Novice and expert
Alva Noë argues that as a beginner, you get the best results when you carefully focus on technique, paying attention to yourself and what you are doing: posture, movements, etc. Perhaps obvious, but one that is often not even noticed.
That is also such an interesting aspect of the profession, you are constantly alternating between being an novice and an expert. And in this roleplay itself you can also become an expert again. Interesting. You also start studying differently.
Long ago – I was six years old – I learned to read and write at school. One of the usual teaching aids at the time was to recite out loud letters and syllables in class, so-called spelling.
That went as follows:
The cat is on the table.
De kat zit op tafel.
d-e > de //
k-a-t > kat //
z-i-t > zit //
o-p > op //
t-a > ta // f-e-l > fel // >> ta-fel > tafel //
De kat zit op tafel.
I had long forgotten this basic practice technique until, some 25 years later, I was giving organ lessons on a Saturday morning to a professor at one of the two universities in Amsterdam. When copying a book title, this professor of Dutch language proceeded to spell out the given text. At that moment he used a basic technique from primary education.
That’s something I’ve always remembered.
This is a basic technique that I would also warmly recommend to musicians – amateur and professional – when studying note texts. In this way, the oft-repeated advice to study slowly becomes more meaningful.
How do we most effectively apply this technique – the attentive scanning of a text of notes – when making music?
Obviously we are not concerned with the individual notes/tones, but with the horizontal and vertical coherence: motifs, phrases, consonances and counterpoint, fingering, etc.
In many cases, a measure contains too much information at once. But a measure is made up of two or more pulses. A good approach, in my opinion, is to work per pulse.
What happens in, for example, a ¾ measure on pulse 1, on pulse 2, on pulse 3?
What for example happens in a 3/2 measure on pulse 1, on pulse 2, on pulse 3?
What for example happens in a 6/8 measure on pulse 1 and pulse 4, or on pulses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6?
It should be noted that a pulse is elastic and has nothing to do with metronomic precision. A living pulse is elastic within limits; and is best compared to the steady gait of a walker on a forest path. A steady gait on a forest path automatically takes into account height differences and soil conditions, irregularities such as tree roots, loose twigs and stones, etc.
This way of studying must of course not degenerate into mechanical thumping or rattling. Take time per pulse to absorb everything. Repeat, if necessary. Consciously play the rests. Go through pieces you have studied before like this from time to time.
This technique proves to be very useful for pieces which are richly ornamented.
Sometimes it makes sense to split a given pulse into two or more pulses – higher ‘resolution’. In the example below, the quarter is split into two eighths.
Your bonus: more room to play / a larger playfield.~~
Alva Noë. Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness’. New York 2009.