i started playing cello in grade 4 at school; i guess i would have been 9 years. i started guitar a couple years later at home, and bass soon after. i never really “got it” in my early years with cello. i was trying, with very limited success, to translate dots on the page to fingers on the strings and i didn’t really achieve music. i’m sure i quite frustrated my teachers.
on bass, starting about age 12, things were different. somewhere it clicked for me that the pattern was the same between the strings, no matter where i was on the fingerboard. by age 14 i could entertain myself for hours (pity my family) playing scales and riffs on bass unaccompanied.
i learn spatially and kinetically and it was the patterns that captivated me. in fact, it consistently surprises me how i can know something, but not really know that much about it. someone will say “what’s that lick you always play leading into the bridge?” and i won’t have a clue. i have to get to that place in the song and then watch my fingers to see what they do. i’m analytical to a fault and i really do like to understand why something works. and i’ve had enough theory classes to be able to do that with music – but i never think of any of it while i’m playing. until i get into a flow, until i can feel a piece of music, i really don’t play it that well.
i’m not sure if this is good or bad, but i’m kind of that way with life too.
Tags: life, music learning, music theory
December 8, 2008 at 7:44 am |
I think what you experience is quite normal in learning music. I have been teaching for MANY YEARS and have found that because music is so complex the brain can only do so much at once. When I teach a child something new I can almost see the sparks flying from their head. The concentration is so intense! Then I can see them collapse and know they are spent. Their eyes glaze over and no matter what I say no longer is absorbed. So…what I am saying, is that once notes and rhythms are learned, then ‘getting in the zone’ and enjoying the music as music can begin. Learning music is an extremely complex discipline. Maybe that’s why musicians score higher on standardized tests!