The Handbook: a Manual for Learning Music.  

Written in all honesty by Rebeka Lyn, musician & technician.

Chapter Three: Developing a Practice.

Let’s begin with an exercise in relaxation: sitting still, in a comfortable, upright position, close your eyes.  Now open them.  What you are going to do is to use the aid of an audio-visual guided visualization to assist your mind & body in the relaxation process.  So sit yourself in front of your computer screen and use your favorite web browser to find the Noise Factory website, click the word at the top of the page that says “Music”. Choose a song, and let your thoughts about your day just drop away and let your imagination be drawn into the visualization as a way of using light & sound to bring into a more positive, peaceful, and hopeful state of mind & being.  Notice what thoughts you are thinking; now let those thoughts drift on by, like waves ebbing & flowing in the ocean tide. Now back to the visuals; all the while  following the hum of the audio.  Can you watch the inside of your mind and stare at the video on the outside at the same time?  Observe the thought-ripples & manipulations of your own mind; and then move on.] The way this exercise works is in part by distracting you and simultaneously re-focusing your attention on something therapeutic.  Note: as for a thought for to munch on in your in-between time in the future…try this line of thinking, about the power of music & visuals, and how when the two are combined properly, they have a very magical & mysterious effect to transport the audience to another perspective or angle of reality. 

The point of this exercise is to practice what I call “active relaxation”, whereby you are actively engaging your mind in order to coax your body into deeper states of relaxation.  See, the problem is this: tension.  And when tension builds up in your muscles as in your life, relaxation is not so easy as just plopping down on the sofa couch and “relaxing”.  Now, relaxation has become an active—rather than a passive—activity, because the states of relaxation no longer happen naturally.  And you really must try at it, and you must set aside time for it to happen, and you must intellectualize the process if you are ever going to succeed in truly relaxing.  

And why is it important to learn how to let the tensions of the day just wash away and slip into that safe & relaxed space of just being & doing you?  It is because, for music to sound like it is just flowing from your fingertips, the musician must learn how to relax.  And the audience is going to be naturally attracted to an artist that can help to put them at ease as well.  Meaning, your audience is looking to you to help them to feel better [which generally includes also feeling more relaxed].  And if we musicians ever hope to be able to improvise together, we should understand that for successful improvisation to actually happen, it requires that both your mind & your body are focused, alert, clear/clean & relaxed, so that as your mind analyzes the musical elements & improvisational possibilities, your fingers & related body parts can respond & react to your mind’s line of thinking in live time.  My advice is that you, the reader, make the development of these qualities part of your practice now, so that you develop good habits and then, when you are feeling the pressure of performance pushing at you from the direction of your audience, you can fall back on your good habits and it will be easier to relax in the midst of all the chaos and excitement.

This chapter is about the importance of developing your practice.  They say that practice makes perfect, and, um, I want to clarify what I deem to be the meaning behind that statement.  Just because you engage in some repetitive activity, whereby you do the same thing every day and call it “practicing”, does not necessarily mean that you will improve.  To be clear, if you exercise your muscles every day, you will eventually get stronger, but you must be working on something real—like muscle tissue—if you are going to show real signs of improvement.  And it is these tangible signs of improvement that supply the organic sources of motivation that then in turn fuels your practice.  If you want your practice to work for you, you have to do more than to just go through the motions.  You have to pay close attention to the process of how you do something, not just the “what” of what you are doing.  

For instance, if you are going to practice your scales, and you just play them the same hasty way every time, with the attitude that says “I just need to get through this”, then you are going to always play the scales that way, because through repetition you developed a habit, which in this case is a sloppy habit.  You are completing the task technically speaking, but the scales will lack the warmth of the sound of heart & soul flowing through them because you are playing the scales like you are just going through the motions.  But if every day that you practice your scales, you watch how your fingers slide across the keys, and you feel into how rigid or how relaxed your finger joints feel, always thinking about how you’re trying to feel for the rhythm in between the coordinated movements of all those little skeletal muscular movements required to play an instrument, and you are listening closely to how scales sound, always thinking about how to make the basic scales sound more musical…and if you continue this way every practice session to try to improve how you play the scales, then you really should eventually notice tangible—as in actual—progress through your regular practice.

[Note: Now, remember, dear reader, that it is not necessary to do every task with heart & soul.  For most professions, I think it is actually for the best if you maintain a strictly intellectual approach to the tasks at hand and leave the expression of heart & soul for your personal time & personal relationships.  The exception to this is for musicians, artists and entertainers…because our work is what the rest of the people want to engage with in their personal time, people are looking for works of art that reek of heart & soul.] 

