Character over practice?

[Beanzy]

Never practice. Play. If it's not fun, why bother? We are adults, not children. It's different to learn as an adult. Adults learn by trying things and looking for information when we get stuck. Just play, enjoy the process, you'll get better over time and at some point if you feel like you'd really like to practice scales, that's when you will do it.

Not everyone wants to draw kiddy pictures with crayons. They can be engaging and useful for their emotional impact; just look at all those adverts where the agency uses them to manipulate the reaction. However there is a whole world of art that goes beyond the just having fun and pursues something else for the enjoyment to be found in the result and often just the learning of the craft.

Playing and enjoyment can be limited by a lack of skills and some skills are best learned through practice, guidance, maybe apprenticeship to a master. It depends how high the wire you want to walk is. I think, as many posts here allude to, there are many kinds of satisfaction and sources of joy in music. Not all require the same skills, but those that do demand a variety of high level skills need practice, if your character is motivated to pursue that then you will be able to derive the pleasure from the pursuit. If you are not motivated by that, then it would be bending yourself out of shape to try.

Often practice or guidance is the shortcut to satisfaction. However there is also the danger of becoming the eternal student and never letting yourself use all the skill accumulated to be yourself and truly own the music. As with everything a balance will need to be found for each person.

[Charlie Bernstein]

An amateur like me would like to be in control of their technique enough that they can express themselves without having to think about it too hard. To that end, one must practise and experience playing in public. . . . I haven't been to folk clubs much but the sight and sound of earnest middle class folk singing songs about labouring down pit, drinking, fighting and the other when they don't appear to have ever done much of any always makes me chuckle.

Yup. It took me many years to be able to play for audiences. Worth the wait? Dunno. I just play and write because I like to play and write. It's fun when people like it, but I'd do it even if no one liked it.

Most of the people I play music with are the suburbanites you're talking about. It kind of weirds me out, too. But they're peculiar enough or talented enough that they can overcome the disadvantage of advantage.

An old friend had (and maybe still has) a punk band called Suburban Posers. It did sendups of common suburbia tropes, with titles like "Microwave" and "Planned Community."

But if you go to a good folk-friendly venue (e.g. I used to go to the Bottom Line and the Speakeasy in New York), you might find the real thing.

[farmerjones]

Not everyone wants to draw kiddy pictures with crayons.

Although I understand what you're saying I didn't interpret Sbhikes statement as you did.

The way I took it was, for adults, many times it's better to play tunes rather than drill. Learning music in context rather than not.
I personally wouldn't say no drills at all. But learning things in context seems to be right and proper for me.
Waaaayyy back six pages ago, I still say the answer is practice. Maybe not whip & chain drills, but daily stick & rudder time, as the pilots say. All that "character" will come as a matter of course. If it doesn't, this may not be your bailiwick. The world needs golfers and cyclists too.

[sbhikes]

Not everyone wants to draw kiddy pictures with crayons. They can be engaging and useful for their emotional impact; just look at all those adverts where the agency uses them to manipulate the reaction. However there is a whole world of art that goes beyond the just having fun and pursues something else for the enjoyment to be found in the result and often just the learning of the craft.

Playing and enjoyment can be limited by a lack of skills and some skills are best learned through practice, guidance, maybe apprenticeship to a master. It depends how high the wire you want to walk is. I think, as many posts here allude to, there are many kinds of satisfaction and sources of joy in music. Not all require the same skills, but those that do demand a variety of high level skills need practice, if your character is motivated to pursue that then you will be able to derive the pleasure from the pursuit. If you are not motivated by that, then it would be bending yourself out of shape to try.

Often practice or guidance is the shortcut to satisfaction. However there is also the danger of becoming the eternal student and never letting yourself use all the skill accumulated to be yourself and truly own the music. As with everything a balance will need to be found for each person.

