Gaining more precision

For the longest time the Bach piece I've been working on has caused a touch of nervous anxiety.  Just the thought of picking up the guitar and starting to work on it would get me feeling a bit jittery.  It's such an undertaking.  And of course I really want to play it well.  No actually, that's not true.  I want to play it beautifully.

You see this is all very simple really.  My ego wants what my intuition instinctively knows to be truly false.  In other words: I'm not ready, I know it, but I wish I was, but I don't know if I'll ever get there.  So, I worry.  It's so hard to not make mistakes with this piece.  There's so many dang notes.  There's so many difficult moves to make.

In my desire to regain some sense of control over this entropy I decided to take several steps backward and my results have been encouraging.  I came across this video of Glenn Gould.  In the video an old childhood friend and fellow pianist talks of a unique technique they both learned from the same teacher.  With this technique the piano student taps the fingers of a relaxed hand to help train it to play. Using the opposite hand the student would literally tap the fingers of the other hand.  This to me seems like an excellent way to develop precise moves for piano playing.  You're not even moving the muscles of the hand actively, you're moving them from the "outside".  The reason to do this , to me anyway, seems that you're training the movements with absolutely no tension.  As soon as you start "trying" to play you're tensing your muscles potentially slowing them down and making mistakes.

In a way you're telling the hand what moves to make without the hand actually "thinking" about it.   There are several articles that go into more detail about why this technique works.  To me it seems obvious.   No tension is allowed into the hands while they play.

This reminded me of a technique I've used quite a bit of but have neglected lately.  The "touch" technique.  It's simple.  With your right hand you touch the string very lightly before you play a note.  The benefits of this technique I find to be invaluable.

Think of it.  You never play a wrong note with this technique.  You have to go slow enough that you touch the string first.  This trains precision, accuracy, and you have to absolutely know you're playing the right note before you play it.  Over time you've trained the movements much more accurately and with a minimum of muscle tension.

Try this:

• No matter what style/instrument you play practice by simply touching your finger/pick (right hand for guitars, banjo's, mandolin's, etc.)  to the string BEFORE you sound a note. 
• At first this technique forces you to go slow (a good thing) and allows you more time to get everything in place before you sound a note.
• Over time increase your speed and you'll find that your picking accuracy will be much better.

Good luck

Playing through the subconscious

I've been playing the Bach piece more and more in front of people.  I'm pretty much forcing myself to perform it in front of people.  I figure if I perform it enough in low pressure situations I'll have less nervous energy when I perform it in front of a larger audience.  I even performed it out at an actual gig about a month ago.   My nerves were pretty wound up and I hit a few duds and got a bit lost for a second but overall I was happy with the performance.  A classical guitarist told me that it would be 2 years before I would be ready to take this out of the oven.  I'm not quite to the 2 year mark so that performance was a bit ahead of schedule.  I'm figuring that by next spring it should be on lockdown and I'll have full confidence to perform it.   It's pretty close to that now.  But how do I break through to next level?  How do I get this thing where I hardly make a mistake or make none at all?  Most importantly though, how do I make this piece the most musical?

I've been noticing that when I'm playing the piece my mind will wander in and out of consciousness.  At some moments I'm having an inner dialogue that is not really helpful.  In fact it is distracting.  Maybe I'm thinking about my hands or feeling nervous.  Then a moment later I'm focusing only on the sound I'm hearing come from the guitar and suddenly I'm not really there at all.  There is only the sound and the music.  I'm controlling it but not actively.  It's just happening all on its own.  This is an amazing place to be.  This is where music happens.

 I've read about this musical state in a couple of books on the subject.  One notable book is "The Inner Game of Music" by Barry Green.  This book is an excellent introduction to playing through the subconscious.  It highlights lots of exercises designed with the goal of getting to that place I mentioned earlier.

I've also read some quotes from John Hartford where he mentions that he really tried to play through the subconscious.  He didn't want to be thinking much about the music at all.  In one quote he said that when he's playing his best he's just a set of eyes floating above his hands, detached.  He's no longer thinking.  Charlie Parker also said something to this effect.  He practiced until he could just forget everything.  Here's a quote I found.  I've seen it a few places.

"You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail."

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/charlie_parker.html#tySCM1tITlhqshiy.99

Clearly something is going on here we can learn to use in our music making but how do you get there?  Here are a few suggestions to help you play through the subconscious.

