Musicality and Knowledge

It is vital for anyone who hopes to gain an understanding of music as a performer to have a very well rounded experience. Not only listening to the music that we play but being open to a wide range of influences is a massive part of the learning process that can so often be forgotten when teaching young students.

Much emphasis is (rightly) put on the skill of being able read sheet music, but this can sometimes come at the expense of encouraging students to listen. A huge amount of sub-conscious learning happens simply through osmosis, music is after all an aural art form. This is particularly true in the case of jazz in which importance is put on the performer's individual intention more than in classical music, in which the score is paramount as a musical basis. Encouraging this way of learning will help a students musical intuition and their ability to emotionally connect with the music they play.

I also strongly believe in facilitating students with a theoretical knowledge of what they are playing, as this gives them musical flexibility and gives them skills to apply to more than one piece or genre, for example understanding the structure of a major scale as well as having an aural understanding of its sound will give students the ability to more quickly apply this structure to other keys and to hear it within other pieces of music.

In short the two ways of learning reinforce and reiterate one another.