I learned to play by showing up at a weekly jam with an instrument, not knowing the tunes and barely knowing the instrument. They encouraged me to play anyway. I learned it all one note at a time. I'd literally get one note and wait for the tune to come around again so I could get that note again. Then I tried for two, then for the outline of the tune. Week after week, year after year, I filled in more notes, and continue to fill in more notes and make variations. I would sit out the harder tunes until I heard them enough I felt ready to attempt them. Over time, I learned hundreds of tunes this way. After a while, people invited me to more and more paid gigs, I was invited to be on a CD, I busk at the market, people want me there and are happy when I show up. All that without formal lessons or formal practicing. It was all fun the entire way through and any time I got stuck on something, I'd ask someone for help and work on it, but I never saw it in the same sort of light as "well, I gotta do a hour of scales and play these boring etudes and work my way through this book" or whatever. It was all in the spirit of fun. I'd even use the jam as a chance to experiment and try new things because as they always insisted, "nobody can hear you anyway", which is true because there are like 4 guitars and 5 banjos, 12 fiddles, 8 mandolins and a hammer dulcimer that was sent by the Devil himself.

[fatt-dad]

In the realm of language, do we practice our helping verbs? Do we drill the correct pronunciation of through, though, cough, bone, one, gone, etc.? When do we really practice our use of nouns and verbs? Well, we know the answer, after actually learning how to speak! I think it was after 7 or 8 years of speaking that such thoughts even appear in elementary school. Heck, it may have been 7th grade before I even knew what a helping verb meant - not that I hadn't used them.

So, my vote is, "learn to communicate first." Just play! After 10,000 hours, you'll have the skills necessary to steer towards a specialized area of music, advanced theoretical concepts and the like. It's premature to give somebody a mandolin and start right off the bat with advanced theoretical concepts.

Just a few thoughts. . .

f-d

[Charlie Bernstein]

Although I understand what you're saying I didn't interpret Sbhikes statement as you did. . . .

I didn't, either!

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . After 10,000 hours, you'll have the skills necessary . . . .

Or else you'll NEVER have the skills necessary!

[SincereCorgi]

Yeah, you shouldn't be able to sing a murder ballad unless you've committed at least, say, three murders.

There's a great book called "Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music" by Barker and Taylor that explores some of the stuff discussed in this thread, going from the earliest recorded music on to the present. Musicians and marketers have carefully cultivated 'authentic' images to sell recordings and show tickets for a really long time- it's weird that we hold middle-class folkies' feet to the fire over it when the last century of music has been more or less a pose.

[Charlieshafer]

Yeah, you shouldn't be able to sing a murder ballad unless you've committed at least, say, three murders.

There's a great book called "Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music" by Barker and Taylor that explores some of the stuff discussed in this thread, going from the earliest recorded music on to the present. Musicians and marketers have carefully cultivated 'authentic' images to sell recordings and show tickets for a really long time- it's weird that we hold middle-class folkies' feet to the fire over it when the last century of music has been more or less a pose.

Yeah, and who says sitting on I-95 every morning for an hour isn't suffering. Maybe my baby didn't do me wrong, but that nut in the BMW sure did.

[JeffD]

Heck, only twice in my life have I ever had whisky before breakfast.

[Bertram Henze]

Heck, only twice in my life have I ever had whisky before breakfast.

Whenever I have whisky, next breakfast is bound to come, sooner or later. That's not hard to do.

[foldedpath]

Yeah, and who says sitting on I-95 every morning for an hour isn't suffering. Maybe my baby didn't do me wrong, but that nut in the BMW sure did.

Well, I woke up this afternoon, I saw both cars were gone.
Well, I woke up this afternoon, I saw both cars were gone.
I felt so low down deep inside, I threw my drink across the lawn.

The immortal Michael Mull, folks.

[Randi Gormley]

I've always come down on the side of knowing the basics before trying to fly but I've also never been known for my in-your-face-out-there-changing-the-world personality either. I also don't express "myself" through music-- that's just for fun. I express myself through words and (once upon a time) acting, where putting on an emotion is a learned skill that has nothing to do with what you're actually going through. I don't think the 'character' or 'practice' question is an either/or. I think they help each other.