• You've got to know your fingerings.  If you hope to play subconsciously you can't be thinking about what finger goes where.  Know that stuff cold.  Learn it then forget it so to speak.  Or at least learn it, then stop thinking about it.
• When practicing focus only on the sound of your instrument.  Don't think about anything else.  You'll find that sound is telling you all you need to know
• Hopefully music lifts us out of everyday existence.  It's transportive.   Liberating.  Strive for that feeling of detaching from day to day complacency.  Try to go somewhere else with your music making.  
• If you hit technical problems go back and work on those problems when you find them.  Maybe you need to revisit some fingerings or improve your muscle memory over certain passages.  Playing through the subconscious means that mistakes should be few and far between.  They should be so small that they won't upset the music.  Everyone makes mistakes but not everyone makes music.  
• Don't worry about making mistakes when playing through the subconscious.  Worry about making music.

I hope that helps.

Observations from a beginning

I've always toyed with the idea of learning to play the fiddle.  Since my wife plays fiddle I've always had one around the house that I could pick up and mess around with.  It usually never got much further than some horrendous screeching and the quick realization that learning fiddle has some serious hurdles that would take a long time to overcome.  And that is just to get it to NOT sound like fingernails on a chalkboard.  Actually making music on the thing takes much longer.

Of course all instruments take time to improve at.  Each one has something that makes it difficult to work out.  The guitar is easier than a fiddle to make sound good right away but that fretboard.  Learning the fretboard of a guitar is something one could spend their whole life working on.  Just learning the major scale in one or two keys could take years to really get a handle on.  Then there's arpeggio's and chords (lots of complicated chords).  The guitar fretboard is a vast wilderness to explore and map out.  The fiddle is more like a wild beast you have to learn to tame and coax into trusting you.  Over time it will befriend you but how long that takes is up to the fiddler.  You've got to show it lots of love to get it to sing for you.

My decision to dig in and start working on the fiddle was made the moment I heard a John Hartford bootleg where he not only plays fiddle but dances rhythm AND!! AND! (no understatement here) calls the square dance at the same time.  AT THE SAME TIME.  I'll repeat that in case you don't get it.  He does all 3 AT THE SAME TIME.  Now, if you've never square danced before that's to bad.  It's good fun and is a great way to feel like a kid again.  Go try it.  Then you can appreciate what Hartford is doing.  I mean just playing a good fiddle is hard enough.  Calling the dance is a full time job by itself.  And dancing too!  I was inspired.  I had to at least start working on the fiddle.

Here's a link to an audio clip of Hartford calling and dancing at the same time.  

I started practicing with fervor in January.  It's late July now.  So 6.5 months later I finally got out and jammed a bit with a buddy of mine.  I basically only know one tune and can only play it slow and in tune about 1/2 the time.  But I think it's a good start.

Here's what I've learned.

• The first 3 months felt like I wouldn't get anywhere.  Intonation seemed almost impossible at first.  About 4-5months later I started to see some improvement with it.  Almost magically one day it felt easier and started to sound better.  
• I never tried to play fast or learn more than I was ready to learn.  I think this is important.  So many beginners I see get hung up on playing faster than they are capable of.  I've not even tried to play fast and I've enjoyed playing fiddle greatly.  I think my technique is improving faster as a result.  Don't worry about speed.  I only know about 3-4 songs and I'm just really working on making those songs sound as good as they can.
• I practice fiddle about 4 days a week.  Usually for about 30-45 minutes at a time.  Lately I've been practicing more.  Maybe 2 hours a day.  I can tell the extra time is helping.  This isn't a tremendous amount of time.  But now I can play some tunes and I've started to see real improvement.  
• So let's see.  About 25 weeks.  3 hours a week or so.  That's 75 hours of fiddle so far.  I doubt I've actually practiced that much.  But it's a fair estimate.   Only 9,925 hours to go to mastery.  At this rate that's going to take more than 10 years.  I better practice more. 
• I love just getting the fiddle out, tuning up, and sawing on the strings.  It's such a cool instrument.  I don't think I would have kept at it if I didn't like it so much.  It's so damn hard to play.  Love what you do. 

Interview with Laura Veirs

In a region filled with singer/songwriters Laura Veirs has become one of the Northwest's most distinctive and accomplished tune-smiths.  Her 2010 release July Flame was critically regarded as one of the best releases of that year and was my favorite CD that year of any genre.  July Flame is the type of record that any musician would strive to make.  Distinctive and diverse both musically and lyrically, July Flame has no weak spots.   Digging back through Veirs' catalog I was pleased to find several other records of intelligent and warm folk/pop music.

Veirs' latest record Tumblebee, is a children's record.  But this is no ordinary children's CD.  Every song is cleverly arranged and features and excellent cast of backing musicians including banjo virtuoso Bela Fleck. 

Chatting with Veirs was refreshing.  She's very open and revealing about her songwriting process.   It was great to hear such an outstanding songwriter and musician expresses the same frustrations and insecurities that I've experienced.  It's clear she's an extremely hard worker and is as interested in the process as she is with the end results.

