Of course, there’s no such thing as the three best ways to learn to play music, because everybody learns things their own way. But with all the avenues to learning music today, there are three things to do that should serve almost everyone well.
First, about all those ways to learn to play: You can find instruction on any genre on any instrument, from basic to really complicated, on YouTube. So before we get to the three things, there is one universal place that is better for starting: Find a teacher you like, someone who will make learning fun. As we noted in our April 29 blog—and episode 31 of our podcast—that’s why they call it “playing” music not “working” music.
Now to the three things everyone should do, as explained by my favorite teacher, my podcast partner Kevin Bales, who has been teaching music, in particular jazz, to students in the classroom and privately for more than 30 years.
“The first thing is to listen to music as often as possible, music that gives you goose bumps,” he says, “and then when you get tired of that, find more music to listen to that gives you goose bump. All the good musicians I know listen to music all the time. They’ll know what year this album was recorded and who played bass on it and about alternate takes that were available on this one. It’s fun regardless of genre. They will know all these albums they listen to or symphonies they studied.
“The second thing is to play music every day. By play I mean frolic, like play for the joy of it. It could be with your buddies; it could be playing along to a record; you could be going to a jam session; you could get together with your buddies to form a band.
“But whatever it is, it is distinctly different from what I think is the third most important thing, which is to practice to solve problems. That is, practice specifically to learn things that you’ve listened to and want to do, but when you’re trying to play you can’t do.”
Kevin points out that if you practice to solve a problem, you’ll be able to call on that solution more often than for just that particular instance or tune.
“Too often I find students doing only one of these three things,” he says. “I’m not saying you have to be evenly proportioned or every day do all of them, but all three play a role. I’ll meet students who only practice and then they don’t know how to play with other people, or they never have dealt with stage fright, how different it is playing in front of other people. Then you meet someone who only listens to music; we call those people fans. I’ve met some amazing young musicians; they do all three and I think that’s their talent, not some innate musical gift, but just that they’ve immersed themselves completely into music.”
For more about learning to play music, that is, getting started, listen to our podcast, episode 31, at musiclifeandtimes.podbean.com, or anywhere you get your podcasts.