But reading the discussion of expression through music, I was minded of Hamlet's "O, What a Rogue and Peasant Slave Am I" speech which (mind you, this is without looking it up because I'm feeling lazy right now) has a whole passage about being able to mimic an emotion that has no bearing on reality and goes something like "Is it not monstrous that this player here, but in a fiction, in a dream of passion, could bend his soul so to his own conceit that, from her workings, tears in's eyes, distraction in's aspect, a broken voice -- and all for what? For Hecuba! What is Hecuba to he or he to Hecuba that he should weep for her?" so, yeah, you can provide an emotional outlet that has nothing much to do with current stimuli if you are skilled enough in the niceties of what you are trying to do. It helps a lot if you can draw on imagination mixed with empathy of course. I don't have to actually, say, win the lottery to imagine what it would feel like (although I might be wrong. I don't normally win things). And on the other other hand, I'll probably never really be able to sing the blues. Which may not be all that bad.

[catmandu2]

Well, I woke up this afternoon, I saw both cars were gone.
Well, I woke up this afternoon, I saw both cars were gone.
I felt so low down deep inside, I threw my drink across the lawn.

And Kevin Neeland's bit on PHC : )

Hey, the depth people say being born is a trauma to overcome..

[catmandu2]

I express myself through words...

I often feel as though I'm dwelling in a Dantean garden of earthly delights. The weight of it all, the shear corporeal magnitude, conceit and vanity, words would be so enlightening, I'm waylayed if necessary by symbolic retribution of my own making so I won't complain. I wish to travel light. There's good reasoning, and I'm no benefactor.

[stevedenver]

ive been thinking damned thread this over since my last post.

as to OP post #1, to progress most rapidly, it would seem we should all wait to start playing until at least half our life span had passed.......time to develop character, thus light speed progress.

we know, to the contrary, Sierra, Chris, Jo Jo, countless Suzuki method kids, and countless other masters in fact started so young as to have.......well, presumably little life experience as children, but possibly great innate character??????

I look back on my own time with guitar, mando, and very recently, banjo. Being no master, but recalling how I discovered sounds.
Let's assume I have no character, to make things simple.


One must sit with an instrument, for hours, and get to know it, make it an extension, to make it sing.

So, regardless of "character" ( I believe everyone has it, and we're all different, unique, and sometimes, all very similar) this alone will not morph/ translate in instrumental communication without ...........practice.

Character or not aside, there IS a physical skill required to being able to utilize the instrument.
even mindless midi demonstrates a recognizable, smooth rendition or songs.

not so much the dude or girl who...sigs, stops, restarts, "no wait ill get it"

Ever heard those guys that can make a guitar or banjo, etc., mimic a human voice, ie, with certain pitch inflections? That is the example im thinking about. It takes some practice and subtlety to be able to execute this.

ditto nice clean timing, chords, single string work, etc.



Character, not so much.

shall we ever hear from TEF again????
shall we ever learn TEF's thoughts on the topic?
TEF who in GAAWDS name suggests that being well rounded results in faster musical progression?

[Bren]

Yeah, you shouldn't be able to sing a murder ballad unless you've committed at least, say, three murders.

There's a great book called "Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music" by Barker and Taylor that explores some of the stuff discussed in this thread, going from the earliest recorded music on to the present. Musicians and marketers have carefully cultivated 'authentic' images to sell recordings and show tickets for a really long time- it's weird that we hold middle-class folkies' feet to the fire over it when the last century of music has been more or less a pose.

Oh yeah, authenticity's important.

Like the man said, if you can fake that, you've got it made.

I'm not holding anybody's feet to the fire but I do like enough - erm, lack of tweeness - to be able to suspend disbelief.

[sbhikes]

In the realm of language, do we practice our helping verbs? Do we drill the correct pronunciation of through, though, cough, bone, one, gone, etc.? When do we really practice our use of nouns and verbs? Well, we know the answer, after actually learning how to speak! I think it was after 7 or 8 years of speaking that such thoughts even appear in elementary school. Heck, it may have been 7th grade before I even knew what a helping verb meant - not that I hadn't used them.

So, my vote is, "learn to communicate first." Just play! After 10,000 hours, you'll have the skills necessary to steer towards a specialized area of music, advanced theoretical concepts and the like. It's premature to give somebody a mandolin and start right off the bat with advanced theoretical concepts.

