Digital EPUB prepared by author with slight copyediting for clarity January 2010.

Original publication held in full term retention at the U.S. Library of Congress plus available for viewing at:

Much has been written on the nature of what the mind perceives as music and what the hand must play in order to make that music.

There is also a vast literature on how to compose music which will satisfy both the mind and the hand.

Little, however, has been written about the unique learning process that allows the hand access to the specialized gestures necessary for musical play.

This book is a guided tour through the process of enabling the hands to make music.

Introduction

Very little writing is available about the problems peculiar to learning musical instruments which focuses on the internal linking of thought and movement.

Furthermore, there is a virtual infinity of musical pieces to be performed, but there is a need for a work that outlines the essential elements of the musical learning process.

Much of the discussion by performers makes little reference to the actual internal process of music making, leaving us to assume it is just so much hocus-pocus.

The perceptual to motor aspects of overcoming technical difficulties on a day to day basis and the best way to approach these difficulties is hardly mentioned.

In fact, it seems musicians are often unaware of this part of the process themselves, at least on a level that allows them to articulate it.

This book will attempt to codify the musical learning process and hopefully help demystify it.

My particular understanding of the musical process is a result of having begun relatively late in life; hence, I had the opportunity to observe it with a more mature and introspective nature than if I had begun at a very early age.

Also, since there was no literature or any person readily available to answer many of my technical questions, I had to develop answers empirically.

At that time much work had been done on classical guitar technique by Segovia and Shearer, among others, but there was not much guidance available in my main area of interest the plectrum guitar (guitar played with a pick).

After a couple of years unsuccessfully trying to track down information on correct plectrum technique, I realized I would be left to work on my own.

One day, while taking a break from practice, I was watching a friend silk-screen some T-shirts.

It was a wonderful wheel-of-silk-screens and looked very much like a spidery amusement park ride.

When he went out the unbalanced side of the wheel made a very slow and graceful downward swoop, then it pendulumed to rest.

"Now that was beautiful," I thought, "If only I could get my music to be that free and graceful. But that is just a mechanical device. It only follows the most basic physical laws while my hand is . . . uh . . . a mechanical device that simply follows basic physical laws!!!"

That brief thought prompted me to spend the better part of the following three years observing and testing to see what I could learn directly from my hands' interaction with my instrument.

During that time I gleaned many basic observations significant of how ones hands function—with the guitar specifically and musical instruments in general.

This book is a distillation of the thoughts and techniques derived from my initial study and refined over two decades while developing my musicianship in performing, composing, recording and teaching private music lessons.

Impulse and Strength begins with an overview of the general, practical concepts of learning musical movement.

As it progresses it continues to a more detailed discussion of specific approaches and techniques leading to mastery.

The technical discussions are generally confined to examples on piano and guitar, but, to the degree they specifically address the learning process, they give excellent insight into learning other instruments.

While there is already a wealth of information available about the theory of aural perception, some basic treatment is included here to aid those not yet familiar with music's written language.

The procedural techniques and concepts described will be of value to a range of musicians—from beginners wanting to start off in a direct and straightforward manner, to accomplished musicians wishing to improve and consolidate their skills.

I have experienced this process throughout my own development and have observed it first hand in many others.

Impulse and Strength is an attempt to set down what the feel and texture of that experience is.

The 2010 ePub version of this book has been slightly edited to handle vagueries of digital publication with additions to the bibliography of suggested books which did not exist at the time of first publication in 1992.

MUSICAL PROCESS

There is a well known story about the famous cellist Pablo Casals which can not be repeated too often.

On his 80th birthday, just after completing his regular eight hour practice session, he was being interviewed by members of the print and broadcast media.

One questioner asked, "Pablo, you're considered the best cellist in the world, possibly the best ever. Why couldn't you just relax a little on your birthday and take the day off? Isn't eight hours of practice at this point a little extreme?"

This story always comes to mind when I'm asked how long it will take someone to learn an instrument, and how much practice is necessary.

I have never met, nor heard of, any musician who was satisfied with their level of play.

Any person interested in learning to play music must first come to terms with the fact that music is not a destination, it is a direction.

Furthermore, it is a process that is more or less the same for one who has played for years, for months, or for days.

There is always the sense that—although some progress has been made—there is much more to be learned, and the real breakthrough must be just around the corner.

Each new task is at first frustrating, but the approach, assault and final conquest of it stirs one to take on the next equally frustrating, seemingly impossible, and as surely obtainable objective.

Though often aggravating, the musical process is exquisitely attractive and compelling.

The only true obstacle is if one is unable to adequately define the tasks at hand and find an efficient way to complete those tasks.

If correct procedure is followed, however, the tasks fall away before the musician as if by magic.

The Irony and the Ecstasy

There is a paradox at the core of musical expression which is at once upsetting and calming.

It is upsetting because it seems impossible for one to attain: it is calming because nobody else achieves it either.

I have heard musical performances that were exhilarating to the point of confounding.

I have been privy to single sounds that had an ethereal quality of unhealthy proportion.

There never has been a sound, recording, or performance which could not be improved in some way if engaged by a carefully considered critical sense.

Yet every musician must struggle to gain their own understanding of perfection and deal with it accordingly.

Eventually everyone wrestling with perfection finds it is an ever changing commodity.

To succeed each musician naturally becomes a perfectionist but must guard against becoming a frustrated perfectionist.

Many unfortunates are carried off by their critical sense, with the result that what should be a wonderful tool for improvement becomes instead an impassable barrier.

The bad news is... just because it does not exist doesn't give you the right to ignore it.

While perfection is a rather meaningless term, excellence is undeniably and perfectly possible.

In fact excellence is available to virtually anyone who manages to exert the right amount of the right kind of effort.

Sometimes excellence masquerades as perfection; however, true perfection is just a receding horizon, casually moving out of your way as you approach.

The irony here is that while perfection is impossible one must intensely strive for it in order to gain excellence.

This should be quite soothing—to find a grain or two of salt to take with your practice.

A Bicycle Built for You

If you've made it through the preceding discussion of perfection, you are either already a musician or well on your way to becoming one.

The fact is that just like learning to ride a bicycle, the musical gestures you master become a part of you for life.

The development of your ability to make the very specialized gestures of musical movement only goes in one direction.

The musical process is a process of finding the correct gesture, making it a few times, refining it a bit, and then sitting back confident that it will be with you from then on.

Even if you do not make that gesture for years, when you look for it again later it will be there.

Every movement mastered becomes a solid foundation on which to pile other movements—each aiding progress toward excellence or, once excellence is achieved, to deeper excellence.

If it is so simple to gain control of musical gestures, why is there a common perception that it takes years to learn to play?

Nevertheless, considerable time is needed to learn the multitude of movements necessary to reach a level of play considered merely basic to most people's ears.

However, if someone is unsuccessful then it is most likely that they are working on the wrong movements.

It is pretty easy to fall prey to misconceptions of what is needed and to approach practice incorrectly again and again.

The real difficulty is in finding the correct gesture, making it in the first place, and then knowing when you know it.

Time is on Your Side

Since the movements learned become a part of the musician for life, it relieves a certain amount of pressure from the learning time-frame.

It is more important that practice be correct than that it be sustained for long uninterrupted stretches.

In fact, short regular practice sessions completed over an extended period are much more effective than long haphazard sessions.

No matter how you practice, what you learn today will be with you tomorrow, and next week, and even next month.

A lengthy pause from practice can end by finding you pretty quickly right back where you left off.

If you have kept close watch on exactly where you are (take notes); then you can take up where you quit at any time, building anew on your earlier progress.