Check out her website here:

http://lauraveirs.com




BC: How did you get started with music?

LV: My brother had a guitar lying around in high school, but I didn't take to it until college.  He showed me a few chords and I got a few songs under my belt.  I grew up in Colorado Springs, which is a strange town for music.  There's almost no live music scene - unlike kids who grow up in the Northwest who can go see tons of all ages shows.  In my case there were no mentors and no women who were doing music.  There were boys in high school bands, but I just didn't have any exposure to it.  

BC:  Was it in college when you got going with music?

LV:  I met a bunch of girls who were in the punk rock scene.  The showed me Bikini Kill and all the DIY bands from Kill Rock Stars.  I was like, wow there's a whole world of people doing this.  Ani DiFranco was an inspiration at that time too.  So I started playing electric guitar and writing songs.  Writing a lot of joke-ish kind of story songs.  And after I graduated from school I moved to Seattle and started doing my own songwriting more seriously and kept going from there.

BC:  When you were writing your own songs in the beginning were you learning guitar?  Did you take any lessons?

LV:  I didn't take lessons seriously until I met John Miller.  He's a great teacher, he got me started learning country blues and that was a huge thing for me.  That had a massive influence on my playing style.  I started writing songs in that style with the alternating bass line.  Then I would harmonize the melody and it opened up this whole world of songwriting that I didn't even know was possible.  That was huge for me.

BC: Did you practice that technique intensely for a while?

LV:  Yes I did.  I worked very hard at it.

BC:  Working at it slowly?

LV:  Yes.  Slow.  I was frustrated.  It was like, "I can't do this at all.  I'm really going to have to work on this."  I did and I was amazed by the fact that I could do it, but it took the kind of diligent slow practice that is hard for people.  I've taught music for many years and getting into the nitty gritty of working out the trouble spots and making sure that it is smooth and not something you're anxious about.  It took a lot of hard work.

BC: Did John Miller teach you that or did you figure it out on your own?

LV:  His approach was great.  The thing that really worked with his lessons was that he had everything all tabbed out.  It was visual and musical.  Then we would sit and listen to the LP's.  Old blues records and talk about the musicians.  He'd put it in this really cool context.  I would learn songs by ear.  I've always had a good ear.  I'm not very visual with my music but to have the combination of him playing the music slowly and I would record it.  Then we would go through it note by note.  Then I would work on it all week.

BC:  Sounds like he was a great teacher.

LV: He was, and I've taken a few skype lessons with him still.  He was very patient and you got a deep sense of music from him.  I thought this guy was a like gold mine.

BC:  That was fortunate that you found a great teacher.  How about vocally?  Did you take vocal lessons?

LV:  I did at one point.  I learned about diaphragm breathing.  Learning that when you breath in to sing your stomach goes out.  The breathing was a really big thing because I was always a very insecure singer.  My voice was very thin and reedy.  I felt like I had the songwriting and musical skills but the performance and singing was always hard.  Now after those lessons I learned about singing and supporting my voice and that helped.  I think so much of singing really is trial and error and getting up in front of people.  So much of it is confidence.  You can't really teach confidence.  You just have to do it over and over and over.

BC:  Did you really work at your voice?

LV:  No, just doing hundreds of shows and writing and hundreds of songs and going over and over.  I started to feel like I enjoyed singing and had less anxiety about it.  I had less fear of performance and more interest and curiosity about how you get a good tone.  I think for so long it was a place of fear.  I can't do this.  I'm trying and struggling.  But now it's more a place of interest.  Like, "how can I change my voice to do what I want?  How do I sing in different ranges?"  Like singing from a soulful place or a high ethereal place.  I think also recording with Tucker was helpful because when you record it's like a microscope and you get a clear idea of like, WOW, I didn't hit those notes.  I wasn't even aware.  I think recording is important to becoming a better singer.

BC:  I love your CD July Flame.  There's not a song I don't enjoy and I think that's really hard to do.  Even from some of my favorite artists that I've listened to forever, there's usually a song or two that I'll just skip.  But, I can listen song to every single song on that record and that really turned me on to going back through your catalog.  As a songwriter, I know it's so hard to write a good song.  I'm curious how you approach your songwriting.

LV:  You know, I'll usually be noodling around a guitar part.  But, by the way, I've always been disciplined about setting hours aside every day to do it.  It's my job.  I think of it as my job.  I don't know if I did a few years ago.  Using the word job makes it sound not fun, and sometimes it's really not fun but most of the time I'm in a place of, "wow, this is so cool."  A place of interest.  Then I feel like this isn't that hard.

