Being Genuine & Real

Impacting Your Musical Abilities

This page is for students and musicians who said - ‘The purpose of life is to be genuine and real, to be yourself, to be the person God made you to be, and life is a journey of discovery to find out who that person really is. To have a meaningful life, and meaningful is defined by who you are, not what you do.’

Perspective - Almost all students of music can learn to do all the different aspects of music well with work and solid direction or instruction. So most people can learn to read music well, improvise well, and be a convincing performer, but each kind of person has areas that are easier or harder for them personally.

Strengths - This kind of musician and musical learner is interested in expressing themselves personally and in describing the emotions and drama of life. They are very good at this. They see the ‘big picture’ in music and know intuitively that the purpose of music is to move people, make people laugh and cry and be moved. In fact, they are able to ignore the little mistakes that come up in a performance and complete it because they are focused on fully expressing what’s in their heart, the real purpose of music. Because they are focused on the bottom line of drama in music, they are good at improvising (adlibbing), songwriting/composition , and overcoming mistakes in a song to get all the way to the end, come heck or high water. This includes overcoming mistakes and errors to save the day! Also, in their musical expression they strive to be unique.

Issues - Since they are focused on the big picture and expressing emotional truth through their music, they can ignore errors in a song, and may not always perfect one song before moving on to another one – sometimes to the point of not even noticing the mistakes (this is the wrong chord, the wrong rhythm, not in tune, etc). And since a musician’s body of work is just an assembly of their songs with the attendant details of doing those songs, they may in turn not master enough abilities to be able to play the true music that’s in their heart, trusting to their sincerity and truth to carry the tide (which it will, up to a point), rather than musical abilities or excellence.

This student is the most sensitive to letting the ebb and flow of emotions affect their musical effort, in both performance and practice, sometimes even interpreting these emotions as reasons to be in or out of music.

Music for this learner is an affair of the heart. Frequently, this earnest seeker of truth will be laboring at a difficult thing in music, working and toiling away and suddenly think, “Ha! This isn’t music, this is bondage!! I want to express myself and be me and play/sing from the heart; not labor like a slave on this nitpicky trivia!! Bah!! Ugh!!”. Then they don’t practice for 4 days………The actual problem for this student isn’t what happened just now, but what happens after: when they come into their senses, they may feel so terribly guilty for not practicing that they won’t practice for another 2 weeks.

Solutions - While it’s true that the details are not the song or even the bulk of the song, they are what separates an average player from a great one, and a heart-rending song from ‘meh’. These students need direction from someone they trust to point out the truly necessary details that will make their music soar. And ultimately a body of music that soars.

Again this learner needs someone they can trust to help them play, sing, and practice through the down times emotionally. When you’re discouraged about music, do the funnest thing first and a lot, even if it’s not something you’re supposed to do. Then while you’re enjoying that fun thing maybe you’ll want to do a second thing on your list.

Be aggressively ready to cut the cycle of practice/righteous rebellion/guilt/double guilt and just leave out all the guilt part. If you didn’t practice for the last 2 weeks – that’s bad. But, fugedaboutit! Move on, pick up and keep going (and I hate to toot the instructor’s horn but moving on is made easier when you’ve got someone you think is great musically telling you that it’s ok to do that). It’s ok to do that.

Though these answers are indeed mostly about emotions, for this type of musician there are few musical barriers to being totally awesome; it’s frequently the issue of managing emotions that allows a musicianship that rules to develop or not.

Other Issues - These musicians can have a tendency to feel that just because something they did was passionate, it was also good – sadly, not always so. They frequently benefit from having a reliable source for determining the musical value of their always-heart-felt efforts.

Some people of this type can be overly impressed by the reputations of famous or important people and methods; they have to be careful in choosing their musical mentors, lest they idolize and mimic a personality or musical system that really doesn’t pay off in terms of producing results.

Be careful not to lower the standard of what you want to accomplish so as to shield yourself from the guilt of not accomplishing it. Work on your art, raise your abilities up to where your dreams are, don’t lower your goals because you didn’t’ practice. Go for great musical things and you will frequently accomplish them, though with effort.

Conclusions and results - By being committed to mastering essential details and stopping the flood of trivial guilt in its tracks, many great players and singers like this perform with power and earnestness everyday and take us with them into their musical world. Make sure what you’re trying to do is as good as you think it is; the ‘real world’ has its points. Watch out for fads and trends, verify that what you’re doing is really producing results. Just because you’re passionate about your music doesn’t mean you can’t be excellent as well.

This type of musician can be anything they want in music: singer, instrumentalist, performer, soloist, composer, singer/songwriter, front man, band member. Many, many of the songs that make us all shout and cry and dance and decide to sign up for the Marines – are written by this kind of musician. This musician is probably the best ‘natural’ musician, not necessarily in terms of how difficult what they do is, but in terms of how convincing what they do seems. Many singer-songwriters are this personality. Surprisingly, many of the world’s most skilled musicians (now I do mean in terms of how difficult what they do is) too are this personality, especially those who’ve disciplined themselves to practice (that’s two evil words in one sentence, the d word and the p word!). Take lessons at Promethean Studios; we understand your passion to express yourself. We can help that happen while you become the best musician you can be.

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