I have gone in depth about many of the milestones of Berklee, and while I obviously have a lot of good things to say about this music school (I do go there after all), I realize that it can also be even more informative to share the bad sides of a school as well. Berklee is not all fun and games, and there are some things that need to be changed about the school in my opinion.
1. You do not get to choose classes your first semester.
At other colleges I have attended, I have gotten leeway to make some kind of decision about the classes I could enroll in during my first semester, but at Berkle, I had absolutely none. Even with 18 transfer credits, and testing out of 12 more credits, I still had my schedule just handed to me with no decision of my own. The exception to this is some students who test out of intro to music technology get to choose one of their classes. Not much of a choice if you ask me. (Plus, Intro to Music Tech with Loudon Stearns actually turned out to be my favorite class).
2. You do not get to meet individually with a faculty advisor.
At other universities, during the first week students met individually with a member of the faculty to discuss majors, what classes would be necessary, and to create a plan to take these classes. At Berklee, while we did have a faculty member in our peer groups, there wasn’t really a set time when each student could sit down and discuss a plan. Most of the advice I have gotten about what major to choose has come from talking to a wide array of alumni and current upper-semester students (and I will be sharing that so others can make more informed decisions).
3. If you know what you want from your music career, you won’t need a lot of the classes.
Berklee is all about options. Some people consider this a great thing, but personally I feel that 90% of the material I am learning right now is completely irrelevant to what I want out of my music career. Now I don’t necessarily blame Berklee for having a required set of courses– every college has their core curriculum, and I think part of getting a college degree means sitting in classes that you will probably never use. But as an example, I was placed in a background singing class, and the current song we are working on is “I’ll Make Love to You” by Boyz II men. Now I actually really like the song, and the class is entertaining, but I have no intention of becoming a background singer, and out of all the labs to choose from –if I had a choice– I would not have chosen this one. It’s simply not taking me closer to the goals I want to achieve with my music career.
4. It is really hard to get studio time, an ensemble room, a job, a dorm.
In a community containing thousands of serious musicians, it is very hard to get studio time. Berklee’s studios are free, which means every person who wants to record a demo is booking studio time as soon as possible. If you want to improve your chances of getting in, make friends in the MP&E (Music Production and Engineering) department. Getting an ensemble room can be tough too; you will only need to use one of these if you want to practice with a band or a group of friends, but they can be very helpful. A general rule at Berklee is if you want something, ask for it. Then ask for it again. Then again. Then one more time. Persistence is the key if you want to be a part of their student employment program, or if you want to be considered for housing, or even if you want to get your transcript processed, which brings me to my next point.
5. If you do get studio time, Berklee gets the rights to your song.
Yes, that’s right, you are actually told to sign a contract before you enter a Berklee recording studio. While these studios are free, they do come at a price, and that price means you can’t sell anything you record in their studios. Just to clarify, they do not get the rights to the songs just to the actual recordings, so if you do plan on selling an album you will need to record elsewhere. (What a bummer…)
6. Many of the departments at Berklee are disorganized.
Before you actually get to Berklee, it can be really difficult to get things sorted out. It took several weeks of calling the registrar’s office to get my transcript processed, and I know several others who had problems with this too. As well as this, the housing department takes a very long time to get back to those who don’t receive housing, giving them very limited time to find apartments. If you need something to happen at Berklee, make sure it is happening, because if you haven’t heard anything it’s probably not.
7. Where are my transfer credits…?
Starting the Fall 2009 semester, Berklee will be changing its transfer credit policy, and will be accepting a very limited amount of credits. This cuts out the option of taking all your liberal arts classes at a community college and then coming to Berklee– they want you to take all your classes there, basically.
8. It’s hard to get reliable information.
If you aren’t actually meeting someone at the Berklee campus, it can be really hard to get information about any questions you may have. I had a lot of questions about Berklee when I was still in the application process, and only after attending did I discover the answers. Ironically enough, that’s why this whole Berklee section of Musicians-Make-It.com was created!
Summing it up:
Overall, Berklee is a great school and it definitely provides students with a lot of options. But be warned, if you want something to happen here, you have to make it happen. You can’t be afraid to pester people and to stand your ground. Keep in mind what you really want from your music career and apply whatever information from your classes you can to that. One of the great things about Berklee is that you do have the option to use the music you love as material for study, which allows for a lot more freedom than most colleges, but it is up to you to use the freedom you are given, even if it means putting in a little more work.
The first week of Berklee (orientation week) was somewhat bland and conventional– a lot of assemblies, and so many new acquaintances that you can barely remember your own name anymore. But the first day of classes has a very different vibe to it. By the time classes start to roll around, there is a whole new energy that comes up around Berklee College of Music as continuing students start to show up and flock in.
