Two Approaches to Learning Music

As a teacher, I love it when intermediate students reach a point in their method book where we can start talking about not only what kind of repertoire they want to learn, but also what approach they want to take in learning the music.  For pianists, I've simplified things and boiled it down to two choices.

CLASSICAL or JAZZ

You might be thinking, "Wait a minute, David!  Classical and jazz are not the only kinds of music there are. What about gospel, rock, pop, country, hip hop, R&B, film music, Broadway, video games, bluegrass, folk, etc??"

And you're right, there are many many types of music you can play on the piano.  However, in this case, you would be describing genre.  When I talk about classical and jazz, I am talking about the style of learning NOT the style of the music.  As you'll soon see, you can actually take a classical approach to learn jazz music, and a jazz approach to learn classical music.  For any of the styles/genres listed in the previous paragraph (in addition to classical and jazz), you can learn the music with the CLASSICAL APPROACH or the JAZZ APPROACH.

Confused?

No problem.  Let's define what each approach means, and it will be clear.

THE CLASSICAL APPROACH

The classical approach to learning music is that what you are going to play has already been fully transcribed as sheet music.  What the right hand plays, what the left hand plays, the exact rhythms, the exact chord voicings, usually the dynamics, and sometimes the fingerings and pedalings have been fully notated.  A musician comfortable in the classical approach is asked to learn Blackbird by the Beatles.  He or she will go order a book of piano transcriptions of the Beatles tunes (or that specific song) and start reading the music and learning how to play it.

THE JAZZ APPROACH

The jazz approach is to use as little sheet music as possible when learning music.  This falls in a variety of levels.  (1) On the extreme end, learn by ear.  That is to say, listen to what you want to learn, and try to play it based on how it sounds.  (2) Lyrics and chords.  Almost any pop song can be googled followed by the phrase "chords and lyrics" or "lyrics and chords".  You'll get the words for each song with the chord symbols listed above.  If you know how the music sounds, you use this to instruct what you should be playing.  (3) Lead sheet   A lead sheet is a single line of sheet music, usually for the right hand melody, but with chord symbols over the notes.

The person wanting to learn Blackbird by the Beatles in the Jazz approach will use one of the three approaches above.

To give a full example: Here are samples of lead sheet versions of a jazz tune (Begin the Beguine) and a classical piece (Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata).

 


As you can see, it's a minimal amount of notation with chord symbols above.  The performer will have to interpret the chord symbols to play something that sounds like what is expected.

Now here are fully composed sheet music excerpts of the same two pieces.

 

With the fully-scored sheet music, the guesswork is eliminated, but the amount of reading required is increased, so that brings me to the next point.

PROS OF EACH APPROACH

Classical approach: (1) If you want to spend as little energy as possible in figuring out WHAT to play, there is no substitute to the classical approach.  Well-written detailed sheet music tells you all you need to know about playing the music the same way someone on another continent in a different time period would play the same thing.  HOW to play it is a different challenge, but if you are good at reading sheet music, you can just play it. (2) If you are to work as an accompanist for hire at theatres, churches with traditional worship services, music or dance schools, or with classical chamber ensembles, you MUST be good in the classical approach to learning music.  So much of that work is sight-reading.

Jazz approach: (1) A lead sheet often takes up less than half the amount of pages than regular sheet music, and this means that you can carry more songs with you.  This is especially important if you're playing for parties, dinners, or other casual settings.  (2) If you want some freedom and input in the creative process (for example: maybe you want to play the left hand with a different pattern than the original version), then the jazz approach makes that possible.  You may not be the composer of the song you're playing, but you can instantly become the arranger.  You also are not prevented from learning a piece simply because you can't find a good version already composed on sheet music.

TOOLS NEEDED TO LEARN EACH APPROACH

Classical: Note reading skills for treble and bass clef.  The faster and more accurate, the better.  Sight-reading skills are imperative if you want to play more music with less practice.  Memorization, if required or desired, is more challenging on this approach because you are trying so hard to get what's on the page.  Technical skills and theory skills improve odds of success.  The player needs to save money because well-written sheet music can be expensive.

Jazz: Compared to the Classical approach, the player on the Jazz approach needs a much higher understanding of chords - what each chord is, how to build them with various voicings, how to invert any chord, how to change smoothly from one chord to another.  Technical ability with scales and arpeggios are equal to what is required from a classical player.  The player needs to learn styles and patterns as something that can be plugged in when learning a piece.  The player needs to learn to be creative to have the most success in this area (in other words, don't try to play the piano EXACTLY like the artist in the recording, but be willing to add your own variation).  If you're not going to use lead sheets, the jazz player needs to develop a very good ear for hearing music and figuring out how to play it on the keys.