You will certainly not be any further along than when you stopped working, but you will find yourself closer to where you were than you might expect.

Of course, you are not going to be playing Carnegie Hall with this kind of erratic practice (unless you can afford to rent it), but you can get pretty good—probably far beyond your present expectations.

Please don't mention that I shook these cats out of their bags, especially about renting Carnegie Hall.

Still, while you can't rush the process, you can manage the direction and efficiency of your efforts.

Getting There is All the Fun

Since perfection is nonsense of mythical (truly mythical) proportions, and since excellence is achievable but difficult, and since music is in reality an infinite process, there is nothing left but to enjoy the ride.

When someone first starts to play music they usually have an idea of what level of play will make them happy.

Soon they are overcoming and mastering level upon level which they once considered impossible, but as their development proceeds their expectations grow proportionately.

As their ears and sensitivities evolve they reach places they could not imagine existed when they started.

Many reach a point, though, where they lose sight of the progress they've made and get more and more upset thinking, "I just can't get it."

Realize early that getting there in music is not half the fun, it is all the fun.

Use your critical sense as a guide to improvement, but focus on the fun of the process.

Here's a riddle: If you are faced with an infinite task, and work on it for an infinite amount of time, with an infinite amount of diligence, where will you end up?

What?!: If you visualize an infinite task you can see it stretches before you on and on and never ends.

Except of course it is infinite, so it can not be constrained to stretching out only in front of you: it also stretches infinitely behind you.

Here's some help: Since an infinity lies before you, and an infinity lies behind you, the two distances are equal; being equidistant from both ends puts you in the exact middle.

Therefore, wherever you are in an infinity you are in the middle; and, if you move infinitely in any direction and stop, an infinity remains around you.

Ok, so maybe that wasn't much help, but the fact is, for all intents and purposes, music is an infinite task, and it behooves us to make every possible effort to streamline the learning process.

That's why we must learn to enjoy the getting there, and why the subtitle of this book is playing musical instruments toward not to perfection... and why it is time for the next chapter.

GOAL TENDING

As we continue bear in mind that you must: keep a perspective on perfection, relax and enjoy the music process, never practice your mistakes (you'll get too good at them).

Systemanic

My recording studio contains literally hundreds of pieces of audio equipment—from standard musical instruments to sound generating computers thru recorders, amplifiers and sound shaping tools.

Each one comes with a user's manual; some of the manuals run to more than a hundred pages.

Unhappily not all functions and peculiarities are documented and are only found: by chance, an incidental product review, or a phone call to the manufacturer.

All in all a recording studio is a very confusing bunch of knobs, wires and intentions.

The necessary devices present an astounding array of informational minutiae, all of which must be assembled, organized and stored.

If the theory behind the workings of each apparatus is understood, and the details of operation are within easy reach, the tools and methods become transparent to the act of music making.

The creative process can go forward unencumbered by the flurry of nits that would pick it apart.

However, if these details are not managed carefully the creative process slams to a gruesome halt.

Just the electronic sounds alone (over 3200 and growing) would be more than I could manage without a system.

From necessity I've developed rigorous methods for handling, filing and retrieving information.

Accordingly I've developed procedures that make the data gathering process itself manageable.

The details involved in enabling the hands to make music are at least as numerous and intricate as the details involved in using a recording studio.

Bone, nerve, and sinew combine in an apparatus so complex and diverse that these electronic gizmos are stone hammers in comparison.

The necessity to keep myriad details organized is equally robust no matter what instrument you choose to master—be it a recording studio or some other more traditional instrument.

Accordingly it is important to develop procedures which make the learning process itself manageable.

Here we find an irony similar to the one mentioned earlier about needing to pursue perfection to attain excellence.

All this organization and discipline may seem restrictive, even at odds with artistic freedom, but freedom of expression is directly and proportionally related to the amount of self discipline you bring into the preparation.

You must get yourself organized and disciplined. You may as well; if you don't do it somebody else will.

It is easy to choose or develop a useful system, because any system is good if you: review it at intervals, learn from the results, then fine tune it.

The important thing is to begin making some contracts with yourself and fulfilling them.

The eensiest weensiest contract is sufficient if, like the famous spider, you go back up the spout again after it rains.

While almost any approach works—if you keep at it—progress is made more quickly and surely if you hold fast to a few basic principles. The remainder of this chapter describes some.

Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing with a Pencil

If you can remember everything involved in what you are doing, you are not doing enough.

You remember pencils. We used to use them before we had computers... and, for now, they're still cheaper.

Your notes don't have to be extensive, but you do need something to use as an external reference.

For years my notes were just a check mark, date, and metronome setting scribbled on the section of music I was playing.

Those early notes were one of the clues that led me to understand that you can come back to something years later and find yourself almost exactly where you left off.

If that one bit of information was all I got from it, the effort expended in tracking my progress would have been worth it, but I got much more.

A Movement Made is a Movement Gained

When the human capacity for learning and movement are combined by intellectual force and engaged in a timed, articulated control of the sounds emitted from physical objects, the result is music.

The human body's ability to learn is staggering, and its flexibility of movement is astonishing.

Through all recorded history the boundaries of human potential are still unmapped.

Problems can arise from the very aspects of the body that allows it to achieve exquisite levels of play.

To start with, the body is so good at learning it can easily learn the wrong thing.

Plus the body's range of movement is so adaptive that basic errors in technique can easily go unnoticed for years—finally surfacing and found holding some sought after musical goal just out of reach.

These facets of the musical process are a result of some very complex physiological structures.

The nerves comprise a terrifically complex network of pathways which are designed to transfer motive impulse.

Very basically: when a neuron in a pathway fires it causes an electro-chemical change in the juncture between it and its neighboring neuron—which fires in response.

The electro-chemical change which passes motive impulse from one neuron to the next has a certain amount of permanence to it.

The smallest element of any musical gesture is the result of a complex series of neurons firing and causing muscles to contract.

When a specific set of junctures has fired, that specific set will fire again more readily, and at each firing each junction is enabled to fire again ever more readily.

The functioning of this process gives it a strong leaning toward stability (habit), because once a specific gesture is made, it becomes not only more able to happen again, but actually more likely to happen again.

Because of this we can say that any other specifically different gesture from the one just learned is to some degree precluded.

Therefore, with practice, we can cause any unwanted gestures (i.e., mistakes) to be much less likely to occur than wanted gestures (i.e., music).

Over time mistakes can become virtually impossible—just as the correct gestures were impossible when you first began.

Unfortunately this process doesn't have the slightest inkling whether it has learned a correct or an incorrect movement.

It just knows that a particular movement has been made, so it will be easier for that movement to be made again.

Within the scope of this process no gesture has any intrinsic superiority over any other gesture.

It is the musician's responsibility to decide whether or not the gesture is correct.

Making judgments about correctness requires a lot of work (see above "The Irony and the Ecstasy"), but that's alright. We wouldn't want the learning process deciding right from wrong on its own anyway. If learning had any say in its own process and harbored any preconceived notions of correctness, we might have long ago ceased to exist as a species leaving music a dead issue.

Since a movement made is a movement gained, then right makes right, and wrong makes wrong, so it should be obvious what needs to be accomplished in your practice.

You want to allow for the largest number of right movements and work for the smallest number of wrong movements.

Wrong gestures can be mastered as easily... sometimes more easily than right gestures, and the road to Unlearn is as long and winding as the road to Learn.

If you are careful in your approach, the development of your ability to make musical gestures snowballs.

Correct movement promotes correct movement in an ever accelerating progression from good to better.