Just a few thoughts. . .

f-d

It's weird but that's how I learned to write computer code. I started out by reading it and tweaking it here and there, then on to writing it. At first I didn't really understand what I was doing but after a while I did, but I lacked the words to explain it. A lot of it really is like language. You don't really know how to explain why you have to use helping verbs (or "->" in this programming language or "." in that one to do the same thing), but you know to use them. Probably the same goes for folk music, both in how to play an instrument (see Vesta Johnson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rxQscqEQHA) and in how you somehow know how to accent the music correctly and get the right sound, timing, etc.

I think you get a kind of native-speaker type of knowledge by playing first and thinking later (if ever). On the other hand, people who learn more formally have a lot of theory and terminology and they know how to read the dots and play stuff they've never heard from the dots. Sorta like how when you take foreign language in school you learn a whole lot about grammar you never even knew about English.

Having done both kinds of learning I can definitely say that the play first, think later (if ever) form produces better results for me.

[Jeff Mando]

But they're peculiar enough or talented enough that they can overcome the disadvantage of advantage.

Made me chuckle, but very well put, IMHO. Where I grew up, I didn't know any "trust fund kids" or even know what a trust fund was for that matter. When I began playing music professionally and touring with a band, it seemed I met a lot of trust fund kids. I always wondered how a struggling musician could afford to live in NYC or San Francisco with no job other than playing music -- BINGO -- trust fund kid! But, like ya say, "even with" that advantage, some were quite talented people........

[Tate Ferguson]

Thanks again, MC folk, for all the excellent thinking and writing.

Me, I play better on a day when I haven't acted like a jerk - this still sometimes happens, even at age 64, regrettably. When there's no nagging guilt or angst, the music flows freely.

So for me, the quality of my inner soul, or character, or whatever you may call it, positively impacts the quality of my musical output. More important than practice, no - but I practice more effectively when I'm feeling good, i.e. no guilt for poor-quality life decisions.

[Dave Martin]

[QUOTE=SincereCorgi;1589943]Yeah, you shouldn't be able to sing a murder ballad unless you've committed at least, say, three murders.

Or been hanged while she stood in the crowd, or driven from Tuscon to Tucumcari, or had a girl that lived on rocky top, or ... there could be quite a list, but I have procrastinated practice long enough goofing off

Practice doesn't have to be just scales, though, IMHO, but noodling is clearly not usually as productive as something with focus. Song ideas do pop out though sometimes when noodling.

[Gelsenbury]

I was thinking about the "light" version of this argument recently. There are players who are technically brilliant but struggle to make a tune sound like anything else than an exercise. There are players who emotionally connect with the music but lack the skill to express what they want. The ones who have worked on both and achieved excellence in both are the ones we enjoy the most.

The only other point I'd like to add: I do agree that each piece of music has a character of its own. That's how music can stir, or calm, our emotions. And that's why playing a slow air in zydeco style sounds funny. But there's always an act of interpretation and subjectivity involved in deciding how a piece "wants" to be played. That's why, in the Song-a-week group, for example, we can see several different but equally valid interpretations of the same material.

[red7flag]

When my life has been substantially changed, death of my mother for example, tunes just seem to be in the instrument I am playing. All I need to do is be in touch with the feelings and in touch with the instrument. Those naked times allow the soul to pour out or maybe the instrument to pour in, not sure which. The instrument is like a medium. At those times, I am not thinking of writing a tune, just playing loosely and the new tune is there with all the feeling wrapped up. Not sure if I am expressing this well.

[fatt-dad]

Playing chestnuts with a metronome. That's practice!

No joke! I turned on my metronome last night and found all sorts of new stuff to work on - even on the tunes, "I already know!"

f-d

[Mark Gunter]

Wow, this thing is still a-l-i-ve! Must be a lot of fun here, I had stopped following this, but the last couple pages are still as interesting as the first few were.

"Commit at least three murders"

To the original question, or rather the title, "Character over practice?" doesn't make any more sense to me than asking "Ice cream over automobiles" or "Tying your shoes vs. changing your strings". It's all good.