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Sound Advice for Learning Music

by Bill Keis

1 Aug 11

If you want to ‘make music’, there are definite things that need to be learned. However, you don’t need to master all of them to have fun with music.  There are many examples of ‘famous’ musicians who have very little training.

Obviously, you don’t have to learn all the words of the English language before you have your first conversation.  Similarly, you can learn a few simple things and begin to make music in a just minutes. Then, depending on how far you want to take it, you can continue to learn more.

So, where do you draw the line?  How much should one study?

Well, you could take it to extremes and try to learn every possible combination of notes, which is a staggering number!

According to Nicolas Slonimsky1; there are 479,001,600 combinations of the 12 notes of music!  Learning all of them would of course take way too long.

Frederick Chopin2 said, “Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.” 

So, my advice is to keep in mind what you want to communicate with your music.  What style(s) do you like?  What songs?  Then proceed to learn enough to be able to play &/or sing that.

As you go along, you might find new songs or styles you like.  Then you can study more  to play those.

Whether you are just starting out or an old pro, my series of eBooks will give you a cornucopia3 of data and practice techniques you can use to improve your understanding and ability with the various elements of music.

If you want to improve your skill so you can play new things, check them out!

Good luck and happy musing4.

1 Nicolas Slonimsky: Russian-American musicologist; b. St Petersburg April 27, 1894, d. Los Angeles December 25, 1995 author of the book Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns (1947).

2 Frederick Chopin: Polish pianist and composer; b. Poland March 1, 1810, d. Paris October 17, 1849.

3 Cornucopia: an abundant, overflowing supply.

4 Musing: a made-up word meaning, playing music.