My first class of the day was a performance lab (Background Singing). The labs at Berklee are arranged in a pretty informal group setting, which gives the class a nice relaxed feel. On paper, this class didn’t seem like it would be very exciting, but when I got there, I realized it was going to be a very hands-on type of lesson, and it turned out to be incredibly interesting. The instructor had sent out an email a few days before requesting that each student prepare a song to perform for the class. Me being the anti-technology person that I am, forgot to check my email, and came completely un-warmed-up and unprepared; which brings me to my first Berklee tip.
Berklee tip#1: Always check your email before a class, because teachers will often request assignments or make changes to the schedule even just hours before hand.
Luckily I wasn’t the only one who was in this situation, and even more luckily, my off-the-cuff A Cappella version of Ray Charles’s “I Don’t Need No Doctor” turned out better than I expected. (Crisis averted.) However, now I am routinely checking my email about once per hour more out of fear than anything else.
After this, I ended up with a little over 5 minutes to get down the street to my Ear Training 4 class. Interestingly enough, Berklee puts all of its entering students together instead of combining them with continuing students on the same level, so every person in my class had tested in as well, and was in the same boat as me. After about 5 minutes, we jumped right into exercises, and they were considerably more challenging than I expected for the first day, even for a high level Ear Training class. Luckily, I had reviewed the book somewhat, and have had a lot of experience with sightsinging (as a singer), so I wasn’t completely lost in the class– many people who test into high course levels end up dropping down because of the rigorous courseload or because they realize they have some knowledge gaps they need to fill.
Berklee tip #2: If you plan on taking the ESPA, don’t try cramming for it, because even if you pick up on something, you might just find yourself overwhelmed by the courseload if you aren’t properly prepared. Try looking through the Berklee website for course descriptions to see what levels of classes will fit you best, and aim for those. Remember, at least 80% of entering students start in all level 1 classes, so there’s nothing to be ashamed of.
My next class was Harmony 3, which was your basic theory course, and mostly served as a first day review session– nothing much to report there.
And finally my last class, which was by far my favorite: my private voice lesson. As a result of my placement audition on day 2 of orientation, I was placed with Janie Barnett, and I would definitely say that she is a perfect fit for me as a voice teacher. I mentioned in my audition that I was classically trained, but trying to steer away from that, and I also told my auditioners of my intent to become a singer-songwriter. Not only is Janie a singer-songwriter as well, she uses a non-classically based method of teaching for contemporary students! Wow Berklee, you gave me exactly what I wanted.
Berklee tip #3: Be clear in your placement audition of what style of music you like to play, and where you want to go with your music career. They will listen and will pair you with the teacher that best suits your needs.
The first day of classes at Berklee is completely unlike that of any other school I have been to, and in a good way. Almost everyone I know has at least 3 or 4 homework assignments already, but no one seems to disappointed about it it– in fact, they seem even more inspired to work and practice than they were before! It’s looking like this is going go be a very intense, but equally rewarding semester.
As someone who has spent a combined total of several thousand dollars on music teachers, music school, music books, online music lessons, the thought of an untrained musician has always been inconceivable to me. “It’s impossible”, I couldn’t help but think, “they must be born that way.” This is a very common viewpoint actually– untrained musicians are always described as having “raw, natural talent”, as if they just came out of the womb being able to play Coltrane solos, or having the vocal range of Mariah Carey. After some time, I decided I wasn’t going to settle for the talent-by-birth explanation any longer.
Luckily, being in residence at Berklee College of Music, I have the opportunity to chat with musicians from all over the world, with all different sorts of learning methods, and I believe I have finally figured out how amazing musicians can learn on their own.
What it takes to be a self-taught musician:
This is where most people will say: “Talent…and I don’t have any.” Actually, self-taught musicians don’t have any more natural talent than anyone else. What they do have is an intense desire to learn about music, regardless of any obstacles or handicaps that hold them back.
The self-taught method of musicianship can be described very simply: Ready, Fire, Aim.
There really is no sort of planning or preparation if you just want to “naturally” pick up music. You just have to do it.
Where to begin:
For those who know absolutely nothing about music, it’s hard to know where to start. Most people tend to over-complicate it, but if you’re looking for a “secret formula”, here it is: Listen to a song, then play it.
I almost feel stupid for writing this because of how incredibly simple that concept is, but I can think of many lifelong musicians (myself included) who have lost sight of this incredibly simple practice. If you want to learn a song, just listen to it, and then play it.
Now if you are a beginner (and a beginner doesn’t necessarily new to music, it means new to this method of self-teaching) you will not want to start with a song you heard on the radio recently, instead you will want to start with something painstakingly simple: “Mary Had a Little Lamb”, for instance, or “Twinkle Twinkle”, etc.
