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[ksva]

ksva’s 23yos on Music

My mom insisted I write a paper on what I have done for my music ‘education.’ It has been highly irregular and sporadic, but I have done my best to summarize it.

I began playing a guitar and have continued playing for one reason: a love of music. I never approached it scientifically, except insomuch as it helped me to play what I wanted, and I never looked at it as part of an education. Among my hobbies, it was the one I took least ‘seriously.’ When my Mom strongly suggested I learn to play the piano, I made a few feeble efforts, realized it was going to take a lot of time and energy, and decided against it. These are my reflections upon my exposure to music and my years playing the guitar.

Jimi Hendrix was my first inspiration, and has been one of my most enduring favorites. After I heard his music, I decided I had to learn to play a guitar like he did (which I still haven’t accomplished after ten years, no matter how high I turn up the volume). From rummaging through my old Dad’s old CD’s I developed a liking for the blues, but I didn’t quite find the music that fit my style. This was another reason I began learning to play the guitar: I wanted to invent the music I could not find. I only found odd songs here and there that genuinely appealed to me.

The first step to learning to play the guitar is developing a tolerance for small steel strings. Any stringed instrument you have to fret will leave its mark—four fingers on my left hand have hard, insensitive skin on the end. (I’ve heard of cello- and bass-players whose fingers regularly bleed). I spent months just randomly acquainting myself to the feel of the strings and the difficulty of playing chords. There is little harm in this randomness, for I later found that my fingering was largely correct (there is not so much of a theory of correct finger arrangement such as on the piano). In fact, posture seems to be the biggest issue, but that might just be because of all the slinking sleazebags in noisome bands who have destroyed the guitar’s classical image.
Guitar-playing is so popular today among young people that you really don’t have to look far to find simple instructional books. The standard music store has dozens of beginner guitar books, and I have yet to see a really bad one. Tablature (a system of writing guitar music as fret-numbers on string) is extremely simple to read, so very little knowledge of theory is even required to play the guitar, though I’m sure it would help. I only read one, maybe two first-level books, and have run into few problems since.
Two things were essential to this way of learning: 1) Privacy, so that I wouldn’t be ashamed to make many terrible noises, and 2) Access to resources! I listened, burrowed, ordered, checked out, and copied every sort of music I could from the radio, libraries, internet, family, etc. What I liked, I researched; and if I couldn’t learn it by ear, I bought/reserved the sheet music (or tablature).

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[ksva]

My musical ambitions came from listening to music, not playing. Melodies, tones, lyrics, etc. were what I enjoyed listening to and toying with. My development has been purely whimsical and experimental, and I often trace my musical development in terms of what I listened to:

First stage. Jimi Hendrix and the Blues, primarily: Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Jimmy Reed, Chester Burnett (aka, Howlin’ Wolf), Willie Dixon, Albert Collins, Albert King, etc. I owned an electric guitar, and was generally fascinated with the instrument, but I was dissatisfied with this style. I learned to play a few songs, and many songs of my own. I was somewhat familiar with classical music, mostly Strauss and Beethoven. I knew its importance, even in the music I listened to—Hendrix was the only ‘classic rock’ musician I liked (though he really defies categorization), and I suspected it had something to do with the fact that he had listened to Bach and Beethoven when young, knew some theory, and could play a piano (and harpsichord) and violin.

Second Stage. Discovered the ‘Country Blues,’ blues piano songs (1930’s recordings), and several classical artists (mostly Liszt). I read a simple music book, memorized a little more theory, made my first disinterested attempt to learn piano, but continued to focus mostly on invention and enjoyment. At this stage I really began to learn to play the guitar better. I became fascinated with Mississippi John Hurt’s simple but ingenious finger picking. I copied his bare-thumb, bare-finger-picking style (this, I have found, is rather rare, because most folk/country guitarists put on fingerpicks, while classical guitarists use their nails). In learning to do this, I found again that it was largely just a matter of getting used to the feel of the strings on my right hand, getting past the blisters on my right thumb (acquiring more insensitive spots), and developing the strength and flexibility of my fingers. After perhaps a year of sporadic but continuous practice, I felt as if I had crossed another threshold because, now that my fingers were acquainted with certain strings, the notes I read registered instantly. This done, it was not hard to take my Classical Guitar Masterpeices book and (slowly) play the songs therein, though I was not very interested except in a select few of Spain’s classics.
I checked out a video called ‘Legends of Country Blues’ or something there like from the library. This is I found to be an enjoyable, easy way to glean more techniques and hear different songs. During this time, my preferred artists were:
Guitarists Skip James, Gary Davis, Big Bill Broonzy, Brownie McGee, Robert Johnson, Jesse Fuller, and pianists Fats Waller, Jabo Williams.

