A Simple Secret to Learning Music: Study in Sections
It’s been two months since I bought a keyboard, and I am remaining dedicated to my goal of teaching myself piano. This includes forcing myself to read music out of an old Music for Piano book that I used in third and fourth grade (before quitting to take a hiatus from music to focus on Nintendo.)
Today, I learned “America the Beautiful,” the easy kids version. When I was in third grade, my piano teacher gave me a “Bravo” for my ability to play this. Today, she would be proud of me again!
Forcing myself to be a beginner at a musical instrument has helped me improve my teaching of guitar to beginners, too. As students, it’s easy to fall into practice habits that don’t help us improve. For example, we might only practice a song from start to finish, staying frustrated, wondering why we never improve.
Today, I had to apply the simple strategy of studying a piece of music in isolation, breaking it up into sections. While “America” is an easy song, there are a few tricky parts. You’ll notice form my pencil marks that I split the song up into three sections. I first practiced the song left and right hand individually. Then I practice each section with both hands, using a metronome set slowly at 48 BPM.
Part three really was the trouble spot. I realized I could play the middle section easily, but really needed to practice the end of the song. So that’s where I spent my focus.
Isolating Guitar Parts for “PYT”
Last weekend, I learned Michael Jackson’s “PYT” from Thriller, and this same concept of practicing sections in isolation applied to my study of the guitar parts. This song has some amazing rhythmic parts, and I never could have learned this without studying each section individually. Levi Clay has created a helpful Youtube video, complimented by some detailed music charts at his website. Notice how Levi breaks up the song into sections. That’s how I studied them.
As a high school teacher, I used to say, “Repetition is the key to knowledge!” all the time in my classroom. I even had a poster on the wall deeming this phrase. Honestly, I believe the secret to why some musicians get really proficient and why others give up is simply found in how they practiced: focusing on the hard parts and studying in isolation, over and over again.
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