Taking a step backward:
For musicians like myself, who are actually well-practiced and may have even had rigorous classical training, this can be incredibly frustrating. It feels like this new method won’t take you anywhere, and maybe even like you are cheating yourself out of valuable time you could spend “actually practicing”. What you have to realize– and this is very important– is that you are a beginner to this approach, regardless of the training you have had previously. You should act as if you were new to music. Which brings me to my next point: if you do try to pick up very complicated songs when you first start out, you will probably get very frustrated and quit. But if you can use the “Ready, Fire, Aim” approach effectively and efficiently, your gains will be incredible.
Get rid of the boundaries:
The most important thing you can do when teaching yourself is learning to mimic anything and everything. Any time you hear a sound you like– even if it doesn’t come from the instrument you play– try to copy it exactly. If you are a guitarist and you hear a slap bass technique that you like, try to do that with your guitar.
It is important to get rid of all the boundaries, to explore as much as you can, and to constantly make mistakes. You need to attempt the impossible, because that’s what will create ingenuity in your playing. That’s what “Ready, Fire, Aim” is all about– you make the mistakes, then you reevaluate. What’s great about it is that even if you don’t get the sound you were looking for, you might end up with something more unique and creative in the process.
Watch and Learn:
Learning the actual technique to playing an instrument is certainly the hardest part of this approach, and the best way to get a feel for it is to watch how great musicians play. Study them, their mannerisms, their facial expressions, everything about them. Find DVDs, search Youtube, and just constantly study.
Surround your life with music as much as you can– start listening to your iPod when you walk to class, or burn some CDs for the car ride to work. Always listen with intent; learn from everything you take in, don’t just hear it.
It’s All in the Details:
The key to making this work is to perfect every detail of your playing– get deeply into the music and pay attention to every nuance of a style, no matter how negligible it seems. Listen to tracks over and over, and try to hear something new each time.
In the end, if your desire to learn music is great and unrelenting, you will have no problem becoming an amazing musician. If you are truly able to put this method into practice– which for some musicians means watching, listening, learning, perfecting for up to 8 hours a day– your gains will be tremendous and you will grow more quickly than you ever imagined.
Day 2 of Berklee, I am sorry to say, is not a fun one. It begins bright and early with what Berklee students dispassionately refer to as the “ESPA”– Entering Student Proficiency Assessment. Even just the name of the test is pretentious and dry, which I felt was very out of sync with the “Berklee way”.
This test is good for a lot of reasons though– it gives you the option to test out of many core music curriculum classes, in the categories of Harmony, Ear Training, and Arranging. And testing out of classes means saving money, which I know everyone wants to do. It also mentally prepares/shocks students as to what lies ahead in their years at Berklee.
Here is a run-through of Berklee’s “ESPA.” For starters, it’s at 9 AM. Why at 9 AM, the day after many students have traveled halfway across the globe, just moved in, and are still in culture shock? I have no idea. I didn’t really have a chance to question it myself, because before I could even register where I was, I was crawling out of bed at 8:30 AM. This gave me about enough time to brush my teeth and get dressed, run downstairs and attempt to find this testing room in the maze that is 150 Mass Ave. Luckily, I got there about 2 minutes before the test started, though I was mildly dirty and starving.
To start out, the tester put in a CD; track one was an attempt at an instructional voice, which was ruined/made hilarious by the audible Boston accent behind it– just another indication that Berklee should lighten up about this exam.
Afterwords, we began the ear training exercises. (If you aren’t familiar with ear training, you will a good idea of what is covered here.) The ear training section was completely multiple choice, so there was no melodic dictation. At the beginning of this section, a CD was turned on, which played a rhythm 3 times while students had to choose from 4 choices which rhythm was being played by merely recognizing the notation on paper. It began with a very easy 4/4 time signature, with only quarter and 8th notes, but progressed quickly to include dotted 16ths, syncopation, and more complex structure. Then the test moved on to melodic recognition, which was basically the same concept but with melody. It went from simple examples in C major to one or two in G minor, then to a more chromatically-oriented melody. A couple of chord progression questions followed after this, which I thought were pretty easy (one of them was just a I-IV-V-I). A few of the last question of this test were really bizarre though. On one question, 2 pitches were played, and you had to name them out of thin air (the choices were E&C, G&B, C#&A, so the intervalic relationship was the same). I am not sure if they are expecting people to have perfect pitch, but if so, I kind of beat the system by remembering that the previous example ended on C, which made things a lot easier. The last question was certainly the most ridiculous; it was a sequence of very random notes, each played with a different midi effect, so they was nearly impossible to distinguish.
