Stages of learning and playing music
Like anything that we care for in life, music that we study should be nurtured and given the time and effort necessary to bring out its message and beauty for people to appreciate. When I choose a piece, I often try to learn as much about it and its composer as I possibly can. Any background information helps me understand the context of the music and how I should play it. This process can be quick (mostly for lack of info) or occur all throughout the time I'm studying the piece. At the same time, I go through what I call "stages" of playing which is pretty much a measure of how well I know the piece and how good I can play it. There is not a cut-and-dried criteria for judging where one stage ends and the other begins, but I tried to define what generally happens in each one. This is all from my personal experience and not based on any intense scientific study.
1. Analytical - I slowly read the score while having a cup of coffee; no guitar in hand. At this stage, I try to understand the key signature, tempo, timing, notes and their time values. I start to figure out the fingerings and positions much like solving puzzles. I annotate the score to keep track of personal choices in fingerings and positions. In short, I work out all the technical requirements for the piece. It also helps to listen to someone else's recording, whether performed using the same score and instrument or using a totally different medium/instrument.
2. Deliberate - I apply the results of my analysis and begin programming muscle memory by playing in a very deliberate fashion, similar to doing military drills in a bootcamp. There is no emphasis on dynamics or phrasings and tempo is often disregarded at this point. If any technical challenges arise such as complicated scales or finger stretches, I create quick and dirty lessons to overcome these challenges.
3. Mechanical - Once muscle memory starts to set in, I attempt to play the entire piece and I start understanding the music as a whole. I then figure out and apply the phrasings, voices and dynamics as indicated by the composer. When these are not present, I decide where to apply my own dynamics and phrasings. Lastly, I begin to play at the indicated tempo.
4. Memorized - I start to program the piece in my head and visualize the score (rather than read it) as I play. Having the score in my head frees me up to observe my hands and try out varying flavors of phrasings and dynamics. At this point, I revisit the decisions I made earlier on fingerings and technique and adjust as necessary.
5. Reflexive - I usually know I'm at this stage if I can play with emotions and my fingers will just follow. At the end of the day, music is about expressing a message or an emotion. These emotions should drive the performance and the technique supports the desired expression.
I have to say that in my haste to "conquer" a piece, I rarely get to the highest level of playing. The reason for this is by the time I'm able to play the piece end-to-end, albeit mechanically, I already feel either exhausted or bored and want to move on to the next piece. However, I often revisit a piece long after I've moved on and I find myself playing it much better the next time around. It takes a great amount of discipline to transcend mechanical/technical playing and elevate things to a purely musical level. On the flipside, I've seen musicians who skip all these details and, in their mind, play purely by emotions but fail to get any message across because of their incoherent and oftentimes rushed style of playing.
In conclusion, we always say we should just enjoy playing music and forget about the technicalities, which is true, but as a mere mortal, I have to climb some hills to appreciate the view.
Salamat Po!
1. Analytical - I slowly read the score while having a cup of coffee; no guitar in hand. At this stage, I try to understand the key signature, tempo, timing, notes and their time values. I start to figure out the fingerings and positions much like solving puzzles. I annotate the score to keep track of personal choices in fingerings and positions. In short, I work out all the technical requirements for the piece. It also helps to listen to someone else's recording, whether performed using the same score and instrument or using a totally different medium/instrument.
2. Deliberate - I apply the results of my analysis and begin programming muscle memory by playing in a very deliberate fashion, similar to doing military drills in a bootcamp. There is no emphasis on dynamics or phrasings and tempo is often disregarded at this point. If any technical challenges arise such as complicated scales or finger stretches, I create quick and dirty lessons to overcome these challenges.
3. Mechanical - Once muscle memory starts to set in, I attempt to play the entire piece and I start understanding the music as a whole. I then figure out and apply the phrasings, voices and dynamics as indicated by the composer. When these are not present, I decide where to apply my own dynamics and phrasings. Lastly, I begin to play at the indicated tempo.
4. Memorized - I start to program the piece in my head and visualize the score (rather than read it) as I play. Having the score in my head frees me up to observe my hands and try out varying flavors of phrasings and dynamics. At this point, I revisit the decisions I made earlier on fingerings and technique and adjust as necessary.
5. Reflexive - I usually know I'm at this stage if I can play with emotions and my fingers will just follow. At the end of the day, music is about expressing a message or an emotion. These emotions should drive the performance and the technique supports the desired expression.
I have to say that in my haste to "conquer" a piece, I rarely get to the highest level of playing. The reason for this is by the time I'm able to play the piece end-to-end, albeit mechanically, I already feel either exhausted or bored and want to move on to the next piece. However, I often revisit a piece long after I've moved on and I find myself playing it much better the next time around. It takes a great amount of discipline to transcend mechanical/technical playing and elevate things to a purely musical level. On the flipside, I've seen musicians who skip all these details and, in their mind, play purely by emotions but fail to get any message across because of their incoherent and oftentimes rushed style of playing.
In conclusion, we always say we should just enjoy playing music and forget about the technicalities, which is true, but as a mere mortal, I have to climb some hills to appreciate the view.
Salamat Po!
It depends on the complexity of the piece. I often just make it to Memorized and that takes about 2 weeks for an intermediate level piece. This is why I didn't assign any timeline.
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