When I'm writing I get into a cool inward space.  An interior place of what's going on.  That usually comes from the guitar.  Then I'll start.  Maybe I'll have a title.  Maybe I have a few words I can start to string together.

BC:  Do you have a list of ideas you go through?   Like oh, here's an old idea.  I'll work on that.

LV:  Sometimes I'll find a line in a book.  Funny words or phrases from a terms dictionary.  Like the phrase, "up the river."  You know that's a term for going to jail.  I just had a friend who went to jail.  That turned into a cool song.  It's sometimes like I'm trying to keep my eyes open.  For July Flame, when I saw the name of that peach at the farmers market, I thought what a cool song title.

Recently I saw a sign that said, "Love over Gold"  What does that mean?  To me that means choosing relationships over money.  I thought what a cool song title so I wrote it down.  I put it in my email inbox.  I might look at it later and think, I should work that out.  I'm trying to keep my eyes open a lot for random stuff then I'll write it down.

BC:  One thing I think you do really well is lyrics.  Your lyrics are so unique and vivid.  Do you set out to kind of write lyrics that are sort of poetic and paint a unique picture?

LV:  Definitely.  I try to go with the general songwriting theme of detailed verses and a more universal chorus.  My choruses are usually very simple.  Like, "Can I call you mine?  Can I call you mine?"  That must be in a lot of songs.  That notion, of "you're mine."  But my individuality comes out more in the verses.  I work very hard on that.  I feel like lyrics are my weakness actually.  As a lyricist I feel it is so hard to find the words to describe something without sounding cliche.  Now, with my songwriting it's hard not to repeat myself.  I don't want to write the same lyrics again.

BC:  I think lyrics are the hardest.

LV:  So hard.

BC:  I think you're on the right track.  Do you rewrite your songs over and over?

LV:   I'll write a song, then put it down.   But, sometimes I'll write three or four songs in a sitting and then I'll come back to them the next day.  Then maybe I'll use the same words with different music and maybe the third or fourth is the version I'll keep.  Maybe I'll discard the whole set of songs and maybe steal that one line that works and put it in the next song.  I do a lot of lyric recycling.

I wrote 80 or 90 songs for July Flame.  And now I've written that many for this new record I'm writing.  It's so hard to come up with a good song.  It's so mysterious.

BC:  Have you had the experience of writing a song that just sort of appears fully formed?

LV:  I love that.  They're not always the good ones.  But, sometimes they are.  It's like a gift, it's like I don't know how that happened but it did.  

Article on practicing

I came across an excellent article on practicing in Time Magazine.  It might sound an awful lot like what you've read on this here blog.

http://ideas.time.com/2012/01/25/the-myth-of-practice-makes-perfect/

Working double time

I've recently been doing 2 banjo lessons a week with one of my students who has been extra motivated to learn. Despite teaching for the last 7 years I had yet to come across anyone who had both the motivation (and money) to take 2 lessons a week. After a month of this I've been very impressed with this students progress.

It might sound like this student is an eager young kid with wealthy parents and nimble fingers. Not so. This student is past middle age and after the first few lessons I was wondering if he should maybe find another way to pass the time. To my surprise he's made leaps and bound and is playing several songs virtually mistake free. For sure this guy is motivated and working hard but I had yet to see for myself how much a student who started off so poorly and seemingly lacking in natural ability could progress so much so fast.

I think this is worth considering if you're struggling with a musical instrument yourself.

• Double up your practice time for one month.  
• Double up your lessons for one month.

I recently drove across country and to pass the time I started practicing the harmonica.  After only 5 days of practice I can play several basic songs.  Of course I played a lot of harmonica on that drive.  At least and hour a day.  Maybe more.  If you're having trouble getting over the dreaded "hump" that so many beginner music students deal with try doubling up your practice time for a week.  You'll be surprised how much faster you'll progress.

Hope it helps.
BC

Andrew Bird on Songwriting

I came across an excellent article written by Andrew Bird, multi-instrumentalist and champion whistler, whose music I've been listening to more of lately.  Here's a sample of his talents.




The article is part of a series from The New York Times blog called Measure to Measure.  The articles are written by accomplished songwriters on the art and craft of songwriting.  I haven't had a chance to read all of the post but the first couple by Andrew Bird were great.  He breezes through several different topics in this particular article.  The article reads more as an afterthought on the process of songwriting but given Bird's unique style and skill it makes for an enlightening read.  Here's a link to the Bird's post.  You can find the other songwriters' pieces there as well.

http://measureformeasure.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/without-words/

Habits of excellence

Here's is an excellent checklist that outlines good practice habits.  It's not unlike what you might have read on this blog.

http://musiciansway.com/blog/?p=1137

Notice the very 1st habit listed is "ease."  Where have we heard that before?  My very first post 4 years ago touched on playing with ease and I've written a chapter on this subject on the book I'm working on.  Remember to play as free of tension as possible.