Overall, the ear training section was pretty easy in my opinion, but then again I have had a lot of practice with it. Most people (who aren’t singers) have very little experience with ear training, and the only way to get better is to constantly practice. (Bet you’ve heard that one before…)
The next section, Harmony, was even more dry. There was a lot of chord analysis, some very easy key signature recognition, and even note recognition (i.e. what key has 3 sharps?). The first few questions were basically to see who could read music. This section wasn’t difficult for someone who has covered basic theory and harmony before– but it was very tedious and time consuming. (They allot at least 4 hours of time for this test so it’s not a problem). What follows is some major, minor, and modal scale building and recognition. Then lots and lots of harmonic analysis!
After this, there was an arranging section. This was primarily about being able to notate music correctly, knowing how to write a key signature and time signature, and there was a strong emphasis on what they call the “invisible bar line”.
To learn more about these topics the way Berklee will present them on the exam, you should check out this link to their website for sample questions.
The final section was advanced harmony and arranging, and this is where my skills started coming to a halt. If you want to get past this section, you will need to definitely need to purchase the Harmony 3 (possibly 4) and Arranging 1 (possibly 2) books from the Berklee Bookstore’s website, and work through them. I had looked through the books a couple weeks before, but I had so much going on I didn’t have time to really study. Honestly, I am okay with that though because I would rather learn what Berklee teaches from Berklee itself than try to get it on my own.
If you want to test out past Harmony 3 or 4, or into arranging 2, you will need to put in quite a bit of effort. I suggest looking through this list of topics I have created for music theory, as well as getting Berklee’s books as I said before.
I would consider myself pretty well-prepared for this exam; I have had theory classes before, and done a lot with ear training. I ended up testing into Ear Training 4 and Harmony 3, and Arranging 1, which I felt was just about right. Oh and by the way, they won’t let you test past the 4th level of Harmony or Ear Training, and Arranging only has level 1-2.
If you are well prepared for this test, it will take you at least 2 hours to finish (you keep going until you don’t know the answers anymore), so eat a good breakfast, and get mentally ready to wake up early. Good luck with the ESPA.
“If you’re here, you’re cool”
After a good few months of finishing the semester at UNT, booking plane tickets, scrambling to get my bags together and move, I had a sudden realization– well, actually more of a crisis. “What if I’m not good enough?!” I started realizing the whole journey I had been on to get into Berklee– the audition, the application, the hours of practicing and preparation– it was all just a given, every single one of these 4000 musicians had done it too. And every single one of them had the support of their friends and family, the same motivation, the passion. And a lot of them are certainly a hell of a lot better players than me. I mean, I would consider myself a decent musician, but I wasn’t playing for thousands of people at the age of four! The thing is, once you step into Berklee, you aren’t really labeled as “the musician” anymore, because everyone is a musician! You just go back to being a regular nobody, and you start to wonder what it is you have been doing with your life all this time. People start asking you questions like, “other than music, what are you interested in?”
Other than music?! That’s like saying, “Other than food, what do you like to eat?”
As I walked to the performance center for a lecture, I must have passed by 5 different musicians which all made me think, “I can never, ever be that good.” Then, when I heard about the inhumane idea that every student was going to have another audition, and given a rating between 1-8 (and be directly compared to all of the other incredible students), and I was just about ready to bail out and run the 1500 miles back to Houston.
That’s when Ron Savage, chair of the Ensemble department, said 5 words that brought me back to sanity– “If you’re here, you’re cool”.
Which basically translates to: If we let you into Berklee, you must be a damn good musician, so chill out. Every student that gets into Berklee has the potential to be as great as the musicians who come out of it.
“Accept where you are now.”
Another great piece of advice– Berklee is just a jumping off point. People (like me) get so caught up in the competition, get so used to being able to stand out in the crowd that they feel lost if they don’t. If you can accept that you are not going to be the best musician upon entering (if you were you wouldn’t need to go there), then you can start to learn from the immense talent of others instead of feeling overshadowed by it.
So the first lesson I have learned from Berklee is: Don’t worry about where you’re are, worry about where you’re headed. Music education is more about progress than anything, and as long as you are making progress every day, you will be very well off. To quote Roger Brown, the president of Berklee, “if you get only 1% better each day for four years, you will be 2,078,007.24 times better by the time you graduate”. Sounds like a pretty relieving statistic to me.
And remember, even the best musicians have weak spots. Someone who is a great player might be a weak writer; an amazing sight-reader may have sub-par technical skills. Everyone has something to learn, and everyone has something to offer. And if you can figure out how to learn from every person you meet at a place like Berklee, you will be well on your way to achieving your dreams.