In addition, correct procedure strengthens correct procedure and drives the whole process to continually more efficient progress.

All well and good, but how can one perform the correct gestures in the first place, never having made them, and not being sure of what they are?

You Can't Get There from Here

If a wrong gesture is learned as easily as a right gesture, and if any gesture must be performed to be learned, how does one make the correct movements in the first place.

Just as any system works so long as it is periodically reviewed and refined, any gesture performed is also a step in the right direction—if you study the results and learn from them.

Just play the percentages and constantly work to increase the relative number of correct movements over the number of incorrect ones.

Less is More/Slow is Fast

There are some infallible techniques that can make your progress sure, direct, exact.

The most comprehensive of these is to be mindful that less is more and slow is fast.

When it comes to the physical aspects of mastering music, the two aspects of the preceeding maxim has rather clear meaning.

Tense execution of any gesture is the surest way to botch it and, of course, botch begets botch.

Since there are plenty of books dealing with stress and relaxation we will not dwell on it here.

When you go to buy your pencil you might also like to choose a book about relaxing, and one I like is mentioned in the "Further Reading" section.

It wouldn't hurt to use your pencil with it, but back to the second part of our maxim.

One reason can be observed in action while the other is deduced logically from what is observed.

What can be observed is that the exact same mistakes are made when playing a piece slowly as are made when playing fast.

This is a very specific phenomenon that reaches down to an extremely fine level and includes all timing, dynamic, and articulation aspects of play.

Therefore, since any musical piece is effectively the same played at any tempo, slow is equal to fast.

In order to deduce the second reason slow is fast we must take a look at the one significant difference in playing a piece fast.

When a piece is played fast the physical elements of play can not be reliably observed by the performer.

The result is that misconceptions can easily pile up around one's play and hold improvement at bay.

When a piece is played slow, it is just the same as when played fast... except one can see more clearly when, what, where, how, and why problems occur.

The next rational step is to slow the tempo down to its ultimate conclusion; that is, completely stop moving and examine the situation.

The basic principles of less is more, slow is fast being discussed here are necessary for efficient improvement because of a limiting factor of the conscious mind that ultimately rules the learning process.

The conscious mind is like a flashlight in a dark room. The whole room can be observed but only a little at a time. In the same manner musical gestures can only be consciously understood and mastered a little at a time.

But if a gesture is broken down into its component parts, and each part mastered separately, when the elements are reassembled into the whole, the result is that the totally new whole appears to the senses, and it appears as a single element unto itself—to which other gestures may be added.

These gestures we are talking about control musical elements such as tempo, dynamics, articulation, which are a direct result of the exact movement of each joint, muscle, and tendon in the hands, arms, and body.

Furthermore, once these details are understood, the best musical result is obtained when the sum total is executed through efficient movement propelled by a tight focus of the will.

The aggregate demands of assembling all these particulars could easily break down the whole learning process (crushed by the weight of its own complexity); except that the mind and body are so good at learning, these innumerable parts may be assembled with incredible certainty and stability.

Caveat Pre-Emptor

Sometimes a musician experiences improvement even when they have taken time off from play.

Although previously I've said that a musician, "...will certainly not be any further along," after a lay off, there are instances where improvement will continue after practice has stopped.

One reason for this is because there is a soaking in period needed before results are seen from any specific practice.

A large part of the progress you will enjoy from the work you do today will not be realized until tomorrow or sometime later.

Also, a brief lay off can sometimes allow you to step back, relax, and loosen up your play a bit.

Combine these two qualities (soaking in and backing off), and you can have a compelling experience which, if you do not fully understand its roots, can lead you to believe you can get better without work.

In addition, the talents you acquire during music study spill over into other activities.

The enhanced dexterity and direct manner of approach you take into those other activities will continue to advance your abilities in the new context.

If you don't understand where the improvement came from, it may seem to spring from nowhere.

Additionally, the soaking in period associated with practice can be a double edged sword.

You begin with some considered practice on a gesture that seems totally impossible.

Then out of the blue the difficulty melts into nothingness, leaving you wondering how you could have ever found it a problem.

On the other side of that sword, the problems generated by incorrect practice can be delayed in the same way, showing up just as mysteriously.

Mistakes you practice take a little time to soak in just as the correct music you practice.

It can make for a tough decision as to just which approaches have generated just which results, either for the good or bad.

If you are not careful you can find yourself moving closer then farther from your goals with little apparent reason.

The best way to avoid being fooled by the process is by maintaining relatively long term practice goals.

When I complete a practice cycle I always give the next routine at least a week to see if it is going to be productive.

I settle on a goal, start working on it but make no decisions until the week is up—no matter what my first impressions are.

That gives the process a little breathing room, and when I do make a decision it is based on more reliable criteria than if I'd jumped and tumbled over my first conclusion.

THE THREE MUSICAL SENSES

To be effective in directing your progress from good thru better to excellent, you must have reliable criteria for judging correct from incorrect gestures.

Ultimately it is the musician's responsibility to make these decisions, and it is seldom easy.

Primarily, there is one essential question to ask when evaluating any particular gesture: "Has this gesture produced musical sounds?"

While this question is all encompassing and may seem obviously answered that it is right if it sounds right, there are two other questions that must be kept in mind.

In addition to questioning the auditory results of a gesture, one must also ask: "Does the gesture feel right?" and "Does the gesture look right?"

Taken together these three perspectives (the sight, the sound, and the feel) of music are integral to each other as well as to the musical process as a whole.

An Ear for Music

Unhappily, at one time or another, I have heard every single type, style, and variation of music attacked, criticized, and diminished.

The most common complaint is that a given style of music is inherently bad because it, "...all sounds the same."

I have heard this applied equally to classical, jazz, blues, gospel, country, blue-grass, all types of ethnic, rock, pop, new-age, baroque, etc.

As an exercise choose any two musical styles to fill in the blanks of the following sentence (in any order): I really hate ___________; it all sounds the same. The only good music is ___________.

You can bet no matter what combination you come up with I have heard it—usually with some musical era plus some well known musician added to the equation.

In deference to those who make these judgments, though, I do have an understanding of what they mean.

German, Swahili, Russian, Japanese, et al., all have their own characteristic sameness that makes each sound like Greek to me.

If only they wouldn't talk so fast.. and would just use words in the proper order.

Methods for judging musical correctness are therefore outside the scope of this book.

Each musician makes their own journey (in their own way) to discover what is musically satisfying.

Here we will only discuss the mechanisms which enable play after a basic direction has been chosen. (e.g., "Stand back... I'm gonna blast through some Thrash Metal!" or "I believe a study of the Classics would be most rewarding.")

There are three extremely useful musical senses, and taste is not one of them.

It is too easy to confuse the style of the music with the quality of the music.

In music study, the ear goes well beyond merely pointing out nice sounds and pleasant conversation.

It is a prime barometer for correctness of gesture and gives you immediate, irrefutable feedback.

Since a movement made is a movement gained, immediate feedback is of utmost importance.

You absolutely positively need to avoid each and every bad movement that you possibly can.

This is especially true considering our ultimate goal is to make movements that make good sound.

Since your ear is the final arbiter, you must continually hone your powers of critical listening within the context of the music you enjoy.

I must remind you, however, you will probably find what-sounds-right to be a bit of a chameleon.

Thankfully, your ear has alerted you to an incorrect movement which would have otherwise become an incorrect habit.

When the astute musician hears a sound they don't like, they immediately turn to the other two musical senses to ferret out the problem.

A Feel for Your Instrument

We have all heard it said that a particular musician has a good feel for their instrument.

