2. How steady can my tempo be?

iii. How continued (legato) can my notes exist?

four. How well can I articulate the rests?

5. How cleanly can I play this?

6. How effortlessly can I use the suggested fingering?

7. How tin utilise my body effectively so that my complete physiology is appropriate to the spirit and demands of this piece of music?

8. How would the greatest musician in the universe approach this passage?

nine. How can I create more forrard momentum?

x. How much liberty can I maintain in my shoulders (or neck, back, wrists, palms, elbows, knees, jaw….) while playing this?

11. How can the small details reverberate the larger musical ideas?

12. How can I make this musical line terminal even longer?

13. How could I effectively combine lines for repeated sections into larger, more overarching structures?

14. How can I most beautifully connect these ii notes?

xv. Is there whatsoever betoken where I am stopping the action? (and tin can I alter that so that the action continues?)

sixteen. How tin I balance the voices so as to clearly demonstrate the organization of the music?

17. What if this piece could be 100 times more interesting than I am making it?

18. Am I finding the correct issues to solve?  How?

19. What am I assuming about this slice?

20. about technique?

21. about high notes?

22. almost this musical manner?

23 most myself and my capabilities as a histrion?

24. What/who am I comparing my playing to?

25.  Is this comparison constructive?

26. Is at that place someone better I could emulate/imitate?  How?

27. How would the best pianist (violinist, flautist, cellist, …) approach this music?

28. How would the near effective performer in the galaxy (at eliciting audience emotion) know when this slice is ready to share?

29. Am I hearing every single notation?

30. Is my rubato mimicking the natural movements of objects in space?

31. How do things in the natural world (animals, cars, clouds, heavy things, light things ….) move?

32. What is the one "white-hot" emotional core of this piece of music?

33. How tin all my choices serve to demonstrate that core?

34. How apace can I notice when my mind wanders?

35. How quickly and gently can I bring focus back to the task at hand?

36. How fully can I understand and demonstrate the musical intent and management of each vocalization in this music (Melody, bass, and interior voices)?

37.  How can I practice this passage differently and so that I tin gain a new perspective?

38. How tin I demonstrate the rhythm so that it speaks to the emotional substance of this slice of music?

39. If I had all the time in the world, what would exist the most beneficial (ecological, scientific, holistic, artistic, fun, dastardly, bright,…) way to practice this passage (or piece of music, skill, technique,…)?

40. Can I exaggerate my musical ideas (dynamics, articulation, rubato, …) even more than in my ?  Even more than than that?

41.  How would I exercise this phrase if it were the merely thing on my plate?

42. What other questions tin can I come up up with?

Allen Mathews

Hi, I'one thousand Allen Mathews.


I started as a folk guitarist, and then roughshod in love with classical guitar in my 20's. Despite a lot of practise and schooling, I withal couldn't get my music to period well. I struggled with backlog tension. My music sounded forced. And my easily and body were often sore. I got frustrated, and couldn't come across the style frontward. Then, over the adjacent decade, I studied with two other stellar teachers – one focused on the technical movements, and ane on the musical (he was a concert pianist). In time, I came to discover a new set of formulas and movements. These brought new life and vitality to my do. Now I help guitarists detect more comfort and period in their music, and so they play more beautifully.
Click hither for a sample formula.

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