6 days from now, I will be standing in Boston, Massachusetts– this thought baffles me. As someone who has lived in suburbian Texas his whole life, it’s hard to predict what’s going to happen within the next week. Berklee College of Music, for me, has always been this kind of holy grail…I wasn’t really ever supposed to find it. I always thought maybe I was just supposed to go through life misunderstood, lost, alone, like most musicians; but then I heard about Berklee, and I knew without a second thought I belonged there.
But even then, it was only a pipe dream. There was no way I was going to compete with the greatest musicians from all over the world. I am talking about people, for God sake’s, that have already played at the Grammy’s (why do they feel the need to go to music school?!). The next Steve Vai, John Mayer, Quincy Jones– who knows who will be in my graduating class.
But I made it through the audition, somehow, and I actually felt pretty good about it. So good, in fact, that I completely forgot that I had an interview afterwords and left the building without any hesitation. That was embarrassing, but they didn’t seem to mind, because they let me in anyways.
They let me in. They let me in? It must have been some kind of joke. I must have gotten in on some kind of technicality
Let me explain. About a week before the application deadline, I got this email, and it went something like this:
“This year for the first time in the college’s history we are providing a new opportunity for qualified Fall applicants that may otherwise have been turned away due to lack of space – Early Enrollment.
Early enrollment permits a Fall applicant to begin their studies in May rather than September, participating in our full-time summer semester and continuing on to their second semester in September.”
When I remembered this email, I got a pit in my stomach. So they didn’t really want me. I got in because of a safety net, because they need more summer students, because they want my money. I hate Berklee. Why did I apply for this summer program? I would rather have been rejected than accepted on a technicality…
But then, a few weeks later, the scholarship letter came, and I think I’ve made it obvious what happened. Regardless, I was very confused at this point; the whole Berklee roller coaster had been taking me on twists and turns, ups and downs, and this was my final letter. It was good news.
I thought back to my audition, trying to squeeze out as much from my memory as I could, trying to relive it to see what I had done to deserve such an honor, and I couldn’t think of anything. The songs I played in my audition, I had played in my room 100 times before, and they didn’t seem like anything special, so I just sat looking at this letter in awe, in disbelief. I still had that little twinge in the back of my mind– “maybe they sent you the wrong email” — but I tried to ignore it.
By the time this whole process was over, I was already through with Berklee. I had spent 6 straight months obsessing over it, waiting for it like an adolescent girl for love, and even though it finally took me into its arms, I didn’t trust it. I didn’t believe that the place that failed John Mayer could possibly want me.
So after deciding to man-up a bit, I pushed it to the back of my mind, which is probably for the best, because there has been a lot going on here at UNT– concerts, (I actually got to be in a concert with Dave Brubeck?!), juries, finals. But now that I realize I am getting 0 transfer credit from this semester, my mind has shifted back to Berklee mode, and I have a lot more to think about than I realized. Keep in mind, this is the 3rd college I will be attending, and my 3rd consecutive semester. I have been moving quite a bit in the past year, but now I think I have finally found home, and that in itself is a scary thought. (So what if I have a fear of commitment?) What’s so strange for me right now is that in less than a week, there will be an endless stream of unknown variables, and there is no way I can grasp even a fraction of what the experience will be like. And if I can’t predict the next week, how am I supposed to predict the next month, or year? I want to plan, Goddamn it! (As if a musician’s future isn’t sketchy enough already…)
But I find solace in the fact that I am not alone, that hundreds of others are in the same situation as me, some even traveling from halfway across the world. But still, I can’t get it out of my mind how many grammy winners have walked those same floors, how many of my idols have played on those stages, and I can’t help but wonder if I will even be able to match half of their greatness.
I think it’s time to man-up again…
If you’re not going to be at the top of the pack in music school, there is really no reason for you to be there at all. Lucky for you, by doing a few simple things each day, you can put yourself ahead of 95% of entering musicians, even in the top music schools in the nation.
The problem with most music students is that they don’t know what to expect. They think that simply sounding good will ensure their success in music school. Very few musicians expose themselves to the core curriculum that will dominate their college education while still in high school, but if you do, you can easily rise to the top!
“When should I begin?”
As early as possible. Start today if you can. My teachers started forcing music theory on me around my late sophomore/early junior year of high school, and even though I was completely reluctant to learn for a while and resisted, I ended up gaining a lot of valuable knowledge that has given me the tools to excel in the classes I am taking now. If at all possible, I recommend beginning to think about this material about 1-2 years before music school, but you can actually surpass a large majority of students with just a few weeks of extra work before your first semester.
So let’s get the ball rolling on this. What can you do to prepare yourself for music school?
Music Theory:
Everyone is so afraid of music theory, and it is usually the weak point found in otherwise great musicians. However just taking some time to master the fundamentals will put you so far ahead of everyone else that you will rarely ever be confused.
