Ted Eschliman changed my life!
If you do this for a month it will change your musical life!
I am a musician in my soul. I am a musician like a duck is a bird; it is just what I am. For much of my life music was something I listened to not something I participated in with an instrument. It spoke to my emotions and the essential energetic core of my being. For me, like many others I am sure, sound or more specifically musical sound has a profound effect on my day-to-day existence and even the current state of my moods during the day. I remember my life based on what I was listening to and huge growth changes have always been marked by some
kind of musical growth as well.
As my connection to sound matured I began to want to understand music and possibly create some. I started with the piano, then the viola, back to the piano and then off to the clarinet and finally back to the piano. During this time I grew from the age of say ten to twenty-one and in those eleven years did not learn a single jot of music that stuck with me. I don't know if I tried or didn't try or if the teacher was good or bad. I guess none of that really matters at this point. In the end it was not until my daughter was born that I decided the language of music would not be lost to me. I chose to play the mandolin because a friend had one and it sounded nice enough but more importantly at the time it could fit in an airplane over-head compartment.
I played more and more regularly as the years went by trying hard to understand how music worked. I already loved bluegrass and could memorize music. I could read standard notation and learn songs but for me all that was just memorization. In the end I didn't know what was going at all I just knew if I played the notes as written it sounded nice. Often, once the tune was learned, I would try to improvise. It was sloppy and unintentional no matter what and despite well wishers and teachers saying, “just keep playing” I was heading towards at stopping point. I could memorize all the music I wanted and knew if I just keep noodling around I would eventually get some kind of understanding of music but I don't want that. I want to speak the language of music fluently, period.
This desire kept me going for as much as six years or more. Eventually I learned five or ten songs and could play in jams as long as I stuck to the melody or chopped chords. I began to go to music festivals (If you don't your missing some of the best a life with music has to offer) and with my five or ten songs I would drift from jam to jam watching other monster musicians’ make their instruments do things I never imagined. I wanted to play like them so bad that all I can do is assume that the reader "knows" what I mean because words don't really get the job done.
I would befriend every good musician I meet and try to get them to give me the secret. I say secret because that was what it was to me. Everyone could speak music effortlessly except me. I had tried with teachers and by myself to figure it out with no luck. The good musicians that I befriended would all essentially answer as best they could my very open ended pleadings, "What are you thinking while you play?" or "Why did you play that like that?" or "How did you know that would sound right?" Every time without fail I would walk away more confused than I started with some knew practice technique that if I just practiced would be the one that did the trick. They never did.
And so it went. My efforts at learning just seemed to be stalling and I am sorry to say that I was loosing hope. There were definitely times when I would question if it was just me, maybe I was not a musician that played an instrument. My life might have to be one of listening and not making, acceptable but sad. Well, now I know, that's just bull####!
One day at work (some work ethic) I was surfing the internet and found jazzmando.com. Ted Eschliman ran the site and had some method/system he called Four Finger Closed Position (FFcP). I just said “what the hell”, it can't hurt and seems like a focused approach. I didn't know Ted,
hadn't heard anything about this FFcP thing anywhere, I was coming in cold. I followed his instructions to the letter and for a month played these scales. I didn't really understand where anything was going. Ted tells you that you’re going to start to make a "tactile" understanding of music but I threw all that out the window. He said if I just practiced them something good would happen and it took all the motivation I had left to just do that. HOLY ####!
I am hear to tell you as one struggling musician who almost gave up entirely if you want to learn to be a musician on an instrument (particularly the mandolin) and speak the language of music fluently Ted's website and subsequent book, "Getting into Jazz Mandolin" is it. It might not be the only way but it is the only one that helped me. What he teaches in his method is universal. Its fundamentals are the essential fundamentals of music, the architectural building blocks of western music.
Lazy people, just start reading here:
I will not tell you about the most interesting parts of my journey with Ted's book. It wouldn't do you any good and would be hard to put into context if you don't know anything about his book/system. I will say that what I am about to tell you is smallest but most startling little bit of joy I got just as I started out. Once I achieved it the door to the world of music cracked open.
If you follow Ted Eschliman's FFcP system by playing the exercises he outlines in the way/order he dictates for a single month, once a day you will be glad you did.
I can say this because I did it. To end the suspense here is why it works.
Strength. The first thing you have to do to follow Ted's larger system is practice and become proficient at his basic exercise. It is a set of four patterns that you memorize. They are not so much just patterns of notes as they are finger patterns you make on the fret board. There are
no open strings allowed and initially it is a feet of strength and flexibility. Do this! Don’t stop doing this for a month. Play them as
long as you can without hurting yourself but for no less than twenty minutes. Do if for a month. You have my word, a change will come.
Your fingers get strong and dude that is the secret. All of a sudden
you play deliberately. Once you start doing that you can watch your fingers in a totally different way. Your fret board will start to take on a different meaning and slowly you will see the door start to open too.
What makes this method different you say?
Where most of the methods I have looked at before give you exercise and concepts they have no logical beginning and end. They typically leave you with a bunch of unrelated exercises that if you practice and comprehend get you to a place of higher understanding. Ted’s book says start here at step one. Follow these steps and by the end you will speak the language, period. It is like a map you just follow and at first apply nothing more that muscle strength if that’s all you have but soon the needed muscles develop and your brain stops instructing your fingers so much. With the free time your brain will have to find something else to do. Believe it or not it will start to learn.
I guess I should stop at this point. There are very few things I actually voice my support for in this life. I don’t post on blogs regularly; I read but never participate in the mandocafe lists. I’m a self centered person who usually takes the approach that life belongs to each of us individually to figure out for themselves. I now know music has no secret. If I apply myself to Ted’s method how good I become is up to me and how much free time I have to practice.
Thank you Ted Eschliman.
Reply With Quote
Re: Ted Eschliman changed my life!
Originally Posted by gormanst
Bookmarks