Special note on techniques: Classical and Jazz approaches encourage the most progress you can make with scales, chords, and arpeggios.  Jazz musicians (and for once I'm talking about the true genre of jazz) prioritize the concept of All-keys practice.  In other words, any technical exercise you learn gets transposed to all keys.  The same is true of songs known as standards.  The good jazz player can take Begin the Beguine with the lead sheet above and play it in that key (of C major).  The elite jazz player can change it to any of the other 11 major keys.

WHICH APPROACH IS BETTER?

Hopefully you can guess the answer to this, but... there is no right approach or wrong approach that covers everyone.  The right approach is the one that you either have a strong inclination for or are willing to invest in the skills needed to do well.  Also, think of your situation.  Are you playing for traditional churches, school ensembles, theatres, or other places based on classical sheet music?  Or are you playing just for fun, or with a band of some kind, or for dinners, parties and other such events?

And here's another answer.

How about...both!  If you have any kind of career aspirations in music, I strongly recommend getting some degree of comfort in both approaches.  Two things are true: not every professional musician bothers to learn both approaches, and most who do still prefer one way or the other.  But a pianist who can alternate between playing wedding music off sheet music with a flute soloist and then go learn a Journey song off a recording with a lyrics and chords sheet to play with a band will have all kinds of work.  The theatre is where I've had my most performance work in the past 10 years, and I've been asked to read music off at least 10,000 pages by now.  But I also have been asked if I can listen to a recording that's different than the sheet music and learn to play it like so.

Also, you don't necessarily have to learn both approaches at the same time.  I will add, however, that there is an ample amount of anecdotal evidence to suggest that getting a foundation of the classical approach and then switching to the jazz approach is more widely successful than trying to do it the other way around.  This is why I and so many other teachers start every beginning student the same way.  At some point, I want you to choose a course, but I want that course to happen after at least getting started in a classical approach.  Having even a small grasp will help you learn other music regardless of the approach you take.

Note Identification Exercise Tutorial (2020 update)

Hello everyone!  While all lessons are online for the time being, and we're all getting used to a new normal, I am going to get in the habit of posting here at least once a week throughout this quarantine period starting now.

This first post is just a video.  It's not for everyone, but probably is needed for a lot of you.  If you want to skip this post, can you honestly answer yes to the following questions?

Can you name all of your notes?
...in treble AND bass clef?
Is it instantaneous?
Really, can you name any note without even having to think about it before you say or play it?
Do you always remember to include the key signature when you name a note?

Okay, if you gave an honest yes, thanks for stopping by.  I'll see you next week.  For everyone else, the Note Identification Exercise on musictheory.net is a valuable exercise.  Depending on your level, there are many ways you can use the exercise.  Here is a 9-minute video.  I apologize in advance for some annoying microphone noise at the beginning and near the end, but I hope this will help you set up your exercise so that you can benefit in getting more accurate AND faster at your note recognition.

Sight-reading Basics Part 2 - Reading the Music

Sight-reading is an important skill for various reasons.  It's not just because, as I mentioned in my previous post, professional pianists are often asked to read music that they've never seen before at a high level; It's because EVERYBODY sight-reads.  Correction: everyone who ever learns a piece of music has to sight-read.  All sight-reading means is that it's the first time you've attempted to play a piece of music.  It's not just a skill; it's an inevitable part of the learning process.  Unless you only play by ear, you have to sight-read.

But why do I need to improve it if I don't plan to be a professional musician?

There may be multiple reasons, but there's only one that matters:  the better you sight-read, the faster you'll learn your music!!

Elite sight-readers are more than halfway done learning their music after they sight-read it one time.  Ask yourself this:  If you could take a piece that requires 4 hours of practice time and reduce it to 2, or 90 minutes, or 1 hour...isn't that worth the effort to improve your sight-reading?

In part 1, I talked about the importance of learning the keyboard well enough that you aren't having to constantly look at your hands.  Be sure you're making good progress in that area in order to fully benefit from the next segment of ways to improve your sight-reading.

Many of these hints below can be improved at www.musictheory.net/exercises.

Learn your notes

Playing and understanding a piece of music is VERY SIMILAR to reading any other language.  You have letters, words, phrases and sentences.  In music, you have notes, intervals, chords, melodic patterns, sequences, cadences and phrases.  When it comes to spoken language, you won't get far in reading anything on this blog unless you can identify each individual letter.  Written language is pretty much hopeless unless you get past "A is for Apple".  You need to learn every written note you will encounter in a piece of music for your level, and (I CAN'T EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH), You must practice note recognition until you no longer have to consciously think of the answer.  At any point in your lesson, I should be able to point to a note and ask its name, and you should be moving your mouth right away with the correct answer.  If you're pausing to think, you don't know your notes well enough to sightread at a high level.

