Adding a piece to your repertoire is not about brute force “memorization” of unrelated dots on a page…
It’s about KNOWING a piece by internalizing its musical patterns using all four musical intelligences: ears, intellect, eyes, and muscles.
So deeply that they are not merely “memorized” but become a permanent part of you.
So deeply that you hear, think, see, and feel the music in all its musical dimensions: form, meter, rhythm, phrase length, melodic contour, rhythm, key center, tonality, melody, harmony, style, and choreography (technique).
So deeply that you aren’t just “playing the piano”, but become the music.
Don’t worry about the details right now. The goal here is to expose you to a different way of thinking about music-making… and to invite you to begin a lifetime of mindful study, not mindless mechanical practice.
Yikes!
On the surface, all of the above may seem like a daunting amount of work… until you realize three things about how music works:
- There’s usually a lot of repetition within a given piece, so studying one part of the piece will yield immediate dividends elsewhere in the piece.
- There’s usually a lot of repetition of certain patterns within a particular genre of music, so studying one piece will yield dividends many times over when you study other pieces in the same genre.
- The general study of melody, harmony, form, rhythm, and technique in one style will yield dividends when you study other musical styles.
Time and time again you’ll discover that all music is composed of a short list of simple and universal building blocks, but each style combines and explores them in different and interesting ways.
learn more… A Meditation on Gratitude
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