Become a better musician: No substitute for practice

By Ruben Kenig | Published: 13 August, 2010

Keep going, remember to think about your grip and by the time you’re five you’ll be cooking

Practice is a means to an end, playing well, and it is a vital component to reach that end. I don’t think I have ever met a musician who I thought was a great player who didn’t practice and practice effectively.

When I first went to conservatory I would stumble around in awe of all the amazingly talented people I was surrounded by. They seemed like a different species to me. After a while I was able to hear some stratification of ability between these brilliant musicians and I noticed that the better ones (in relative terms they were all amazing players) practiced a lot and practiced effectively.

Regular practice is the key to the door. If you don’t do that you can’t even gain entry to the temple of Euterpe but to really become good, Manuel Barrueco good, you’ve got to practice effectively. It’s not enough to just punch the clock and lather, rinse, repeat. Getting better demands that you pay attention to what and how you practice too.

Identifying specific element that you want to improve is important whether it’s a technical element or a piece. If you keep practicing that thing you can do well you’re not getting much return on your effort. There’s less room to get better there than there is working on things you can’t yet do so well.

This happened at conservatory too. I would hear the halls echoing with someone banging out a Rachmaninov Prelude and sounding great, but after a while you could notice the same musician playing the same piece over and over. Sometimes a few doors away you could hear another musician trudging through arpeggios or working on a technique like their trill. It didn’t sound so impressive but it served them better in the long run. Being great at playing one thing is no bad thing but it’s not the same as being a good musician.

Practicing is not the same thing as playing. Cranking through your repertoire of pieces isn’t effective practice. It won’t do you any harm, but to build a strong foundation of facility and technique requires thought about who you are and where you are as a musician. Try to identify where you are now as a player and where you want to get to. What can’t you do yet as well as the players you admire? That’s where to put the effort in. Read More »

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The perils of modern music making, part 2: Blinded by the light

By Ruben Kenig | Published: 9 August, 2010
backlit circular VU meter

Don’t stare at the pretty lights!

Music is a sonic medium. As obvious as this is it can be easy to forget when faced with the rich visual environment of modern music creation software. This is, mostly, a good thing but as a card-carrying grumbler I feel compelled to spin a cautionary tale of this land of milk and honey. Don’t let your eyes rule your ears.

Visual feedback is great. It has saved my fat fundament on many occasions knowing that the vocal track is coloured blue and the guitar green and being able to see where the bridge starts from looking at the waveform when I’ve been too lazy to set a marker. The problem comes when you stop listening because you are drunk on visual feedback.

Back in the mythical olden days, when music grew on trees and fell into your lap if you had a nap in the park, this was an issue too. We had VU meters or PPMs in broadcast oriented studios. Even just a twitching needle could be more hypnotic than Dr Mesmer’s glass harmonica. I confess I have spent many hours looking at twitching needles, flashing LEDs and even rotating tape spools when I should have been listening more carefully.

Too much eye-candy

Nowadays there is much more to look at. The very features that aid inputting audio merrily scroll by on playback, virtual faders dance up and down, SMPTE counters tick by and software metering has brought class-A visual distraction to the desktop as well as the dubbing theatre. How can you not stare?

On playback there are two big problems with this. First, it’s just distracting and if you’re feeling a bit tired or a bit bored with the tenth time through the bass and drums checking for timing issues (can those guys actually count?) your mind can wander. Mine does anyway. Secondly, the visual feedback can influence what you think you heard or might hear. If the meter says it’s fine, it must be fine… Right?

The trick is mono-tasking. If you’re listening to the playback then just listen to the playback. Try to use your ears only. If you hear a problem, some clipping or a drop-out, go back and use the meter to check it. You can always bang in a marker to flag up the spot. All those wonderfully beguiling visual tools will be waiting for you whenever you need them.

Those tools can mislead your ears too. Flying faders are big offenders here. If you’re watching the desk, or virtual desk, dance along with the track seeing a fader dip really low can kid your ears that channel is to quiet. It must be too quiet, it’s so low. The big point here is it doesn’t matter what anything looks like it only matters how it sounds. Read More »

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Culture over commerce: Towards a new musical landscape

By Ruben Kenig | Published: 6 August, 2010

Inculcation into the tribe of music lovers

What is music in society today? Is it a product, the fuel of a commercial industry or is it a culture, a forum for the expression, classification and development of who we are?

This is not a straight choice. The answer must be somewhere in the middle, but there is a tension between the two poles that indicates a conflict. This is particularly exemplified by the piracy/sharing issue and the reaction of the RIAA and similar bodies.

It is easy to cast stones at both sides, the litigious industry and the pilfering kids, but what is more interesting to me is what this confrontation indicates. I think we are in a liminal state caused by the changes digital production and distribution have wrought on the music industry.

When music was physical

Back in the mists of time, making and distributing music was an expensive exercise and record labels functioned like banks, signing bands and advancing the money to record and produce their music. This wasn’t charity and there were (and still are) some clever/tricky ways that record labels make money without paying much to the bands. Steve Albini, guitarist and producer, has published a famous vituperative article about some of the music industry’s wicked ways.

The internet and digital audio have changed things. In the past manufacture and distribution of physical media was expensive and tricky. You had to make objects that contained the music and get them to brick and mortar stores that would sell them for you. The easiest way to make money out of this is through economy of scale. Big distribution companies came to be owned by the record labels as this made sense for them. This consolidated the control of large companies over the industry.

Now once music is encoded into a suitable digital format it can be piped from computer to computer without all the cumbersome meatspace machinations of the old world. This has a huge implications for the perception of value of the music track. Where it used to cost money to make a plastic manifestation of the music digital copies can be produced and distributed for almost nothing except bandwidth costs. Read More »

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