Here's a link to my old post.

http://perfectnotes.blogspot.com/2008/10/free-music-lesson-1-unwanted-muscle.html

Are you ready?

I've been slacking off with writing trying to get ready for our gig last week.  I'm going to try to get back to writing a bit more.  Here's an excerpt from my practice book.   It's about getting a song ready for performance.
 

The success a musician will have when making music is directly proportional to the amount of work they put in before they play.  How well do they know their fingerings?  How many times have they rehearsed those fingerings?  Have they focused extra attention on their trouble spots?

         Sure there are a few musical savants out there who may be able to play flawlessly through some kind of different mental wiring than most folks.  But there aren’t many.   It is also a misconception that musical savants don’t practice.  They do practice, often with fervent dedication.  “All savants spend years honing their skills, sometimes obsessively…”(Musicophilia, Sacks.  Page 159)    

         The question of whether you’re ready to start practicing a piece or song with the intent of becoming musical is an important one to ask yourself.  So often the wanna-be musician goes right to this stage and bypasses the work of learning/improving fingerings and training muscle memory in a thoughtful way.  It’s understandable.  This is the fun stuff.  Playing a song is the whole point.  Believe me, nobody is more guilty of this than me.

         This used to be the only way I practiced.  I was hasty in learning fingerings and paid little or no attention to training muscle memory properly.  It should have been no surprise that I couldn’t play anything with a real solid musicality. 

         I imagine there many people that fall into this category.  And there is nothing wrong with that.  If someone is perfectly happy with how they play and how they sound, then why should they worry about doing anything any differently?  They shouldn’t.  I spent years and years in this category.  I dabbled in music.  I knew  a hundred or more songs that I couldn’t play start to finish, and I was fine with that.  Eventually though I decided I wanted to improve.  I wanted to play well.

         The point at which a musician begins to practice a song as a whole piece of music (with the hope of playing well) is when a musician should ask themselves how well they’ve done their homework.  Otherwise they’ll just keep running up against the wall the same way every time they play.

         If you’re ready for your music to begin taking shape this chapter will help to serve to put on the final touches.  If not, take a few steps back and work through the stages a little bit more. 

         The process of building technique without muscle tension, learning fingerings, and developing good muscle memory is very much the “basic” foundation of playing music.  Just as a house needs a solid foundation, and the walls and roof are the skeleton that supports everything else.  These “basics” support how well your efforts at playing music will be.  If your foundation is shaky it’s quite possible (and most likely) that everything will fall apart.

         Is your foundation strong?  Are you ready?
 

Record yourself

         If you want to know what needs fixing (or doesn’t) with your music there is no other way but to record yourself.  Feedback from friends might seem like a good way to know how you sound and I wouldn’t rule that out as a great performance practice tool.  However, you won’t know how you sound until you hear it played back to you own ears.  The recording won’t lie.  Your friends might.

         Ultimately you need to be satisfied with how you sound, not with how others think you sound.  That’s all that really matters anyway.  If you think you sound good others will too.  If you don’t like what you hear I doubt anyone else will either. 

         My first attempts at recording myself playing music were both exhilarating and terrifying.  It was so cool to listen back to what I had just played.  It felt so good to have some kind of record of what I had played but there were (and still are) so many cringe worthy moments of embarrassing music it’s enough to make you want to hide.  I’ve been recording myself for so long now though I realize that sounding bad is all part of the process.  I’m still surprised to hear how things DON’T sound the way I think they sound.    Both good and bad.

         I’m quite sure I never would have improved if I didn’t insist on recording myself.  Here’s what 5-string banjo master Pat Cloud had to say about using a recording to practice.  “The use of a recording is not only wise, it is mandatory…You can never go wrong with sound.  When you get down to it, that’s all there really is.”  (Key to 5-string banjo, Cloud, pg. 12)

         These days recording software is incredibly inexpensive and easy to use.  Everything from our phones, computers, and small hand held digital recorders are available.  After your initial terror of hearing yourself play wears off you’ll have a tremendous practice tool. 

 

Interview with Cahalen Morrison Part 2

BC:  Do you try to get through a whole song in a day when you write.

CM:  It depends, a lot of times I do because if I don't.  If I fall off the track it's hard to get back on and get back into the place where I was.  It won't feel linear or the verse I write 3 days later doesn't fit that well.  Like the content fits well but it doesn't have the same feel or way it rolls.  As far as the main structure or lyrics, I'll work on them for a month or whenever.  Every time I play it I work on subtitles.