Third Stage. At long last I began to find styles of music that were most to my liking. Celtic music seized my interest—the gravity, ingenuity, and imagination of Scottish Celtic music in particular, both old and modern (I listen to the Thistle and Shamrock on NPR). Theirs is an almost amorphous mixture of folk music (sometimes dating back to the first millennium AD), classical music, and modern music, usually done with a mind toward beauty and order. They play anything: harp, guitar, violin, flute, cello, piano, accordion, bagpipe, and even arrange orchestral and choral songs. As I was exposed to more classical music via NPR, I developed a liking for Verdi, Rossini, Schubert, J. S. Bach, and found that I had an exuberant liking for Antonio Vivaldi. My interest in blues music carried me back to ‘Old Time’ music, such as Leadbelly, the Carter Family, Uncle Dave Macon, and almost anything else recorded before 1950. I continue to develop my own songs, and after about eight years of haphazard but regular practice, I find that there is little I can’t do on the guitar with a little practice.

My musical development, then, was almost entirely by ear (I read a lot, too), which was the way I intended it. Having seen my older brother, I knew full well that there was another perfectly enjoyable way to learn music.

But there was another reason I did not approach music scientifically: I could not stand many of those who did. I had plenty of exposure, for I visited piano stores galore with my family, saw people who make pianos, attended orchestral performances, frequented music stores filled with people who knew musical theory forward and backward, and found that the deeper into music (especially orchestral music) they were, the further they were from me. I got the impression that they had no creativity and derived no real joy from what they were doing. Furthermore, the music they made repelled me. Since then I have learned that there is actually a vague theory behind modern orchestra music: off-key pieces are the only things that are truly novel, since the great composers have exhausted harmonious arrangements, but never thought to write in disharmony (apparently it hasn’t occurs to these geniuses that maybe they didn’t write that way because it sounded terrible). I always thought that just maybe they had come to this conclusion because they had been so thoroughly and forcefully trained with good classical music that they got sick of it and reacted violently. Maybe I’m wrong…
Another thing. I believe they have turned it into a pure science. They analyze the music too ruthlessly, and often overlook the fact that Liszt, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Mozart, and many others composed some of their best songs with peasant folk songs, while Vivaldi (and countless others) wrote peices inspired by the seasons and even flies, and Mozart is rumored to have derived some of his melodies from birds! I get the impression that very few modern pianists and orchestra musicians would be so liberally creative.

However… When I got my first quality guitar, the salesman suggested I take lessons. I gave him a look that clearly meant ‘Don’t get me near those people,’ but he shook his head and insisted very eagerly that guitar lessons were far more enjoyable than the typical music lesson—and he could play fairly well. So I’m sure the lessons vary, depending on whom you employ and what instrument you’re learning.

My Mom thinks I’ll regret not having learned the piano. I think I will because to know a piano is to know music (someone once said that you can learn to play any other instrument if you know the piano). But I enjoy challenges and new fields of knowledge, so I think I could learn to play the piano if ever I want to.

And finally, I really can’t judge how well I play, so I don’t know how much of an authority I am on my method. I almost never play in public or with friends. Furthermore, not only do I live in a country obsessed with the guitar, I live in a part of the country obsessed with guitar-playing (south Appalachia), so everywhere I go there are people who can play the guitar pretty darn good.

Anyway, I hope this helps y’all.

[ksva]

Music (Piano mostly).
Greetings.
Unfortunately probably the most scattered of any subject I’ve done. Had to guess at what used to fill some of the blanks in my memory… Yet I am able to see the Lord’s hand in the overall of things, somewhat as follows.
(I write this first part more for the entertainment value than…well.)