Most serious musicians have a private lesson teacher (and if you don’t, I highly recommend it) who helps them with repertoire. What most students don’t realize is that every well-trained teacher has an extensive background in theory as well, and if you ask them to devote maybe 5-10 minutes per lesson to theory exercises, you will learn very quickly.
Apart from that, many high schools now offer AP music theory, which is a pretty fast-paced course, but if you can pass the AP exam, you might get college credit! I took this course, and the material covered spanned at least the first two semesters of college music theory. Remember, even if you don’t do well in this course, you will still leave knowing more information than the large majority of entering college music students.
There are some great books out there as well: I highly recommend Contemporary Music Theory Level One by Mark Harrison for those more interested in jazz/pop, and The Complete Musician by Steven G. Laitz, for those more interested in classical (chances are you will have to study classical either way).
There are also hundreds of great websites out there, and one of my personal favorites is musictheory.net, because it actually provides training exercises and has great lessons.
Note: Before I get into specifics, keep in mind that this may seem like a lot of information if you haven’t ever done music theory before, but if you even learn half of what I will go through, you will be off to a great start. Take it at your own pace, and remember that everything you are doing right now is “extra-credit”. Don’t hesitate to ask your high school director or your private teacher about any of these concepts, they will probably be very impressed that you are thinking about this kind of stuff already.
What to learn:
So there are some intro to Theory concepts. These will be the basis for everything you learn in music school, so be meticulous about learning them. Many people miss a concept from day one, and then they get completely lost. Make sure that if you are learning something you are learning it thoroughly. Once again, you are lucky, because since you are starting to learn this stuff now, it will be ingrained into your brain by the time you finish your first college semester of Theory. Check back for info on Ear Training and Keyboard prep as well. Now get to work!
I have found that a very large majority of music teachers (and music schools) have lost sight of one of the most important qualities of a great musician. To become a truly great musician, you need more than notes, rhythms, dynamics; more than music theory, harmony, form, timbre; you need emotion. In the quest to establish music as a well-respected form of education and a viable career option, we have lost sight of what made those notes and rhythms into music in the first place. We have focused so much on our desire to be taken seriously that we have lost our sense of musicianship.
A quote from Daniel Levitin’s This Is Your Brain On Music:
“I recently asked the dean at one of the top music schools in Noth America…’At what point in the curriculum is emotion and expressivity taught?’ Her answer was that they aren’t taught. ‘There is so much to cover in the approved curriculum’, she explained, ‘repertoire, ensemble, and solo training, sight singing, sight reading, music theory– that there simply isn’t time to teach expressivity.”
My experience:
In the ensembles I have been in this semester, I have noticed a lot of this negativity floating around. There always seems to be someone with a disgruntled look on his/her face, saying “we are going flat!” or, something similar. Before you know it, every person in the group feels downtrodden and discouraged, and the ensemble sounds even worse than before. It’s not till maybe 2-3 days before the concert that we start working on feeling the music, and even then, most teachers seem condense pure emotion into being a series of planned out crescendos, breath marks, and dynamics, rather than mood, expression, and atmosphere. It’s not that the ensembles don’t sound good– they sound technically amazing. And it’s not that the teachers are incompetent– they are all very knowledgeable. It’s that the music feels forced. It doesn’t feel free and fun as music should, and I personally have never felt moved by the music I have made with these ensembles, finding myself too distracted by the technical details that are always brought up. In fact, this negative atmosphere was the cause of my complete attitude change this year that made me want to quit music for a period of time.
And another thing, I have noticed that many of the better musicians rarely, if ever just play music with their friends for fun. It seems that a lot of them are too caught up in trying to impress everyone with perfection that they can’t just let lose and explore musically, and for this reason so many unoriginal musicians are created out of music school. They may be “straight-A” students, but they are boring musicians.
How to solve the problem:
Solving the problem is actually a lot easier than you would think, and a lot more enjoyable.
Ready?
To become a great musician, one who is listenable, emotional, expressive all you have to do is have fun with the music.
Of course music teachers want to be taken seriously by their peers, so many resort to the “mathematical approach” to music, rather than the musical one. This is one aspect of your music education you need to take into your own hands.
An exercise:
I created this exercise a few months ago, when I found myself discouraged and confused about why I didn’t enjoy practicing anymore.
Take the most mundane aspects of your practice routine, even if just your normal warm-ups, and find a way to make them more interesting. During a simple 5-note scale exercise on piano, I decided to start beat-boxing. Immediately I felt my own style come through, and I started truly having fun. Every note wasn’t perfect, but it was about 100 times more enjoyable than just practicing on its own, and sometimes you need to feel that enjoyment again. This exercise isn’t about playing perfectly, it’s about challenging your creative side to turn something mundane into something exciting with one simple difference. Just because it’s obvious, doesn’t mean it’s uncreative. Don’t be critical with yourself, just enjoy using your creative process. I suggest trying to incorporate this into your practice routine for at least 10-15 minutes a day.