I think the confusion with the statement “practice makes perfect” lies with a misunderstanding as to the definition of the word “practice”.  It needs to be stated that practice means more than mere repetition, as I attempted to explain in the paragraph above.  Secondly, the word ‘practice’ can be used as either a noun or as a verb.  I would like to address what the word ‘Practice’ means as a noun, as in ‘developing a personal practice’.  For learning the art & science of Music, a personal practice session that you repeat daily or weekly [or however you design yours] is essential.  You must spend time working on the elements of music & on the skills necessary to the development of the elements of music in your own life.  So a practice, then is a block of time—say, an hour—that happens in a specific place—say, in your bedroom.  Then, it is the things that happen in that space during that block of time that will help you cultivate your musical potential.  

See, potential is like a seed, small and hard and designed to endure as future greatness encased in a durable shell so as to protect itself in the present until which time the conditions are suitable for the potential of a seed to realized as a beautiful flowering talent.  We all contain in the blueprints of our individual souls the potential for some talent, waiting to be nurtured & matured into the blossoming realization of itself.  And just as nurturing involves gentleness, maturation requires the acquiring of self-discipline.  Why, you ask, and the answer is simple: it is because self-discipline, internal & external, leads to a deeper feeling of inner freedom & outer self-confidence.  This is because deep inside yourself you are beginning to develop bonds of trust between the parts of own self as you acquire self-discipline through diligent practice, as well as self-care [the nurturing aspect of development], all with respect, of course, to & for your own natural limits.

I suggest you begin your personal practice session with a relaxation & centering exercise, like the one found in the beginning of this chapter.  What happens next in your practice session should be somewhat of an evolving structure, that includes some rigidity as well as some fluidity, so as to train yourself to embrace both structure & unstructured time.  The unstructured time is where improvisation happens, and the structure sets us back on the path.  An example of structured time is practicing scales, finger exercises, or études, and then an example of unstructured time would be to try to play around with the scales, varying the rhythms or melodic sequence, as if you were giving yourself permission to improvise.  And the beauty of developing a way to practice is that if you are feeling particularly frustrated one day, and just don’t want to practice your scales, then you can skip the scales.  Your practice session is your time & space to work on music, your way, and working with your daily feelings & sensations is part of the practice.  Maybe you spend your practice session listening to & analyzing songs; maybe you do a longer relaxation exercise & then try to meditate, maybe you read a history of Jazz in West Africa, maybe you study a little theory; maybe you play all of the notes your instrument can make, one by one, just listening to the sound produced by each one; maybe you just play a song that makes you feel better, close your eyes, & feel into the rhythm, and then try to ask yourself why do you like what you like, like this song?  I suggest making a list of things that you would like to do during your practice sessions, with enough variety so that you can maybe find ways to practice that feel good.

What you do in your practice will shine through in your performance.  The way that you practice playing music is the way that you will play music, because of all those little playing habits that you develop through repetitive practice.  Meaning, if you pay attention to how you do things during your practice sessions, then you can be sure to develop good habits.  And then those good habits will carry you forward in your music career.  Consequently, bad habits are also possible, and, like all habits, bad habits are hard to break.  I suggest you spend time analyzing your approach to your practice, as well as your use of time during your practice.   

Remember back to Mr. Miyagi’s advice to Danielson, who wanted to learn the secrets of Kung Fu fighting.  Miyagi made Danielson wax the floor, paint the fence, and do other chores, and to do them just so, because that is how you develop Kung Fu: by practicing the necessary skills, in the right way, through physical repetition accompanied by mental focus, maintaining the appropriate attitude, & proper attention to detail.  But the real secret is that Kung Fu is not just for fighting; Kung Fu is the Way of Life.  When some difficult task is done with apparent ease of motion, then it has been done with Kung Fu.  Kung Fu applies to all of Life’s skills, including the making of music, and to do with Kung Fu is the always the goal.  