BC:  You fine tune it?

CM:  By no means it's done after a day.

BC: I remember Paul McCartney saying that when him and Lennon were writing in the early days they would meet at noon and try to have a song done by the end of the afternoon.  That was just it.  It didn't matter if they were inspired or not.  It was, we're meeting at noon and we're writing to 5.  It was very set up.

CM:  I think that's great.  You know Matt Flinner (Mulit-instrumentalist) he does the tune du-jour.  We just did a few shows with him in Colorado.  They each write a tune on the day of the show and play it that night.  And this is not like, Angeline the Baker style, the verses are in 9/8 and the chorus' are crazy.  They're all totally crazy.  It's all written out.  It's insane.  So they do this every day they have a show.   The rule is you have to start it that day and finish it and rehearse it.  Then they play all three during the show.

Some of them kind of flop according to them but most of them are pretty cool.  And then by the end of the tour they have 3 times the material and they can say hey this one was awesome we should work that one up. 

BC:  Wow.  Inspiring.

CM:  I think that works really well in it's own way.  You know by process of elimination you can say I have so much stuff to work on now.

BC:  Do you keep a list of ideas?

CM:  I do.  A pretty scrappy list that's all over the place.  I should have a pen and paper in my pocket at all times.   That would be good, but I never ever do.  So I leave myself messages on my phone.

BC:  Bela Fleck does that, he'll hum some tune into his phone and then he'll go work it out.

CM:  Yeah, I'm just like Bela!  (laughs) I'll write it down on the back of something and then it's in my car for 6 months.  Then I'll find it.

BC:  Do you need to record with something when you're writing?

CM:  Definitely, I lose stuff.  I don't think there's a more frustrating thing in the world than playing a melody.  You have an idea and you think I can work on this.  Then you go eat and sit  down and you remember the fingerings you know, or what it was like kind of, but you just can't get it.  Something is missing and it just falls off the earth forever unless maybe later it comes back.  So, I always record every step of the process.  I'll record the first lick or write down the line and go record it.  So in that case you can turn back and look at ones you've done along the way of playing the whole song through.  With different approaches to the chorus or verse and see when you have good ideas and when they evolved.  You retrace your steps and see what you like.

BC:  Who are you favorite songwriters?

CM:  Paul Simon is my favorite, definitely.  I've never wanted to write like him that much.  But, he has been an inspiration to me.  I love the way he tells stories is a lot different than a lot of people.  He writes these vague story lines with really bright bursts of imagery.   I get frustrated when music is laid out completely for you and you don't have to interpret or think about what it might be about.  He's really good at that.  Drawing 2 lines instead of one line.  So you stay in between the two.  I love music like that.

I listen to a lot of Kelly Joe Phelps writing.  I don't like some of it as much but what I like, I love.  And also because I play fingerstyle, that was my main thing for a while, I kind of follow in his footsteps.  Tim O' Brien is another one clearly.
 I don't like all of his tunes, but the mark of a good songwriter is that even the songs you don't like you can say well that's a good song.  I might not like whatever about it but that's a good song.

BC:  I think it's important to have that approach when listening to music and not just say well that song sucks and discount it.  Maybe it's not your taste but maybe it's well written.

CM: Yeah.

BC:  As far as instrumentalism goes how do you practice?  You said that you don't play scales?

CM: In the past year I've started to try and learn scales.  I have trouble with patterns.

BC:  What is you #1 instrument?

CM:  I'm best on fingerstyle guitar.  I'm not good at improvising if I'm a jam.  I don't think of myself as a very good improviser.  I'm ok at improvising at stuff I'm really comfortable with but if somebody throws out some tune I don't know the changes to I don't know what to do.   I'm shaky.  I don't have very good ideas in that sense.  I'm sneaking up on clawhammer.  For some reason, I've been playing for 2 years and it's like, in my brain.  It's comfortable.  For some reason.

BC:  Did you take lessons with clawhammer?

CM: No.

BC:  Who were your main guys to follow?

CM:  I didn't really have to much of trying to sound like anyone.  I listened to Dirk Powell.  That was probably my main thing but it was more subconscious rather than I love the style of whoever.

BC: So you just started going for it.  Clawhammer is such a picky little thing, there's so many different ways to do.  Did you feel like you were influenced by any distinctive style?

CM: Not so much.  In the general sense of I like the plunky the over the head style instead of slapping the head style.  It has it's place but I generally went for the over scoop style.  It's hard to do with Eli cause when we're playing he's so loud.  The volume of his guitar is insane.  When we're playing live on some fast song I have to go way back and twang on it.  Which is good since that's what it calls for.  That's a challenging thing to do that live cause it's so quiet.  You've got to have a quiet listening audience.