To learn to play the piano—
FOUR STAGES:

1. First came a period of “formless and void.” A rotten old piano. Drew note-names on keys with permanent marker. Plinked out whatever (had a tiny booklet with very simple, very familiar songs—notes spelled out). Sometimes worked out simple melodies by ear (lullabies). Knew almost no theory. Didn’t even know difference between genre of music—or that there were genre. Occasionally took note of men playing the piano. My Dad’s old music—’60’s-era. Lots of children’s songs of all sorts; the music in old Disney pictures. To about 14 y/o.

2. Second came a time of theory. Used The Basic Guide to How to Read Music (Helen Cooper, 1986, ISBN 0.8256.2309.X). Copied out almost every little tittle of information onto hundreds of index cards (including, for example, each natural note as it appears in notation, the strange language’s terms , signatures, and all those funny symbols to which musicians seem given). Worked through these (literally) stacks of index cards until known reliably. (Still have a good many of them!) No piano, so made a cardboard keyboard to scale—all 88 keys; practiced reading each note off its index card and “playing” it on the cardboard “piano.” Did do some of this with a smile. Had far too much time on hand—hours and hours (lived in an apartment—no outdoors, no chores,…). Did have a couple little electric keyboards. About 14-17 y/o.

3. Third: EXERCISE!--and LOTS of it, putting all that theory into [I]practice. Acquired another old piano; out in workshop. By chance obtained some Liszt etude (exercise) books at a music store—he, Beethoven’s smaller works, and Chopin. Hours, hours—late into nights (10 p.m.), literally translating one note at a time from paper to eye through brain into hand onto key. Then groups of two, three—speed slowly coming—all the way to five (and six!) per hand per beat. Hammered, hammered, hammered the theory from #2 into something that resembled “music,” especially via Beethoven. It was very, very slow, in the beginning; one could not even discern the melody for the din of all the notes (and I was addicted to the sustain petal, atop that). Frozen fingers in winter; sweaty keys in summer. Slowly, slowly melodies and smoother flow began to emerge. Very, very slowly. It hurt! The level of frustration was inexpressible at times. Literally pounded wads of keys with my clenched fist just to relieve tension sometimes (felt good!--usually trying to play Liszt). But those moments (and one in particular) when something beautiful actually began happening were glorious. About 17-21.

4. Finally, fourth, the good Lord saw fit to extricate me from the delirium of #3, and—a tolerable smoothness being acquired—we bought our first real piano! And the storm that was the “exercise epoch” came down as something like (dare I say?) a rainbow of melody, in pleasing strings. Or at least as I imagine it. Able even to compose small pieces. About 21-25.

(Note: May sound a little loony, but chief “inspiration” carrying more or less through the entire process: the performance by “Bug Bunny” of F. Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody #2, in a cartoon. Could not believe what my ears claimed they were hearing: determined to be able to play that song!)
(Another note: No experience with teachers whatsoever—not even my Mom.)

Dis- and Advantages of Above:

1. Chief disadvantage: playing of more difficult pieces (Beethoven, Liszt) still seems to lack a certain continuity. Suspect an excellent teacher would have shown me how to better anticipate and memorize (?) those phantasmagorical cadenzas.
2. Chief advantage: Ability to sight-read almost any unfamiliar music on the spot—gaining fluidity in the piece after a few times through.
3. Disadvantage: Learned of theory really only what required to play. Hence, understanding of theory is to this day incomplete and quite superficial (e.g., minor keys).
4. Advantage: the sheer thoroughness of it. Almost learned ItalianJ; and so many little symbols swimming about my brains.
5. Advantage: Could always go at exactly the speed wanted, throughout. Could also play whatever felt most motivated to play whenever so felt—and repeat it as many times as desired, too.
6. (Disadvantage?) Takes a very long time to learn alone, from complete ignorance.
7. Advantage: practicing out of others’ hearing ranges. This way don’t learn to fear broadcasting horrible mistakes for all to laugh at.
8. Advice: When you learn to play the key signatures, learn them all equally. Don’t favor the easier (e.g., G, D, F, etc.). Did the former and it worked very well, though a little confusing at first.
9. (Unplanned tremendous advantage:) Beginning “practice” with Liszt’s very difficult exercises forces one to learn the correct fingering (which fingers play which keys). One just cannot play most of the exercises whatsoever any other way!
10. Advantage: little electric keyboards. They give a sense of control over the instrument and its music which a thirty-ton chunk of metal and wood with so many keys on it just does not permit.
11. Some of F. Liszt’s in particular have a driving melody-line, which has a remarkable power to keep one determined to follow (making for thorough practice).
12. Advantage: no piano in #2 above. Forced focus to be upon theory.
13. Disadvantage: learned somewhat poor posture. (No one to correct me.)