Musictheory.net exercise:  Note Identification (go for speed, not just accuracy)

Learn your intervals and chords

If you're still reading, you obviously know your ABC's.  Do you think you'd be reading if you had to consciously identify every single individual letter?  Probably not.  I-t i-s h-a-r-d t-o r-e-a-d o-n-e l-e-t-t-e-r a-t a t-i-m-e and understand everything.  To even say you are reading, you need to recognize groups of letters as single words.  In music, this translates as intervals and chords.  These show you the shape of the patterns, things you are more likely to recognize at a playing tempo than the individual notes.  For intervals: start with generic 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths, etc and when that is easy, learn to distinguish between major, minor, perfect, augmented and diminished (depending on your level).  For chords, start with being able to identify your primary chords as well as find the bottom note in any root-position (stacked in 3rds) chord.  Then practice identifying chords in inversions, as well as playing them.  Then work to types of chords (major, minor, augmented, diminished, types of 7ths).

Musictheory.net exercises: Interval Identification and Chord Identification

Learn to incorporate key signatures

Notice I didn't say "learn your key signatures".  What good is it to know that a key signature of 3 sharps could be A major if you forget to always play F, C and G as F#, C# and G# when you come across it?  Yes, you need to know what your key signature is, but you also need to be able to apply it to your playing.

Musictheory.net exercises: Key Signature Identification (for naming what it is) and Note Identification with settings checking key signatures to be incorporated that you would likely play at some point (for applying it).

ALWAYS LOOK AHEAD

When it comes to recognizing motives, sequences, phrases and other horizontal patterns, you have to look ahead.  You're still reading this blog.  Have you understood everything to this point (minus any technical terms you haven't yet covered)?  Then that means several things:  1. You know your letters. 2.  You can quickly string those letters together to identify words.  3.  You know what at least most of those words mean, and can deduce what the others mean by the context.  4.  You...probably... are... not... reading...one...word...at...a... time.   Look at the next 5 examples.  The first is a clean 8 measure example of a piece many of you might sightread.

Original work.  No copyright is infringed.

Sorry for the lack of resolution in this example, but you should be able to make out what it is.  Here are 4 ways you might be looking at the notes as you play them.  Consider what you're playing to be on the far left of any given circle with what you're seeing as you play to be the rest of the circle.  They are ranked from worst to best.

I only bothered with the first two measures.  Basically you're looking 1 beat at a time.

2 beats at a time.  This is obviously better, but you're still going to stall or have to play very slowly.

I would say that, at the bare minimum, this is where you should start when you read through a piece.  The problem comes in going from one measure to another.  You need to keep looking ahead.  Therefore...

This is ideal.  You are looking far enough ahead.  Also, notice the overlapping circles (oops, I missed one at the end).  You KEEP looking ahead.  Now you can see chord patterns, chord changes, the shape of the phrase, rhythm patterns.  Notice the instruction at the end of the first line.  You need to look to measure 5 to see what it coming up.

Looking ahead is essential.  As I mentioned on the previous entry in this series, I am not a natural sight-reader.  Everything I'm suggesting that you do are things I do now that I have not always done.  Occasionally, I find myself struggling to play something with accuracy, even something that is a 3rd or 4th time playing, and nearly always this goes away when I realize that I am not consistently looking ahead.  ALWAYS LOOK AHEAD.  DO NOT STARE AT THE NOTE YOU ARE PLAYING.

More steps to success

1.  Until you have mastered sight-reading, always use a metronome.  Set the metronome to a conservative tempo and stick with it no matter what.  The metronome has one purpose: to remind you that the beat goes on whether you're ready to play the next beat or not.  Do not correct wrong notes.  You have the option of leaving a note out, or an entire beat, while you "look ahead" and jump back in ON TIME.  Do not pause while you figure out what you should play.  You can do that when you're actually practicing the music, but sightreading is NOT practice.  Don't treat the two elements the same way.

2.  Look at a piece before you begin.  Identify the clefs and key signatures.  Look for patterns.  Look for tricky spots.  Most importantly, mentally review the rhythm.  Go for RHYTHM FIRST when you sight-read.  Who cares if you miss some notes?  Get the rhythm!

3.   Sightread at least 2-3 sessions per week of 10-20 minutes each to practice this skill.  Choose easier music and, at least, music you are not currently learning (or may never take the time to learn).  Method books from methods you haven't played before are good.  Many people recommend hymnals.  These are great provided you have any experience at all in playing hymns, which involves a lot of quick decisions as to whether or not the tenor voice should be played with the left hand or right thumb.