Obviously, you won’t always be able to play what you enjoy most, and music school will certainly push your limits technically. I have embraced these challenges and I believe that everyone should strive to achieve more, but being top of your class in music school doesn’t translate to being a great musician. Through thick and thin, you should keep in touch with what you love most about music, and when you finally get to the point where you aren’t held back by technical problems anymore, you will be a truly great, listenable musician.
Imagine what life would be like if you had always stayed in your comfort zone. You never would have taken your first steps, too afraid to fall; you never would have made a friend, too afraid of rejection; you certainly never would have become a musician. Ironically, it’s the fear itself that delivers the result. If you never took your first steps, you would spend all your time on the ground anyways; and if you never sought out friends, you would live alone; if you had never pursued your talent as a musician, you might as well never have had any at all.
The Problem:
So many musicians forget, as they begin to feel more developed, that they need to continue to step out of their comfort zone every day. It’s the musicians who get comfortable where they are that fall into the trap of mediocrity.
One of the worst things that can happen to you as a musician is that you can become content. This may sound counter-intuitive, but in reality, if you want to become a great musician, and stay a great musician, you have to keep pushing forward, keep creating new boundaries.
When asked by Guy Oseary, “What is your greatest lesson learned?”, Andre 3000 (from Outkast) replied:
“This comes from watching other people’s careers. Don’t ever do something so great for too long. If you do…when you do something else, people won’t like you, because they love you for what you have done before. I think that would be torture, to have to do the same thing over and over again for a lifetime.”
I completely agree. These musicians who do end up doing the same thing their whole lives become known as “one-hit wonders”, and then quickly fade away. If you want to be remembered and taken seriously as a musician, you need to show that you are constantly ready to grow.
Personal Story:
For a while, my comfort zone was behind my guitar. I had gotten into the habit of playing the same licks over and again until my junior year of high school when, on a whim, I took my guitar teacher’s recommendation to join the choir, in order to develop my ear. It was certainly scary stepping on the risers knowing absolutely nothing about singing (I didn’t even know what a tenor was…and I am one), or anything about choir in general (I didn’t know what solfege was either), and to be honest I wasn’t very good. I spent about 18 months completely frustrated at slow progress, but now I have grown so much as a musician because of the choice I made to go through with something new and intimidating. And a couple of years later, when I made the decision to pursue music education further, I even ended up getting accepted to Berklee as a vocal performance major!
The Point:
My point is, there are so many opportunities you could be missing every moment because you just aren’t looking for them. I probably would have been a fine guitarist had I never joined choir, but because I did, I can now pursue songwriting, and my ear has developed more than it ever would have otherwise. I still remember the first day I stood on the risers in the choir room– I was so lost and confused, because it was a completely different experience than what I was used to. I had always been one of the better students when I was in band/jazz band, and now I was starting all over again. But starting at the bottom was really good for me, because it humbled me, and I needed that.
Finding what’s right for you:
You will know something is right when it makes you a little bit scared. Your palms will get a little bit sweaty just thinking about it, and you might even think it’s not really possible. Whenever I get that feeling, I know I have to force myself into doing whatever the task may be, and I always grow from it. It’s not an easy thing to do, but just try it once and you will see what I mean.
“Stepping out of your comfort zone” can mean playing a show for a few friends, writing your first song, or something like experimenting with reggae music when you’ve played classical all your life– it’s all relative. It doesn’t matter how small of a step you take, as long as you are pushing your limits and striving to reach your potential.
You might even decide that “stepping out of your comfort zone” might not even have anything to do with music at all for you. Great! I definitely recommend exploring other activities besides music as well, because they will help you grow as a person, which in turn will make you a better musician. One little act of “stepping out” I made myself do when I was in high school was to join the track team. “I’ve never done a school sport before,” I thought, “I might as well try.” I wish I could say I went on to become a track legend and set school records, but in actuality I really wasn’t very good. But you know what? It was still a great experience, and I learned a lot about how to push myself.
Tim Ferris, author of “The 4-Hour Workweek” includes in his book what he calls “Comfort Challenges”. These serve as great exercises for pushing your limits just a little bit each day. (To learn more about the book, click here.) This is a paraphrase of one of the challenges he suggests:
“Being sure to maintain eye contact, ask for the numbers of at least two attractive members of the opposite sex on each day. Remember that the goal is not to get numbers, but to get over the fear of asking, so the outcome is unimportant. If you’re in a relationship, just toss the numbers if you get them.”