Usually we understand this statement to refer to the musician's artistic sensibilities.

However, it also refers to the combination of their ability to probe their instrument's most subtle physical responsiveness and, in the same way, to experience their own body's physical orientation to it.

Therefore, the musician's potential for artistic expression is directly proportional to the degree they have addressed both the physical aspects of their instrument plus their body's exact relationship to those aspects.

Now, with these attributes of the fine musician in mind, we turn to the second musical sense—touch (or feeling).

At the exact moment the ear calls attention to an incorrect gesture one also experiences an associated physical sensation.

At first these perceptions are somewhat veiled, but as you become familiar with their nature they are easy to identify.

These feelings are manifest over a broad spectrum—from a slight uncomfortable tension in one or several parts of the body, to a loss of concentration which chops off the musical line in mid-stride.

The physical perceptions associated with an incorrect musical gesture can help locate the problem.

For example, you may hear something you don't like and notice your wrist feels tight.

In addition to these more obvious physical sensations, there are subtle feelings which can lead you to an awareness of the abstract internal processes which also impact on the gesture.

These internal processes may be somewhat less accessible (because Westerners don't generally have the vocabulary), but they can stand just as sturdily in the way of good performance.

Since we never actually see them, and since each one of us must create our own vision of them, these internal processes are extremely difficult to describe and discuss.

It is handier to address the external processes first, because we can point to them and both of us view them together.

In any case, the external processes are so inextricably linked to the internal that to talk about one is to talk about the other anyway.

An Eye Out for Trouble

As stated, feeling a slight tension in the wrist when hearing a mistake might indicate the problem is in the wrist.

It may instead represent a poor positioning of the arm, compensated by an incorrect placement of the hand, which is in turn felt in the wrist.

There are very broad parameters to causality here, and to sort it out you must use your third musical sense—sight.

For every incorrect sound there is an associated incorrect gesture which causes an uncomfortable feeling in and of itself.

Look to the source of the discomfort, and you will be pleased to discover that an incorrect sound can be seen as well as heard and felt.

What you will find when looking to the cause of an uncomfortable feeling is that something is out of place.

Another example, referring to a much finer nuance, might be that although the finger has chanced onto the correct key your internal visualization had meant for it to be on another key.

In the former example it is the finger that is out of place: in the latter it is the conceptualization that is out of place.

Accordingly the first mistake would effect correct note playing while the second would effect correct articulation of the note played.

Sorting out which sound (or micro-moment of it) is tied to which gesture and which gesture is tied to which conceptualization is difficult to say the least.

It is time to move on to specific techniques for approaching, understanding, and overcoming the more concrete difficulties in the materials at hand.

MIND OVER MATERIAL

The three musical senses—hearing, feeling, and seeing—converge on the sounds made.

Each may serve as the basis for observation while calling upon the other two to deepen the analysis.

Capable of very broad application, these senses may be used interactively, interchangeably or discretely.

Any working musician will tell you performances often have to go on under conditions that hinder all three musical senses (i.e., darkened rooms where you can't see your instrument, inferior P.A. systems that make it difficult to hear yourself or the other musicians, distracting situations that constantly tug at your concentration).

Fortunately, once musical gestures are mastered they have a resilience that allows them to be made under the worst conditions.

When gestures are made instinctually, the function of the three musical senses becomes subordinate.

While doing this does not produce the best music, it does illustrate how reliably these musical gestures can be learned.

The best music is made when all three senses are used to their fullest; if all three of your musical senses are intact and available use them.

To use the three musical senses effectively we need procedures to enlist each sense individually while allowing us to judge each relative to the gestures being made.

The following guidelines lead the senses in helping achieve correct musical gestures.

The senses themselves may be engaged in any order one at time, or in any combination in any order.

Drawing the Line

To play music one must understand there is an inherent difference between the act of playing music and the act of listening to music.

By the time most people set out to play music they already have a long history of listening to music.

It is tempting to assume the act of playing music will be the same as the act of listening to music.

There is a strong tendency to continue using approaches and habits acquired while listening to music when beginning to play music.

Letting this happen can have disastrous results, so be certain to understand the difference between playing and listening.

When you are playing music, however, your conscious and emotional engagement must precede the musical line.

Choose any section of this book and read it out loud, and as you read take careful note of what is happening.

If you observe closely you will notice the words you are speaking are not the words you are reading!

You are speaking words that you have just read, and you are reading ahead to words that you will speak afterwards.

It is a great ride and is what has attracted you to play music, but when playing music you must pull the musical line along behind you.

This is not to say you must not hear the sounds you are creating and cannot be aware of the physical elements involved; it is just that you do not listen like you do when are not playing.

Define/Divide and Conquer

From the discussion of how the conscious mind is like a flashlight in a dark room, we know musical gestures must be learned a little at a time.

Music written in standard notation gives several indications of how to proceed and also points to what must be done if there is no transcription.

If you look at a page of transcribed music you see vertical lines (bar lines) dividing horizontal lines (staff) into small sections of music (measures).

Different tonal pitches are represented by lines and spaces of the staff which hold symbols (notes) indicating relative time values.

At various places above and below these elements are markings for speed of play (tempo), loudness (dynamics), and alterations to given values (articulation).

Each defines a brief musical statement that includes the kernel of a unified rhythmic thought.

Work first on single measures then combine them—putting together two measures, then three, etc.

You should not limit the segmented work divisions to the starting and ending of measures alone.

At minimum the measures should be further divided into right hand and left hand movements.

Also look at the segments that are formed if the line is played from the center of one measure to the center of the next.

Deepen the analysis by attending to notation figures, parts of notation figures, articulation and dynamic markings.

Give close attention to the specific hand, arm, finger, and joint movements associated with each gesture.

Finally, you must move your focus inward to handle the smallest elements of your conceptualization and visualization processes.

These processes are the internal mental counterparts of the external physical elements.

Of course, just as in using the three musical senses, you may follow the preceding steps in any order, or all at once.

When working on music which is not transcribed, the process is the same as just outlined except: you have to keep a lot more information in your head, and you have to start off by first deciding on the right notes.

Excluding the most basic and elementary music, you can move more quickly by using written music instead of recordings and remembered performances alone.

Don't forget! A movement made is a movement gained, and the road to Unlearn is every bit as long and winding as the road to Learn.

You will save considerable time if you don't have to learn then unlearn wrong movements while looking for the right notes.

In addition, good music notation includes rational fingerings which will help you get to the correct gestures faster.

Transcribed music needs to provide far less information when used in conjunction with recordings.

Since much of today's written music assumes there are recordings available, it is recommended to use transcriptions and recordings together.

The wide availability of recorded music has brought us close to full historical circle as we are once again passing music among ourselves aurally.

This hearkens to an earlier time when there was no written music, and by ear was the only way music was learned.

You can get pretty good at playing solely by ear, but ultimately it is a limited method.

Of course playing by ear is an invaluable tool for composition and improvisation, but when it comes to learning complex fully realized pieces it comes up short every time.

It is a skill that should be cultivated and used in concert with reading standard music notation.

Just as you are not doing enough if you can keep everything in your head (see Anything Worth Doing...), you are not playing enough music if you can keep it all in your head.

Someone who is resistant to learning standard music notation is like someone who would rather skip learning to use a hammer in order to get right to work by pushing nails into wood by hand, or in this case by ear.

The level of musical excellence you acquire will be a direct result of the level of microscopic scrutiny you bring to bear on all gestures.

Bridging the Gap

In general, following the trail of what-sounds-right will go far towards putting your hands and sensibilities in the right place.