Along time ago, a Daoist Priest from China was captured by Genghis Khan’s grandson, and he was blinded by snake venom so as to test his Kung Fu and then forced to teach his secret arts to his enemies.  And when the priest was forced to train the European explorer Marco Polo, the priest told him that what Kung Fu really is, is Supreme Mastery of a Skill.  So I say that when the musician possesses Kung Fu, the music will sound just right and will seem to flow with ease.  And when you are doing just right, people will know and will respond to your sound.  When an old black man walks up to your piano, takes his wallet out of his back pocket, pulls out a $1 bill, then looks at you, puts the $1 back, and instead pulls out a $5 and puts it down on your piano, saying this is for you…that feels good, way deep down, and I find the motivation to keep at my practice.  When an a middle-aged Latino gangster-type walks past my piano, stops & spins around, walks back towards me, pulls out his wallet and pulls out a few dollars…when a young, white, male punk-rocker with some sort of attention-deficit disorder sits down & sits still, of his own free will, and listens to me play the piano…when an aging construction worker walks up to my piano, takes out his wallet, pulls out a $1 bill, lays it down, and says “this is because I wish I could play like that”…that feels good.  And that is all the confirmation that I need to know that my music is having a positive effect, which in turn means my personal practice is solid and I am indeed developing musical Kung Fu. 

One of the issues with how to practice is this: the question of perfection and how to think about making mistakes.  This is a sticky issue because mistakes in music can often interrupt the flow of the song you are wanting to carry you off to somewhere far away from here…but there can also be such a thing as “too perfect” that it seems unreal, like music only a machine could manufacture, too much, and too inhuman.  In my analysis of my own mistakes both in practice sessions as well as in live performance, I have discovered that mistakes can potentially be a gateway to innovation, when in a flash your coping mechanisms have the opportunity to be put to creative use.  What I mean is this: the other day I was playing a new beat [meaning some sort of melodic rhythm—rhythm + melody], and I got to this point in the groove whereby the only variation in the rhythm & melodic structure happened when I mistakenly hit a wrong key.  I quickly recollected myself, of course, but I realized in that moment that if I can do that, if I can get knocked off the melody by some mysterious unseen thing and then self-correct without getting knocked off the rhythm, then mistaken keys don’t have to spell the death of the vibe.  If we can find a steady rhythm & maintain it, then we can play on, in spite of wrong notes, because these wrong notes instead become gateways to possibilities.  The occasional slipped key provides variety to the loop, and as that “wrong” note could make a bridge to a new melodic variant, then, people, what we are dealing with here is less of an actual mistake than what a true blue jazz dude might call more of an “accidental incidental”.

Mistakes are not just to be overlooked.  But mistakes are not necessarily something to be obsessed over, either.  If you notice a pattern in your mistakes, like you keep making the same mistake or the same type of mistake, then that fact is information as to something that might be off in your approach to your practice session, to music, or to yourself.  And then you have to be your own Sherlock Holmes, your own private detective and analyze your own situation.  It is just as important to analyze your mistakes as it is to analyze your attitude & your approach toward fixing your mistakes.  If you are too easy on yourself, your progress will be too slow to keep your own interest; and if you are too hard on yourself, you will make yourself afraid to make mistakes, thus tensing up unnecessarily for fear of your own self-rebuke.  And we already learned earlier why it is important to learn how to relax.

Try the exercise at the beginning of this chapter again.  This time, put on a therapeutic instrumental song in the background [may I suggest one of the songs on my website, thenoisefactory.net/music ] …and now prepare your space: get quiet, get comfortable, light a candle.  We will begin this session by first standing up, and getting the wiggles out.  That means “shake it off, shake it off”…the metaphysical dirt & the disturbances of the day…you know, the things that build up invisibly and get you to feel frustrated before you even know why, exactly, or how to undo it.  Stand up, take a deep breath in, and let it out, slowly.  Count to yourself, in your head, as you breathe in: one, two, three, four…and then count to four again, at the same speed, as you exhale.  Evening out your breathing so that the speed of your inhalation matches the speed of your exhalation can help you to establish an internal sense of rhythm, and resorting these subtle, internal rhythms can help you to calm yourself & to retain that sense of calm in the midst of frustrating situations.  Because you can take a deeper breath while standing up than you can while sitting down, stay standing for a few minutes, clear mind by reminding yourself of where you & what you are doing right in this present moment.  Use the will power of your mind to push aside whatever shit happened this morning & the worries of whatever you still have to do before you can retire tonight.  Carve out a few minutes of time to re-establish a breathing pattern to settle your mind and root your conscious-awareness in the here & now of whatever time-space matrix you find yourself in, in this present moment.  Try lengthening your breath by counting to six, eight, or even ten, while you inhale & exhale.  You are trying to find a breathing pattern that feels natural, and that you can maintain, without forcing it.  A natural-feeling pattern established over time is the essence of rhythm, and Life finds comfort in established rhythms.  