Does that one make you sweat a little bit? It’s nerve-wracking to think about, but in reality, it’s not so bad! There are so many little things in life we avoid without even realizing it, but by pushing yourself a little every day you will grow so much.
It’s a matter of becoming attuned to your fears, and to your desires, because these are two of the strongest motivators for anyone. If you can find a balance between them, you have found the perfect task to take on. For example, I had always wished I could sing, so I had a desire to succeed in choir. At the same time, I had never been a singer of any sort before, and had zero choir experience, so naturally it was scary for me. Most people get stuck at this point, having this constant battle between their desire and their fear, and the end result is, “I wish I could sing!” (or paint, run a marathon, get a girl’s number, etc.) I have spent a lot of my life feeling this way, but I realize now that wishing is wasted energy. So start taking the steps (and they can be small ones) to breaking out of your comfort zone, and you will become both a better musician and a happier person.
The only reason to stay in your comfort zone:
There is only one reason to stay in your comfort zone, and that reason is fear. Make all the excuses you want, if you are unwilling to take on a new challenge, the reason is because you are scared. As a musician, there will be a lot of scary things you will have to deal with. For example, one of the biggest fears in our society is speaking in front of an audience, but every musician has to be able to get up in front of an audience night after night, and completely put him/herself on display for tens to thousands of people.
At the very least, acknowledge the fears you have, if you are not ready to beat them yet. Do your best to grow every day, in any way you can.
“If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” -Sir Ken Robinson
See this article in its original context (along with many others) at my website, Musicians-Make-It.com.
Entirely too many people give up their passion for music in search of the “stable path”, completely ignorant of the world of the music business.
The large majority of people in the world consider music to be completely luck-driven. Many consider any career in music to be the result of “big breaks” and “one-hit-wonders”. I myself was under this impression for a while, but then I decided to do some research. I came upon a very valuable book, The Music Business Handbook by David Baskerville, and realized something…
The music business can be learned.
And not only that, over 200 colleges can help you learn the business side of music, many offering music business degrees. The problem with the majority of music school students, or just musicians in general is that they spend so much time on learning music, that they never think about the business! This is the reason so many graduates from schools like Juilliard can go through rigorous musical training and end up without a job (outbound link to an article). As you will read in the article I have linked to, you will see that music schools are debating whether to increase difficulty of admissions! Wrong idea. The musicians are great, but they are only great at music. They don’t know what to do once they get out of school. Instead, as the article touches on briefly, music schools need to incorporate these valuable music business classes into their core curriculum.
The stability of music:
In this day and age, it’s difficult to say what’s stable and what’s not. As we have seen from the current economic situation, anyone and everyone can be in danger or losing even the most “stable” jobs. Men and women who have worked steadily for over 15 years have been laid off without a second thought in order to save money– the very same men and women who may have sacrificed their passion to follow “safe” path.
What I can tell you is, there will always be a demand for music and for musicians. Music has withstood the test of time, and if you are great at what you do, there will always be a need for you. Not only that, but as a musician, you have a universal gift that you can communicate with people all over the world.
And more than that, I firmly believe that passion can create success more than anything. If you are truly driven to succeed in music, and it means the world to you, you will be able to channel that desire into hard work, and that hard work give you the success you always dreamed of. On the contrary, if you end up doing something you never really cared about, you will never live up to your potential, and you will never feel fulfilled.
To simplify, music is only unstable if you don’t know what you are doing, which I would think was a given. Apparently it’s not, though, because thousands of very ignorant musicians decide to pursue careers in one of the most competitive industries every year and just “hope for the best.” These days, there is no reason to remain ignorant about the business side of music, and you can easily learn it! I would recommend starting with the book I had recommended earlier (The Music Business Handbook by David Baskerville), and if possible, see if you can find a college which offers music business courses.
There is over $20 billion floating around in the music industry.
You should claim some for yourself. Just like any business, in music there are the multi-millionaires, and the people that get coffee for them. You can rise to the top with the proper preparation and research. Explore all the various options within music. You don’t necessarily have to be a performer, you could be a copywriter, a manager, composer, recording engineer, an educator, or anything you can think of, really. But whatever you do, make sure you are ready to learn it inside and out, make sure that you know exactly how to succeed, and make sure you are willing to work like you have never worked before. And most importantly, make sure you are always following your passion. Even within music, some people are pushed into supposedly “more stable” aspects of the field, and lose sight of what they loved about music in the first place. Don’t be one of them, or you will never make it. When you mix passion, desire to succeed, and amazing work ethic, “stability” is not even an issue. You create the stability for yourself, by naturally living above average.
Remember:
Thousands of people have created fortunes doing much crazier, much more “unstable” than playing music. If you are great at what you do, there will always be a place for you, so don’t feel crazy for following your dreams.