If correct music looks and feels right as well as sounds right, then just the act of playing something over and over until it sounds right will of necessity pull everything else into line.

Learning this way is very haphazard, though, and is based too much on happenstance to be very efficient and effective.

Since this is not a book about the music lottery, we need to look at some solid techniques for streamlining the process and moving it away from the rocky shores of chance.

While merely playing a section over and over until it sounds right will eventually pull your hands into place, you can move much faster if beforehand you explore the look and feel of correct placement.

If I said you can't play piano very well with your hands tied behind your back, you would probably think it too obvious to mention.

In order to understand the look and feel of correct musical gestures, we need to have some understanding of how muscles and bones work together.

Previously we talked about the function of the nerves in carrying motive impulse.

Now we will look at what happens when that impulse gets to the muscle, but first...

Before we begin on muscle function let's get our bearings by looking at something a little larger.

Not only is the bridge functional, but it has an incredible graceful beauty that is a natural outgrowth of its function.

Large bold pillars (based deep in the water) support the spans high above the flow.

Vast sloping curvilinear tubes of metal act as sky hoists from which braided ropes of steel reach down, grab hold, and further support and stabilize.

Each element is distinctively constructed to derive the greatest strength from minimal use of the lightest possible materials.

Once assembled, the whole maintains a strength and stability well beyond what is implied by the sum of its parts.

The human body has the same basic design characteristic as the bridge, although in a smaller package and with a more versatile function.

The body is structured to make the best use of the least materials, but it can do much more than merely allow passage over a body of water.

We can deduce that the musical use of arms, hands, and fingers (lips and cheeks for wind players) should likewise follow the same philosophy as our bridge.

The goal should be to achieve strength and function with the least amount of effort and expenditure of resources.

For proposes of discussion it is easiest to assume a typical five fingered hand, but it really doesn't matter if your hand is missing a few fingers or has other artful irregularities.

Your body has a very flexible design and can make music even with a lot of the regular stuff missing.

A fellow from India I once worked with told me the top rated tabla player in his area had no arms at all and played the drums with his feet.

Also, I once saw someone who had won a prestigious rag-time piano contest play part of her competition piece with her elbows; in fact, she believed playing with her elbows was a large part of why she won.

For the following discussion we will assume a typical five fingered hand for convenience, but it is the basis of approach which is important here.

Notice that the fingers are more slender toward the tips and thicker toward the palm.

More than likely you will find that the joints at the juncture of the fingers and palm are by far the largest.

Since our goal is to get the most strength with the least effort, we must pay special attention to these power joints.

Most likely their size moves generally from thickest at the thumb to thinnest at the pinky.

If your finger sizes do not change evenly in this way, you will at least find the pinky and ring fingers are significantly thinner than the rest.

Now relax your fingers, hold your hand so your thumb is toward you and close your hand slowly into a tight fist.

Now make the fist again with the following in mind: at the half way point we have the perfect receptacle for a ball; at full fist we have a ball.

When the fingers move from extension to full fist they move in a curvilinear fashion.

This brings us back to our description of the bridge which has "...vast sloping curvilinear tubes" supported by "large bold pillars," and "braided ropes" that "reach down" and "grab hold."

Curves and circles have a great deal of innate strength and are the basis of your hands movements.

It is not surprising your hands have design characteristics similar to the bridge; the bridge designers and builders had hands of their own.

Bring the bridge builder's design philosophies home again by using the essentials of the bridge's structure as a guide to conform your hand to the positions of correct musical gesture.

Just as a bridge arrives at a graceful beauty as it reaches for shore, your hands should arrive at at a well supported, curvilinear, graceful beauty as they reach for music.

The Opposition

When muscles are delivered a motive impulse from the neurons ^[1] they contract causing the bones to which they're connected by tendons to rotate around a joint held together by ligaments.

In an associated group, one muscle pulls in one direction and the other muscle pulls in the opposite direction.

For example, to move the forearm the biceps close the elbow angle, and the triceps open the elbow angle.

If you make several movements in succession it is necessary for muscles in the group to work in close coordination.

This example of the forearm opening and closing models typical musical gestures.

The timed opening and closing of skeletal joints at various velocities is the quintessence of musical movement.

Additionally, the muscles have a certain degree of programmed response which is directly related to strength of action.

If a muscle is contracted forcefully there is a certain amount of inertia associated with the action that makes it more difficult to relax afterwards.

The amount of effort required to relax after any given contraction is directly proportional to the strength of the contraction and can be measured in time.

Since a muscle cannot contract unless its opposing partner relaxes, and since a strong contraction precludes relaxation for a period of time, and since that length of time is proportionately increased by the strength of the contraction; then strong contractions are self limiting and should be avoided.

In other words all musical gestures should feel as light and relaxed as possible.

Any gesture should be well supported by all underlying skeletal and muscular components.

This includes everything up from the floor (and chair) on thru the body to the instrument.

The general picture presented should be of curves and circles supported by beams.

Movement should originate from the strongest muscles and joints of primary involvement and should be transferred to the instrument through the remaining joints and muscles with the least amount of resistance.

IMPULSE AND STRENGTH

The description of biceps and triceps moving the forearm back and forth (see: The Opposition) was an extreme simplification.

There are always several muscles pulling at finely controlled strengths in multiple directions and skewing individual bones and joints off linear track.

Do it once more and write down all the separate joint and muscle movements that combine into this one motion.

Even better, two books published the year after the first publication of Impulse and Strength so not mentioned then are, Anatomy of Movement and its companion exercise book by Blandine Calais-Germaine.

The Calais-Germaine books are about dance, but the process is the same, and the exploded images of each muscle and what it does is superaltive.

After you have logged the basic movements go back and chart each movement through time.

For each interval describe the exact location and direction of every joint and muscle.

Don't miss the fact that these movements include more than the thirty joints of the fingers.

You sit in a specific fashion; you balance in a specific way; your arms reach from your shoulders at a specific angle.

Plus there are hundreds of indescribably subtle movements of the small bones in the palm of your hand.

In tying your shoes you use a very complex apparatus to make specific movements around two pieces of string.

The resulting knot is a little machine that tenaciously holds itself together but can fall apart at a your whim.

In tying your shoe, each tenth of a second finds your hands and body in an exact posture.

When we analyze musical gestures we need to divide the time chart into even smaller sections.

Divisions of tenths of a second aren't nearly small enough, nor are divisions of hundredths of a second.

Musical excellence is a function of gestures made and coordinated in terms of milliseconds (thousandths of a second).

Now, given the many parts and processes necessary for the most basic movement, think again about what it takes to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb."

To play any piece takes considerable consideration; careful scrutiny of performance must go well beyond which notes are being played.

In common usage tones are the sounds "heard," while notes are the written graphical representation of those sounds.

In this book notes may also refer to the positions of play on an instrument—such as a piano key being a note on the piano.

The human ear is sensitive to tone changes that result from altering the relative instants sound sources are actuated measured in milliseconds.

There are audible changes to identical tones sounded separately at intervals smaller than 20 milliseconds.

These changes may be heard as a thickening of what is perceived as a single tone.

At intervals somewhere between 20 and 40 milliseconds the ear may begin to hear two separate tones.

Actually this depiction of the audible effects of timing variation is a simplification equal in magnitude to the earlier discussion of forearm movement.

High level music performance routinely involves controlling various tones to an incredible degree of timing accuracy.

In addition to the effects of timing, the strength at which tones are played has an audible effect on the ears.

The characteristics of any acoustic instrument's sound changes significantly as the dynamics of performance vary.