More to follow...

[ksva]

Comments from the Outside World respecting the end of it all:

1. At a mall once. One piano salesman noted to another that I (the pianist) was playing some music with double sharps in it. The other: “He didn’t have a teacher to slow him down!”
2. One lady ran out of the store after asking my Dad a few questions about me.
3. One fellow thought I was preparing to go to conservatorie.
4. One lady asked if I could not play something more worshipful in the church; and later asked if I had finished wearing the enamel off the keys of her piano.
5. Another lady insisted it was a gift (at the same church, too).
6. A lady who looked like a proper teacher told me to keep learning and practicing and not stop.
7. A younger guy in another music store said I played well.
8. One thought I was a concert pianist, and learning that I was not, actually stated that he thought I was better than the usual concert pianists. But it is true: he was trying to sell us a piano.
9. One lady was particularly interesting. She assumed I had been properly taught, and learning otherwise, became quite visibly incensed.
10. One guy (another salesman, though) said “Wow.” He or another also seemed to enjoy one of the little melodies I had created.
11. One time I was trying out a keyboard at a music store, playing some Liszt on it, when one of the guys working there (fiddling with the many buttons) began to record it, unbeknownst to myself. After finishing, he began to play back the same—which I mistook for one of the tracks programmed into the keyboard, and therefore made the following completely unbiased comment upon it: “That’s slow—too slow!” He smiled. I grew quite embarrassed, realizing what had just happened.
12. We all performed via a local radio station fund-raiser once—hymns, a little classical music, a joke or two, and my brother a guitar blues song or two. A few people called in to complement…but one of the broadcasters there did slyly mention something about “we teach hound dogs to sing!” On the air, too.
13. One person kept repeating he refused to believe I had not been taught by a teacher.


Miscellanea:

1. Have an old accordian also. Decent piano skills allow one to pick up the accordian quite quickly.
2. Dabbled (with help of music-minded sister) in transcribing music from CD’s into sheet-music form, with some success…
3. Can print sheet music directly off WWW now quite cheaply.
4. We once or twice played ensemble—harp, piano, violin, guitar… Needs more practice! But we could sense it was not impossible, if we desired to pursue it.
5. We all sang some older country music at our piano a couple times (at last discovering that one must basically yell to get it to sound right).
6. Presently going through a Bluedorn-recommended theory book to touch up on that superficial theory…
7. Brother listens to Celtic music, old blues…
8. Youngest sister listens to old World War II marching tunes; next-youngest sister to Soviet-era stuff.
9. Actually learned some of the internal workings of pianos firsthand on the old ones—was able to fix a few things (and break a few, too). Gave a sense of what was happening as music was played.
10. Actually attempted to tune an old piano once. Used a guitar tuner. It sounded inconceivably horrendous afterward. (Later learned that what the guitar tuner had done was led me to tune it mathematically perfectly—which, several professional piano tuners have assured us, is something very different from the tuning accomplished with their little hand-held computers. Fascinating.)
11. I enjoy singing Psalms impromptu to the Lord.
12. Played some piano sheetmusic on my sister’s harp with success.
13. Played some very simple piano melodies by ear on another sister’s violin.