4.  As the first section implies, keep studying theory.  The more information you can identify immediately about the music, the better you will play.

5.  Keep working on technique.  You shouldn't have to practice a passage based on chords, scales and arpeggios where it is clearly one of those three and not some mix.  The better your technique, the better you will sight-read.

6.  Related to my first tip.  Give yourself permission to mess up.  Just play it with a carefree attitude.  You'll be surprised how much better it sounds even with mistakes if you just keep going.

7. Just in case you missed it between this and Part 1 in this series:  KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE MUSIC.  You can't read what you don't see.  Don't look at your hands at all except when jumping, and then learn to bounce your eyes down and back.  They should never settle for even a full second on the piano.

Here are 2 links that I would recommend for those wanting more detail.

http://pianosightreading.blogspot.com/  Be sure to check out the menu on the right of all posts so that you can follow in order.  I especially recommend posts number 2, 3, 4, 8, 11, 13, 14, 28, 29 and 33.

Also, check out http://www.belmont.edu/music/PDFs/sightreading_tips.pdf for a more comprehensive list of what makes for good sight-reading.

Mid Boot Camp thoughts, Facebook Page recommendation

Mid boot camp thoughts

I'm not quite done with the Musicianship Boot Camp testing, but everyone is doing very well on the average.  Two areas that are coming out consistently as things to improve are technical skills and music reading speed.  I'll cover technical skills recommendations in a future post, but let me elaborate on music reading speed.

Since musictheory.net has yet again made revisions to its website, I need to revise my tutorial for the Note Identification exercise.  It's an exercise everyone can use.  If you've mastered your notes, you can stretch your upper and lower ranges, increase your speed as much as possible and incorporate the key signatures you've learned.  Really, everyone should play around with the settings to learn and practice this exercise frequently.

However, remember that the primary purpose is not just accuracy, but speed AND accuracy.  The goal for you needs to be to acquire instant recognition of notes on the staff.  Why?  It is because you don't have the luxury to take your time IF you want to sightread well and spend less time in practice.  So here are a few rules when working with the Note Identification exercise.

1. Challenge yourself, but don't overwhelm yourself.  If you're struggling with all notes, focus on just 5 or 6 to get started.   Exhaust those and then add on to them, or switch to a new group of notes before you add them all together.  It should never feel too easy, but should never be so difficult that you aren't improving quickly.

2. Ignore the percentage.  If you get 10 correct in 20 attempts, it will tell you that you are getting 50%.   If you're working for speed, this or worse may occur, especially early on.  Don't worry about wrong attempts.  If you're following rule 1, you're going to see the same notes over and over and over.  You'll not be able to help but eventually get them right more often than not.

3.  Focus on the number correct AND the timer.  There is a timer that keeps track of your game.  Play the exercise in one of the following two ways.

(A) Time yourself and see how quickly you can correctly name 100 notes.  Don't be discouraged if you're really high the first few attempts, even above 10 minutes.  Your ultimate goal, regardless of level, is to be able to do it in 3 minutes or less.  You can do this if all you have to do is see the note, recognize it right away, point the mouse to the correct letter and click.  Answer 100 correct notes in 3 minutes or less, and you're nailing it.

(B) Only recommended if Goal A seems overwhelming for where you are with learning your notes, this would be to watch the timer and observe when you hit the 5 minute mark of the exercise.  See how many you can correctly name by that point.  Keep doing this until you get at least 75 in 5 minutes. Then go with goal A and see how quickly you can answer 100.

As always, remember the first part of rule 1 and that is to challenge yourself.  If it's getting too easy, how can you make it a little harder?  Add more notes, mix your clefs, add sharps and flats in the key signatures (if you've learned them in your lessons already).  Note reading isn't an infinite skill.  You can reach a ceiling in how well you can do, but that ceiling is very high.  Keep stepping up until you reach it.

Facebook Page Recommendations

If you have a Facebook account, please take a moment if you haven't already and "like" the page for:

The Winston-Salem Piano Teachers' Association (a group I belong to and a page I admin.)

And

My own personal page for my composing and performing at David M Lane - Composer, Musician.  Thanks for your support.

Tutorial for musictheory.net part 1 - Note Trainer

A wonderful website for piano students of every level is www.musictheory.net.  One of the things that makes it great is that it works for all levels, depending on how you use the settings.  I just started using this app (you'll see the watermark at the bottom of the video) to record videos while using the website.  Please pardon some of the excess mic noise.  I'll try to fix that in the future.  For now, here is an introduction to using the Note Trainer, an exercise you need to use unless you have total mastery of treble and bass clef notes.  Enjoy.