Strength of play must be controlled to the same degree of detailed attention as timing.

This means that in playing the piano, for instance, the strength of movement in ten fingers (thirty joints) must be controlled in combination with the two wrists, two arms, etc., while the pedals are handled with the feet.

The good news is this control can be successfully achieved by virtually anyone who takes the care and time needed to master the various elements involved.

Furthermore, while at first the steps must be laboriously spelled out for efficient learning, once the elements are mastered they become second nature—just as tying your shoes... or picking up a drinking glass... or any of the hundreds of other incredibly rich actions barely noticed in daily life.

If you documented the movements of tying your shoes you have gained insight helping you avoid intimidation by seemingly complex music transcriptions.

Often something that is relatively easy to accomplish is very difficult to describe.

I figured this book would be about ten pages long, but it turns out thoughts and ideas are larger than you would expect and are quite hard to squeeze down into mere words.

It often takes a lot of notation on the page to describe relatively easy movements, so don't let the first glimpse of a complex piece scare you off.

Say Cheese

We already know what the general look and feel of musical gestures should be (see: Bridging the Gap and The Opposition); the notes to be played provide the next, more specific, level of direction.

Just like time logging the momentary positions of opening your hand and tying your shoes, each moment of any musical gesture finds the hands in a particular position.

The dominant position of any musical gesture is a comfortable resting place for hands and fingers on the notes to be played.

At first it is unnecessary to consider the timing of individual notes or the tempo of the piece as a whole; just find the notes in the order they'll be played and put your fingers on them.

No timing, no tempo—just the notes in the order of play—put your fingers on them.

In line with define and conquer ^[2] follow through a section first with one hand then the other.

This part of the musical process can be grueling for beginners and experienced players alike.

Take yourself as far into the piece as comfortable then rest—assured that each time you return to the task it will be ever so slightly easier.

It is better to judge progress by the amount of time you are able to maintain in concentrated effort than by how much real estate you can cover across a transcribed page.

Just as in physical exercise, the amount of effort you can expend will increase with repetitive, gradually tougher workouts.

Also, just like physical exercise, you don't want to overdo these mental workouts, because if over-stressed your capacity will be diminished instead of enhanced.

Increase the resistance to your mental powers slowly, being careful not to sprain a brain ligament.

While going through these first stages of mastering a piece, watch your fingering carefully.

If one is not given come up with one of your own, pencil it onto the page and use that one faithfully.

This is important because, if you constantly change your fingerings, each time through effectively becomes a different piece, and one page can become the same amount of work as ten or fifteen pages.

Consistency at this stage is very important even if it is consistency in incorrectness.

As you follow this part of the process you will find your tempo gradually increases.

The barriers to play will cease being the notes themselves and become instead the moments of movement between the notes.

Playing Between the Notes

The notes played in any piece of music are at once the beginning and the ending of performance.

When learning a new piece the first chore is to find which notes are to be played, but that is only the slightest beginning.

This entails a close look at the dynamic, timing and articulation elements of performance.

Once these elements are mastered it will become apparent the notes are no longer the beginning of performance but are now the ending of performance.

That is to say, once the note has been reached the performance of the note is over.

That last statement was very specific and possibly unintuitive so bears repeating.

Once a note has been reached the performance of that note is over, finished, complete.

Since the notes of any piece are either just the beginning of performance or the ending of performance, a great deal of our energy should be applied to what happens between the notes.

The approach to and departure from notes is one of the largest parts of playing musical instruments.

As your musical ability grows you will find yourself spending more time analyzing how to get to notes than you spend pondering which notes to get to.

The fact that notes are always found in context is a major consideration in producing correct gestures.

When resting on any given notes your fingers have come from notes previous and are about to move on to notes following.

This is the basis for the correct fingering of notes and for correct gesturing between notes.

Always strive for fingerings that are at once easy and logically most efficient in the context of where the hands have come from and where they are about to go.

Fingering analysis should extend to the movement of each bone and joint involved at every moment in the gesture.

Each finger has come from, is now on, and will go to another note. What is the best path?

Gestural postures which are at rest on notes are easier to observe than those which are in movement between notes.

In order to keep track of play between notes it is helpful to slow down music phrases mentally.

Songs are favored in the beginning, because instrumental music is more abstract and lacks words which help you focus by association to natural language rhythms and sense.

Whichever you choose, songs or tunes, gradually slow the tempo until the phrase starts to lose its melodic sense and begins to sound like individual, unconnected notes.

Once a piece is significantly slowed try to remember the melody's flow, dynamics and articulations, and relate those aspects to the slow motion musical line.

Use whatever songs and recordings you enjoy, along with the principle of define and conquer. ^[2]

Don't try whole pieces at once, but use small phrases or even just a few syllables of a word sung.

Slowing phrases down mentally is invaluable for establishing the flowing, correct gestures which efficiently move you from position to position.

After you know what notes are to be played, you can slow the phrase down in your head, and then watch your hands as you carefully move from note to note.

As you slowly play you can make careful adjustments to hand movement and position in order to improve efficiency in performance.

In slow motion consider all the particulars of articulation, dynamics, and phrasing of the notes played.

At first disregard tempo, and only use notated time values to find in which order to play the notes, along with which notes should be played together.

Eventually consolidate the relative time values by playing a slow, regular tempo.

Never play at a tempo faster than one at which you can easily handle the most difficult section of the piece.

As you improve in playing between the notes of a given piece your tempo will naturally increase, but don't get carried away with speed.

Say cheese, stop, look, and mentally listen between the notes while fighting any tendency to jerk your hands off wrong notes.

You'll be surprised how often wrong notes occur as a result of having "mis-thought" what was needed.

See: An Eye Out for Trouble ^[3], particularly visualization versus conceptualization ^[4]; and below: The Hand is Quicker than the Eye. ^[5]

Choose Your Friends Wisely

The incredible number of particulars involved in playing even the simplest music makes it necessary to constantly strive to find the essential movements of all gestures.

It would be of tremendous help to find gestures which are basic to all music, master them first, and only afterwards branch out to the subtleties of various musical styles and individual pieces.

Happily there's no need to hurry off and plunge into an all out study to develop essential musical movements. Most of the work has already been done.

Scales, arpeggios, and technical exercises all embody the most universal movements comprising musical gestures.

Since music is an infinite process, and since a movement made is a movement gained, and since there is a great deal of difficulty in deciding what a correct musical gesture is, it is absolutely imperative to have some solid, simplified, all encompassing foundation for play.

I challenge you to find a gesture in any piece of music that does not have an underlying element best addressed by an existing scale, arpeggio, or technical exercise.

A clear understanding of the basic intent and necessity of technical study will allow you to take full advantage of existing studies and aid you in deriving your own studies when you need them.

The primary concept behind technical study is to gain individual control over fingers, wrists and arms.

This can be a very troubling process as it is difficult to envisage and accomplish movements that aren't necessarily natural.

For example the pinky and ring finger are usually the smallest and thus weakest of the fingers ^[6] so most people rarely use them.

It is hard then to approach even the most basic movements with them. It is difficult to imagine the sure control that is possible to achieve with them.

This usually translates into an avoidance of using them in play. (but see discussion of extreme possibilities)

As time goes by the gap in ability between these fingers and the rest of your fingers becomes naturally greater.

Basic technical study ensures you will use all fingers and joints equally and develop the whole at a constant, even pace.

The secondary concept behind technical study is to make the study as basic and elemental as possible; movements studied should have the most universal application possible.

That is to say movements studied should be the basic elements in as many different gestures as possible.