Music more broadly:

For the history, doing WTM, history of Western music. History is helpful: it shows you good music did not grow in a vacuum. It developed rather gradually as now this, now that composer took and experimented with different ideas…
For “appreciation,” mostly classical music. To tell the truth, over my life I’ve experimented with everything from rap to church hymns—classical has won out. But a note about good classical music: I distinctly remember that in the beginning classical music did not “sound good” (being weaned off the ’60’s-era beat-&-rhythm oriented stuff). It was only after forcing myself (or being forced by my Mom) to repeatedly “pay attention” to it that it began to “make sense” and become pleasing. It requires much more attention or something (“work”?) to follow and understand.
Operas are tediously lengthy. However: a few brief parts of a select few operas contain what is probably the most beautiful music ever written. Get CD’s so you can skip over all the rest.
One of the most effective things for inspiring interest and attraction for classical music is to read about the lives of the composers (e.g., biographies). Their lives are strange (most of them)—very strange; and knowing them makes one turn a changed eye (or ear) toward their music… Oh, and you can also see how they learned to play!
For the sheer fascination of it, attempt to obtain some old Swiss “jodels.” They are “rustic opera.”
There are actually a few very beautiful old church hymns, but they are nearly impossible to find. Good hymns have a population about as do good operas: very small. But, if you want to search…and search and search (used bookstores), you’re bound to hit upon a few to your taste.
Another thing that greatly tweaked our music-curious minds was when, as a part of a French language program (Pimsleur was it?), we first heard French nursery rhymes.




Summary:

“Music” (and its instruments) was just one of those things that was there all along in our lives—everywhere; we just never really noticed it, nor realized how much of it was there, in all its diverse forms.
As said—it has been terribly scattered (excepting that overarching order aforementioned), but here a little, there a little our ears were developed, the exploration seeming (so far) to have ended in Classical-era music, listening to it, learning to play it.

[Colleen in NS]

ksva’s 23yos on Music

My mom insisted I write a paper on what I have done for my music ‘education.’ It has been highly irregular and sporadic, but I have done my best to summarize it.

I began playing a guitar and have continued playing for one reason: a love of music. I never approached it scientifically, except insomuch as it helped me to play what I wanted, and I never looked at it as part of an education. Among my hobbies, it was the one I took least ‘seriously.’ When my Mom strongly suggested I learn to play the piano, I made a few feeble efforts, realized it was going to take a lot of time and energy, and decided against it. These are my reflections upon my exposure to music and my years playing the guitar.

Jimi Hendrix was my first inspiration, and has been one of my most enduring favorites. After I heard his music, I decided I had to learn to play a guitar like he did (which I still haven’t accomplished after ten years, no matter how high I turn up the volume). From rummaging through my old Dad’s old CD’s I developed a liking for the blues, but I didn’t quite find the music that fit my style. This was another reason I began learning to play the guitar: I wanted to invent the music I could not find. I only found odd songs here and there that genuinely appealed to me.

The first step to learning to play the guitar is developing a tolerance for small steel strings. Any stringed instrument you have to fret will leave its mark—four fingers on my left hand have hard, insensitive skin on the end. (I’ve heard of cello- and bass-players whose fingers regularly bleed). I spent months just randomly acquainting myself to the feel of the strings and the difficulty of playing chords. There is little harm in this randomness, for I later found that my fingering was largely correct (there is not so much of a theory of correct finger arrangement such as on the piano). In fact, posture seems to be the biggest issue, but that might just be because of all the slinking sleazebags in noisome bands who have destroyed the guitar’s classical image.
Guitar-playing is so popular today among young people that you really don’t have to look far to find simple instructional books. The standard music store has dozens of beginner guitar books, and I have yet to see a really bad one. Tablature (a system of writing guitar music as fret-numbers on string) is extremely simple to read, so very little knowledge of theory is even required to play the guitar, though I’m sure it would help. I only read one, maybe two first-level books, and have run into few problems since.
Two things were essential to this way of learning: 1) Privacy, so that I wouldn’t be ashamed to make many terrible noises, and 2) Access to resources! I listened, burrowed, ordered, checked out, and copied every sort of music I could from the radio, libraries, internet, family, etc. What I liked, I researched; and if I couldn’t learn it by ear, I bought/reserved the sheet music (or tablature).

More to follow...

Once again, thank you for posting your children's various educational stories!!!