The Musician's Way Blog

“For you to perform with native inflection, you have to listen and listen until you break through to the soul of a style.”
–The Musician’s Way, p. 98

We all enjoy listening to music. But there’s a level of musical perception that transcends ordinary hearing.

Deep listening, as I call it, pierces the essence of a composition and the way in which it’s performed.

I’ve learned, however, that many aspiring musicians aren’t in the habit of listening deeply, even though keen listening skills are essential to musical development. Continue Reading

Wynton Marsalis

“Even the greatest virtuosos practice the fundamentals,
because they are the basis of all playing.”
–Wynton Marsalis (Marsalis on Music, p. 124)

Scales, arpeggios, exercises . . . boring stuff. Right?

I don’t think so. In fact, I find practicing basics to be endlessly fascinating.

Students, however, often view working on fundamentals as drudgery. What are such students missing? Continue Reading

“If excellence is a habit (which it is), then students must consistently play in ways that are fundamentally excellent nearly all the time.”
- Robert A. Duke, music educator & researcher

Whether we’re practicing or performing, all of us musicians are striving for excellence.

But do students really know what excellent musicianship entails? Continue Reading

It’s 10:00 a.m. on a Sunday, and I’ve already practiced for a couple of hours. I practiced yesterday, too, and I’ll practice tomorrow.

In fact, I’ve been practicing almost daily since childhood. Like musicians everywhere, practice is fundamental to the rhythm of my life.

What keeps us musicians practicing? Self-motivation is a big part of it, as described on pages 105-109 of my book The Musician’s Way.

But underlying our devotion to daily work is our intention to achieve specific goals. And the more precise our objectives, the more energy and accomplishment we generate. Continue Reading

In The Musician’s Way, I encourage the singing of solfège syllables, scale-degree numbers, counting syllables, and letter names as part of the process of learning, memorizing, and interpreting music.

In my own teaching and playing, I employ the fixed-do solfège system, and I’d like to offer some reasons why. Continue Reading

Welcome to The Musician’s Way Blog.

In this, my inaugural post, I want to explain in a few words my motivation for writing my book The Musician’s Way (Oxford, 2009. 360 pages), creating MusiciansWay.com, and launching this blog.

Continue Reading