For example there is a set of thumb-under exercises in the Hanon studies for piano.

These thumb-under studies are only a few pages long while the elements involved can be described in less than a page.

The essential movement is to pass the thumb under the hand by playing a note on one side of the hand and then the other.

It is extended in scope by exercising the fingers to enable passing the thumb under the index, middle, ring, and pinky fingers in that order.

This seemingly simple movement is found in virtually every piece of music for the piano.

You would of course come to learn it by playing the thousands of pieces in which it is found but not nearly as efficiently (read: as fast) as addressing it first and specifically in the Hanon exercises.

Given the complications of music (dynamics, phrasing, articulation, harmonic structure, tempo) it is very easy for a basic movement like this thumb-under to get buried under a mountain of particulars—lost and forgotten.

It can hunker down for years (the unfound sticking point in many a phrase) not getting the attention it needs, reinforcing its own inscrutable impediment, an enigma of your musical lines.

While moving towards mastery of various technical skills it is important to use logical gestures, not just use fingerings and movements that are easiest at the moment.

As pointed out before ^[7] the body's capacity for evolving flexible movement is unbelievable, but you will restrict your development if you use only comfortable movement instead of logical movement at any given moment.

Remember, a movement made is a movement gained, and the road to UnLearn is as long and winding as the road to Learn.

It is easy to learn wrong movements which, once learned, will seem easier than those which are right.

The context used here for right vs. wrong is that a right movement will allow you full expression of the music while a wrong movement will, at some point, run you into a wall of restriction.

Since music is an ongoing process ^[8] it can be difficult to sort out which gestures are correct and which are incorrect.

Scales, arpeggios, and technical exercises work as ingenious levers which amplify a small effort into a strong leap toward musical excellence.

Crux

The impulse of a movement is a very subtle sensation and one must quiet all other perceptions in order to find and know it.

One's awareness is constantly bombarded by myriad perceptions triggered by the external world.

It is laborious to sort out which sensations directly relate to a given gesture and which sensations are ancillary or unrelated to it.

Even when the three musical senses are used to their fullest, when the systems outlined in this book are engaged optimally, and when we are sure of what the gesture should be, the difficulty finding the impulse of the gesture remains.

This is because impulse is not an inwardly moving response to external stimulus but rather an outwardly moving longing toward external expression.

The impulses of gestures are the crux of musical play and finding and understanding them is the goal of all procedures outlined in this book.

It is the point at which all instructional guidance must be left off and each person must go on alone.

It is simply that every person's inner visualization of impulse is personal and slightly different; and, since it is internal, we can't easily point to it and describe it.

However, every person experiences impulse in movement (you did when you picked up this book), so it is not impossible to talk about, just difficult.

It is as if our task was to put our hands inside a box and describe the spherical object inside without seeing it.

One person might say it's an apple, one might say it's an orange, and one might say their finger itches.

It is important to find and understand the nature of impulse in musical gestures; so much so, everything else in this book is an explanation of tools for the search.

Once found and understood impulse puts all procedures in perspective and leads the most direct path to musical excellence.

To approach an understanding of impulse it is necessary to keep a few fundamental thoughts in mind.

The first is to be very careful not to push your body—including your mind—past design specification.

Don't break down the system by forcing it into areas it isn't ready for or made for.

Actually, long before it totally breaks down, the excess stress you put on your system will so totally distract you from your goals you'll probably stop moving toward them anyway.

The nature of impulse is so ethereal that any other stimulus can easily distract you from it.

That includes all sorts of stress, tension, and television programming, so relax.

The body has a tendency to generalize movement and overcoming this tendency requires some effort.

To experience this first hand here is a classic example: pat your head while rubbing your stomach then quickly reverse it—rub your head while patting your stomach.

The physical manifestations of tension are repeated internally and effect your feeling of well being.

Likewise you inner feeling of well being affects the physical tension in the muscles.

Since the external world often directs our sense of well being and muscles toward tension it is necessary to counteract these outside stimuli.

Since the muscles work in opposing groups and must alternately contract and relax, any extra tension will only inhibit progress ^[9].

Unfortunately, habits of inhibitory approach can be learned just as readily as habits of inhibitory movement.

Never approach practice anxiously or under coercion because, since tense muscles beget tense muscles, it is easy to end up performing isometrics in your practice.

Isometrics are exercises that pit one muscle against another (e.g., press your palms together at chest level to work the upper body).

If you continue this type of practice you will just get very strong at not being able to move—just as you can get very good at other mistakes (see final paragraphs of A Bicycle Built for You).

Ultimately the goal of practice is to find the specific impulses that freely move fingers, hands, arms, and feet toward and away from various tones and groups of tones.

The murmurings of these impulses are extremely soft and one needs to be very quiet in order to hear them.

Eventually your ending gestures (those that finally intone the sounds) will be prepared and accomplished while your hands are still in motion between the notes, keys, chords.

In the case of chords (harmonically related tones played together), your hand will already have the chord in its grasp as it reaches the instrument.

I can make guitar and piano chords behind my back and pull them around to drop them on the instrument without making adjustments.

Everything Changes Every Thing

It took me a long time to realize why my guitar practice seemed so much better than my performance—I was practicing sitting down and performing standing up.

I was practicing a lot and performing a little, so of course I was getting a lot more practice at practicing than at performing.

To correct the problem I stood up and began making my practice as much like performance as possible.

The problem with everything changing every thing extends even to subtle cues picked up from your surroundings.

If you always practice in the same place you might notice you have a recurring half-conscious awareness of some object in the room (such as a lamp) at some point in a piece.

Part of my effort to practice performance conditions was to practice in a variety of places.

Practicing in different situations helps break down sub-conscious cuing and lets you focus on the internal, portable aspects of the music.

During practice there is a constant leveling of performance difficulties which allows new problems to rise to the surface and be recognized.

As successive problems are recognized and you incorporate solutions into your play you may find yourself taking two steps forward and one step back.

For example, at some point in a piece you may notice the pinky's placement must be moved a centimeter to the left for the phrase to flow smoothly; after making the adjustment you may be surprised that you must rethink several measures before and after the part you've changed.

It may even seem as if the entire section has totally fallen out of your hands and memory.

The Hand is Quicker Than the Eye

The hand is quicker than the eye and it needs to be slowed to best use the third musical sense—sight ^[3].

The next time you get a chance to watch an accomplished musician playing some lightning quick music don't look at the total performance but focus on some small part of it.

If you abstract that one finger's movement from everything else happening around it you'll see there's not much going on with it.

The array of movement around the finger, offered by the combined elements of the entire performance, presents too much information to be seen and digested all at once.

What seems so fast when viewed as a whole becomes a bundle of rather slow (but smooth) movements when the elements are observed separately.

This gives insight to how the fastest play is not so fast after all but merely a series of very smoothly connected, rather slower, singular movements.

Just as we can't visually follow all the movements another performer makes, we can't see all of our own movements made in performance.

Our musical sense sight can't show us the whole canvas so we need a tool to help us with the larger picture.

Therefore develop a keen inner visualization of the gestures and positions of play.

To develop a strong inner vision, constantly venture toward playing without looking at your hands.

Develop abstract mental images of your instrument plus your hands' and body's orientation to it.

These internal pictures must constantly be reviewed and refined because of their instability.

Just as you run into problems due to the flexibility of the body ^[10] you will run into problems with your internal visualization due to its own incredible elasticity.

You are able to imagine just about anything and the constraints of the physical world don't necessarily direct the nature of those images.

Imagine a pink elephant; shrink it to a quarter inch; stick it in your vest pocket; let it trumpet like a cannon and turn it blue.