Breathing in & out happens involuntarily, but if you use your mind to interact with your own body, then you can voluntarily regulate the speed of your breathing, in order to establish a breathing rhythm.  In times of stress & strong emotion, breathing can automatically get short & irregular.  Noticing your own habits, you can use your mind to intervene in your own experience by deepening & lengthening your breath cycle, and therefore helping yourself to calm down.  Now, before you settle in to the relaxation exercise, stay standing and explore a little bit of “free movement”.  That means, don’t try to do any stretches or dance moves that you know already…this is a moment to explore small, subtle movements based on what feels good to your body in this present moment.  Having centered yourself through breath work, now move your mind’s attention to the rest of your body.  Begin with small movements, like wiggling your fingers & moving your toes.  Then, use the “eye of your mind” to scan your body from the inside of your muscles & bones & organ systems.  Sink your consciousness into your jaw, and into your neck.  What do you feel?  Notice any sensations of pressure, tingling, pain, warmth, coolness, tightness, ect, and try to isolate—with your mind—the point of origin of these feelings.  The feelings that you are looking for in this exercise are not emotional, rather we are looking for physical feelings, also known as sensations.  

These are the feelings that Yoda was addressing when he spoke of the Force that flows through all things and about the importance of trusting your feelings in order to interact with this omnipresent Force.  He was not speaking about emotional feelings, but rather feelings of the physical world, including the physical sensations of your bodily experience.  Not to diminish the importance of emotions, I want to emphasize the distinction between emotional feelings and physical sensations, also known as feelings.  It is important to recognize the difference.  Music requires that you understand both, the emotional & the physical feelings.  A solid knowledge of Rhythm & its variations requires that the musician be deeply in touch with his or her physical feelings. This exercise can help you develop a sensitivity to your own feelings, which can in turn help you establish an internal sense of rhythm.  

So, you are still standing, and sinking your mind into your physical form for the purpose of turning your attention to focus on all these little physical sensations that your body is experiencing.  For now, don’t think about why something hurts; rather think about the texture & the type of the pain.  Because our minds naturally notice stronger sensations—like pain—first, ask yourself: where is the sensation of pain coming from, exactly, and what does the pain feel like, in metaphor & in detail? Now try to find some pleasant sensation, like some muscle that is starting to relax, increasing capillary circulation to the surrounding region…or like the feeling of your eyes starting to wake up…then, find some ways to move that will make your aching body feel a little bit better.  Go slow & be deliberate in your movements, paying attention to what feels good & what doesn’t.  Make circles in space with your wrists, and then your elbows, and then do arm circles with your shoulders.  Raise your arms up over your head, and reach for the sky.  Then, one at a time, stretch your outstretched arm towards the direction of your opposite shoulder, and bend sideways…you should feel this in your ribcage.  Try and flex your hip flexors by raising & lowering one hip at a time, alternating until you find a way to march in place.  Keep your mind focused on what your body is feeling, and gently explore whatever kind of free movement feels good.  When you have finished, return to your seated position & continue with the practice found at the beginning of this chapter.    

Now that you are relaxed after having finished your meditation session, here is a contemplation of my own making for to ponder: it is my humble opinion that you shouldn’t have to work that hard to recognize the beauty in a piece of art, be it music or poetry or painting or something culinary...the presence of beauty in the form of magic & of meaning should be obvious to the discerning eye.  The work of art should be like it wants to introduce itself to you and then seduce you into wanting to explore itself.  It’s like it is in the early stages of any relationship: for a myriad of mysterious reasons, a natural attraction sparks between you and who…in this case, a work of art.  If you have to try too hard in the beginning—when it should feel organic—the relationship is probably going to fall apart, naturally.  But if it doesn’t, if the relationship endures  as it advances due to the fires of desire accompanied by the unavoidable march of time, the relationship must adjust to the changes that time brings as it continues onward.  And adjusting to changes requires a sensitivity to life’s complexities…so that at this stage, the relationship either deepens & bonds strengthen, or it blows up & falls apart.  The way this applies to your relationship with music in general or with a song in particular is this: the initial attraction should happen naturally, but after that the relationship requires work, or else it disappear into the place where memories are turned into “whatever”.  The work that is needed is the hard work of truly understanding another perspective.  For a relationship to feel truly meaningful, mutual appreciation is a necessity.  If you want to develop a relationship with a work of art in particular, or with the Spirit of the Craft itself, you seize on the initial attraction & channel that excitement into developing an appreciation for the form, or for the mind behind the work.  Appreciation that has naturally evolved through deepening your understanding of a self or of a work is Magic; that kind of appreciation is what helps to coax the layers of artistic complexity into revealing their secret depths.      

Chapter Three Challenge:  Develop a personal practice, something you can stick to.  Consider keeping a journal as a way of documenting your process & and marking what you consider to be your progress.