BC:  Do you play anything else?  Mandolin?

CM:  Yeah Mandolin, same thing, self taught.  I've kind of plateaued on everything a few times.  I just kind of walk up the ladder of getting better at certain things.

BC:  Did you start with fiddle tunes on the mandolin?

CM:  Yeah and I can kind of play scales on the mandolin.  I have a mandolin student now so I was like, uggh, I guess I'd better learn some scales.  So I learned them and taught them to her.  And that's been really helpful.  Knowing your way around the instrument is swell.

BC:  How much music theory do you apply?

CM:  A good bit.  I'm OK with theory.  I did pretty well with theory.  I took theory in college and it was all classical.  I had a really hard time with it at first cause I had never read a note on the page or thought about 1-4-5 type stuff, but then it clicked and that door just opened.  It was like, all of this stuff is true.  It's great now.  If I'm stuck on a tune it's fun to be able to say, OK where can I go to?  With a progression that's not cool, I can say how can I make this cooler.  You know put the 5 of 5 in there or whatever.

BC: Do you get crazy with what keys you write in or change keys or go to strange parallel keys?  I guess it's not real folky to do that.

CM:  Yeah I'm not trying to stay all traditional sounding.  But I don't change keys very often.  I'm working on a fiddle tune now.  It's weird.  It started off as a reel then turned old timey is kind of in between an Irish and Old time tune but with a weird twist.  It kind of does change keys for a second.  It's in A and then it modulates to D and then back to A.

BC:  Do you practice modes at all or just the major scale?

CM: Never.  I know what they are but I couldn't just play them.  I know what a C Lydian scale is but to apply it is insane.

BC: Do you work on more complex chords?

CM:  A bit, I'm comfortable in first position.  Not because it's easier, but I just like the sound.  I'm much more of a Norman Blake fan than a Tony Rice fan you know.  I just go with that.  I don't work on to many chords really.  More so in fingerstyle I do more complex stuff.

BC: Could you name all the notes or just know how it sounds?

CM:  I could figure it out but I just know how they feel and what they sound like.

BC:  When you practice instrumental stuff do you set goals or just think you know today I'll practice this?

CM:  I didn't used to but this year I'm trying to learn a tune a week.  I have trouble learning tunes cause I've just worked on my own stuff.  But I decided I need to know a large catalog of songs cause it'll help my writing, playing, and jamming, everything.    I've learned like 4 tunes in the past 2 weeks.  It's like OK that was easy.  I've just started doing goal setting with learning tunes and getting licks down.

Double thumb tricks on clawhammer.  Just things like that.  I'm becoming more goal oriented which is working really well.

BC:  How do you approach a new tune?  How do you set off to learn it?

CM:  Well I just learned twin sisters.  It's an old fiddle tune.  I started the first phrase and it's this cool double thumb trick that makes it sound really linear.  Any clawhammer player that plays 16th note runs you're like how do you make it do that?  How is that possible?

BC:  Melodic clawhammer?

CM:  Yeah.  If you get the right fingering you can play very linearly and it sounds so cool.

BC:  That stuff is hard.

CM:  Very.  I'm trying to play the fiddle melody as close as I can.  And I have a recording of that which is helpful.  I just got these field recording which is Edna and Sydney Fuller.  I was listening to those and thought, awesome tune.  And one just had banjo.  That was great.  It made it easier to learn.

BC: Do you play it note for note?

CM:  In the beginning.  Then I stray a little bit and do what I like.  Which I think is how traditional music should be.  You shouldn't play just like you heard it on the field recording cause it's not them anymore.  You're not that guy.  You should play it like you want to play it.  I see no harm in changing things up.  If you like a certain note over another note, music has been evolving for how many years?  I do that with no shame.

BC: I guess with a tune like that you're very methodical.

CM: I worked on that first phrase for an hour and a half.  You drop your thumb for a couple of notes bring it back up for a couple.  It's a three dimensional space when you start double thumbing.  When you have a melody note on your first string, it's a bit warping at first till you get the muscle memory.  It's counter-intuitive.  It's not going to be my main thing but it's fun to work out a tune.

BC: Do you get stage fright?

CM:  Yeah, not very often but if it's over 200 people that are silent, that get's pretty scary for a second.  But, it's just at the beginning.  As soon as I play the first tune then I shake it off.

BC:  Did you have some gigs like that on this tour?

CM: Yeah gigs in quiet silent big rooms, which is a beautiful thing.  Everything is better about it, but that first tune is a little tingly.

BC: Do you ever get the shakes?