The innate plasticity of your visualization process can get you pretty confused in musical gesturing; but as you work with this skill the images get more stable, exact, and useful.

To develop your visualization follow the steps of define and conquer using logical fingerings and the criteria we've established for the correct look and feel of gestures.

Once you can slowly approach correct gestures while looking at them, and are becoming accustomed to their impulse, move to using your abstract internal imagery as a guide.

It doesn't matter anyway; what I really wanted to know was what the index finger of your left hand was doing while you were visualizing your foot.

When you visualized and then looked at your foot you were probably a bit surprised to find it wasn't exactly as you pictured it.

What you want to develop is good, solid, repeatable visualizations that accurately represent things in the external world (e.g., musical gestures).

Musical gestures are just a slight degree more specific than the other gestures you make all the time without effort.

When you first move to look away from your instrument, you will find yourself once again moving two steps forward and two steps back, just as when you changed your pinky position ^[11].

However, your internal awareness of a gesture and its positioning can become even more exact and useful than its external sighted counterpart.

Once guidance of play (drawing the line) is successfully internalized you stop being restricted by your hand being quicker than your eye.

So much is going on in a performance that to try and watch it all (or even think of it all) at once is virtually impossible.

Some examples of externalities that make it impossible to view the whole are: hands on the piano separated so both can't be seen at once (same for guitar); when sight reading a piece you can't read the music and watch your hands at the same time; horn players can't easily watch their lips and cheeks; vocalists never see their vocal chords.

The mind can take care of this by incorporating many elements into a single cognition—once each element has been addressed.

The development and refinement of the inner visualization of your instrument and body is the longest ongoing part of the musical process and is intrinsic to all musical movement.

A good exercise is to sight read very simple pieces making sure not to look at your hands.

As you proceed constantly say cheese and refer to the three musical senses to increase the trueness and stability of your inner vision.

Speed is Light

I've saved talking about speed for last because last is speed's correct position in the scheme of things.

If you take care to: consistently use logical fingering; use the three musical senses to help learn correct gestures; focus on impulse of gestures; gravitate to visualization and to internal play, then speed will take care of itself.

In fact the final, ultimate difficulty in playing music settles on trying to avoid playing too fast, but if you feel you must work on speed here's how.

First make sure you have gone through the previous processes of: finding the notes to be played, getting the correct look and feel of the gestures, giving special consideration to correct gesturing between notes, focusing on the impulse of the gestures, expanding your capacity for inner play.

All this should be done in a very relaxed manner while watching out for a tendency to engage in isometrics.

Now use a metronome and practice till you can play through a section of the piece at a steady, very slow tempo with no mistakes.

I mean "very" gradually—maybe one beat per minute for each ten times you play through the section.

As you do this you will find there are mainly two aspects of play which regulate speed.

These aspects are the strength of play and the degree of smoothness (legato) in the play.

Although you should always approach play as relaxed as possible, when speed increases there is a certain amount of tension and increased strength of muscle flexion that must be acceded to.

Although it is always important to keep a relaxed attack on notes, a certain degree of tension distinguishes the fastest play from the slowest.

When working to increase speed, especially avoid the pitfalls of self limiting strong contractions ^[12] and isometric exercises ^[13].

As speed gradually increases be sure you are fully aware of the impulse of correct gestures before dealing with their strength.

In addition reaching for notes should be accomplished in such a way the most strength will be derived from the lightest touch (see power joints).

Often the essence of speedy play is thought to be a function of the length individual notes are held (i.e. quick notes), but the cornerstone of speed is the efficiency with which movement is made from one note (or group of notes) to the next.

In playing a legato phrase, gestures between notes must be made with such efficiency and accuracy that no time whatsoever is allowed between one note and the next.

Tempo has slight impact on the necessities of legato play, and this aspect of play (as all others) is better practiced slow.

Points A are departures from a note, and Points B are arrivals onto the next note.

The significant part of playing the notes fast is in the movement from points A to B (as circled) and this aspect is the same regardless of how long the notes are held.

To play legato (and with speed) learn to join A points to B points very slowly but seamlessly.

In fact, to play fast should actually be easier, because you can drop each note sooner.

To play a phrase with speed, first learn to play it legato, and then just hold on to each note for less time—as in Figure 2.

What happens between the notes here is much more important than what happens on the notes.

Once a legato phrase has been achieved while playing slowly, speeding it up is just a matter of "allowing" earlier release from notes.

The release of a note in this case is important as (or more) important than intoning of the note in the first place.

It is thus central to speed that absolutely no muscle contraction be made with such force that it is difficult to relax afterwards ^[9].

The difference in playing fast instead of slow is more a matter of what you don't play than what you do play.

Conclusion

I hope the concepts, techniques and procedures in Impulse and Strength will be helpful.

The specific exercises and systems described are not as important as gaining a basic underlying philosophy and approach for observing, analyzing, and improving.

The largest part of music study is identifying, defining, and overcoming difficulties.

The dominant skill you acquire in studying music is a knowledge of the best way to approach and conquer problems; it is a skill that can impact everything you do.

If all goes well the views expressed in Impulse and Strength will spur a lot of dissent, discussion, and additional reading.

The next and final chapter is entitled "Further Reading" and is a selected bibliography of works you will find useful.

Usually bibliographies are tucked away quietly at the end after a book is over, but I want to stress the fact this book is just an overview and starting point (half-cadence for the musically literate).

Some of the books listed in the final chapter are specific to given instruments while others are of more general interest.

I have been involved in the musical process for many years but still aggressively pursue the use and refinement of the concepts discussed in Impulse and Strength each and every day.

ADDENDUM

In preparing this ePub version of Impulse and Strength, I went all the way back to the original Nota Bene word processor files which were used for the book as published in 1992.

No substantive changes were made to the original text, but not having to squeeze the discussion into the original publication format allowed me to clarify the language of a few sections.

Also, paragraphing was altered to the newspaper standard of one sentence per paragraph which works well with small screen handheld devices and only breaks up the thematic organization of the original paragraphing slightly.

Additionally, references to other sections in the book were replaced with direct links sometimes keeping the text hints otherwise using numbered links.

The Nota Bene files were first converted to HTML using FileMerlin file conversion software which I downloaded from:

http://file-convert.com/fmn.htm

The book Impulse and Strength was first published as hardcopy printed on a Hewlett Packard Laserjet II from Pagemaker files using Adobe Caslon and Caslon Expert fonts.

This Caslon font was the first digital font constructed specifically for digital printing (specifically the Laserjet), and the developers used original manuscripts to redesign the font from scratch.

At the time, finely set type-face in digital media was an oddity, and to achieve correct kerning of the combination characters of ff, fi, fl, ffi, plus the m-dash (—), Pagemaker made use of V, W, X, Y, plus the = sign under the hood, so these instances required replacement with appropriate letters.

First reassembly to eBook was done with Sigil, and confirmed correct through many iterations checking using an Ipod Touch and Stanza eReader app.

Fortunately, Sigil made the process as close to WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) as possible, and it also gave me direct access to the underlying XHTML code to add links and fix instances where the automated editor wasn't doing what it should such as adding double paragraph breaks uncontrollably.

The whole process left me with the full understanding that this technology is still in its infancy, and far from ready for those who would rather spend their time organizing their thoughts and writing instead of wrestling with technology.

How this version of Impulse and Strength will look on any given reader is anybody's guess.

However, having already produced the first ever commercial release of all electronic, all original music using a PC based MIDI sequencer more than a dozen years ago, I'm not very surprised.

Title Page

Preface