CM:  Yeah, and that's difficult to deal with.  I remember the first time that happened to me in front of a big audience in Colorado.  I open with this intricate fingerstyle song and it just did not work.  I was jittery and I just could not do it.  I dive bombed.  I'm sure a lot of people noticed and some people didn't.  I was still doing finger picky stuff and they didn't know how clean I was trying to be.  If you get shaky that's hard to deal with.

BC:  Do you warm up before a performance?

CM:  I just go for it.  I think it comes from practicing.  I never learned anything formal really so I just go for it.  Occasionally I'll warm up my voice a little bit.  I feel like you'll sound better in the middle of a gig than the first song.

BC:  Do you practice singing at all?

CM: No.  I never do that.  I never work on doing little twirls or stair stepping down.

BC: Do you work on your voice through recording?

CM: Not on purpose.  I'll hear myself and but I haven't ever sat down to work on my voice.  But if I hear myself and do something at gig I don't like I'll say I won't do that again.  Or I'll do things that I think, Oh that was cool.   In the beginning my singing was really rough.  It was pitchy and weird and my phrasing was weird.  I just feel like singing is a thing of subtlety.  It doesn't really matter if you can hit the notes all the time.  It's not the point as much as your phrasing and inflection.  I've worked on phrasing and inflection more than anything else.

BC:  Do you feel like your songs have developed your vocal style or the other way around?

CM: Probably.  I let the song tell me what to do.  There are certain things I'll do.  I like a lot of space.  I like to have space to move things around in a phrase.  If it's a 4 bar phrase that I have a few words in I don't like repetitive words to sing.  I like to have long open phrases with a short vocal phrase in it that you change the length of words.  You can shorten them.  Jealous sea is a good example of that.  Sometimes I'll finish the whole phrase 5 bars before the phrase ends musically.  I feel like that is a fun way to change how songs feel.  If people have heard this song before it's going to catch them off guard.  It's fun to play with.  To put a lot of room in songs.

BC:  How did you develop your harmonies with Eli West?

CM:  That was pretty natural.  Most of them are pretty standard harmonies and I think Eli and I have voices that blend really well just by chance.  Sometimes we'll hold a note for a long time and I can't tell which one I am until we diverge.  That's pretty crazy.  That's a fun thing.  Some songs have a crooked melody, like Lost Loving Gal, a weird melody, it's pretty funky.  We worked that out cause it would be cooler to do something different than some standard harmony.

BC:  Eli is a tremendous harmony singer.

CM: He has a great ear.  I'm not a fast learner.  I can't learn songs quickly but I can write songs.  And he doesn't write much but can learn quickly.  So we have an easy musical relationship.  I'll bring in some weird tune and he'll put some harmony on it and it works.

BC: What's next?  A full band.

CM:  Yeah, it's be really fun.  I'd love to get another multi instrumentalist.  Like guitar/banjo/fiddle/mandolin.  Any combination of those.  Bass player.  That would be really fun.  I'd like to keep playing my stuff you know.  But I'd love to play more with the guy who plays fiddle on the new record.  It'd be fun.  He plays so many styles.  I would like to do a crossroads of bluegrass/old-time/celtic record.  With more of a celtic influence.  A bit like Tim O' Brien's The Crossing.  Those records are IT for me.  It all fits so well together.  I don't why more people don't do that.  It makes so much sense.  Historically, musically.  I'd like to do something in that direction.  With a bigger sound.  Maybe a piper?

Goal Setting checklist//Classes starting next week

I've got new classes starting next week at Dusty Strings.  There's a beginning banjo class that meets at 12pm and 6:30pm and beginning Bluegrass rhythm guitar that meets at 7:45pm every Wednesday.  Here's a link to the class descriptions.


http://www.dustystrings.com/workshopsandevents/musicschool/classes/banjo/tabid/611/Default.aspx

http://www.dustystrings.com/workshopsandevents/musicschool/classes/guitar/tabid/605/Default.aspx

Feel free to give me a shout if you have any questions.

Here's a checklist from my book about practicing.
 

Checklist for goal setting

1. If you’re not setting a goal you’re not practicing.  Set goals every practice session and you’ll always improve.
2. Be very specific about what you’re trying to accomplish in a given practice session.
3. Focus on aspects of your playing that need the most work.  These are spots where you’re most likely to mess up.  Go after those spots.
4. You might practice only a couple of notes or you might practice an entire piece of music.  Be aware of where you’re at in your musical development. 
5. Set small manageable goals.  You should start to see improvement in 5 minutes or so depending on the goal.
6. You may have several “5 minute” goals in a given practice session.
7. Build your goals on each other.  Try to build on what you did the day before.  Be aware of where you are and where you need to go.
8. Be realistic.  You may need to get serious about only a couple of especially difficult notes before you’re ready to play them in the context of the larger piece of music.