Thelonious Monk’s Tips for Musicians (1960) • Hacker News Board

Re: Thelonious Monk’s Tips for Musicians (1960)

#41

Post by quacked » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 6:44 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #36

quacked wrote: post #16

Oh yeah, Monk is 100% right. Keeping time is far more important than both intonation and feel. (And intonation is more important than feel.) Young music students in the US are usually taught in a pre-conservatory style (analogous to how young students are taught in a pre-academic style). This leads to the mental prioritization of playing the correct notes, giving recitals once or twice per season, and following the m…

My son is learning the piano and I cannot seem to teach him rhythm. Aside from the habit of stopping at every error (which bugs me to no end), he can hear a song once or twice and pick out the correct notes, but rhythm is still a mystery to him. I learned rhythm so long ago (it was a core part of my elementary school music class before I ever started learning an instrument on my own) that I have no clue how to help h…

It really depends what his temperament is like. If he's like I was when I was young and is really stubborn, resistant to practicing stuff that matters in favor of stuff that's fun, and doesn't listen to your advice, then you'll probably need to find a local talented adult musician that he latches onto and hero-worships to teach him rhythm. I don't know what they'd do so I can't predict anything there.

If he listens to you really well and wants to collaborate:

1) You can play a lot of rhythm games all the time. Here are a few starter videos with source material to improvise rhythm games off of:

Rhythm Yardstick: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sw_trDFJw8

Counting Lesson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dALpbzL7xqo

Counting to Seven: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njy7pMVKJ8Q

As a game for when you're waiting around with him in line or in the car or whatever, I also recommend challenging him to try to keep time differently with different limbs--can he tap quarters with left foot, eighths with left hand, halfs with his right foot, and the melody with his right hand? Can he cycle these responsibilities randomly on his limbs?

You can also play songs and challenge him to identify the time signature and count along to it, or sing the songs and clap along at the same time.

2) Listen to a lot of music together, and dance/snap/tap/head nod to the music. Really rhythmic music is good in this case--Irish, Bluegrass, Gospel, R&B, and Motown are typically the most exciting and danceable.

3) Play "call and response" improv games. Sit at the piano with him, play a jazz backing track, and play and sing him simple rhythmic phrases to play back by ear alone. "Quarter Quarter Quarter Dotted-eigth-sixteenth!" etc.

4) Get him drum lessons.

5) If he's totally rhythmically deficient, let him have piano as just a fun random hobby and teach him to fight instead ;)

The most important thing to remember is that a good sense of rhythm can take 5-10 years to really develop. It's more important to attack the same thing every day until it's really mastered than it is to press forward for unearned progress.

Re: Thelonious Monk’s Tips for Musicians (1960)

#42

Post by kashunstva » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 6:49 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #36

quacked wrote: post #16

Oh yeah, Monk is 100% right. Keeping time is far more important than both intonation and feel. (And intonation is more important than feel.) Young music students in the US are usually taught in a pre-conservatory style (analogous to how young students are taught in a pre-academic style). This leads to the mental prioritization of playing the correct notes, giving recitals once or twice per season, and following the m…

My son is learning the piano and I cannot seem to teach him rhythm. Aside from the habit of stopping at every error (which bugs me to no end), he can hear a song once or twice and pick out the correct notes, but rhythm is still a mystery to him. I learned rhythm so long ago (it was a core part of my elementary school music class before I ever started learning an instrument on my own) that I have no clue how to help h…

Metronome diet.

I play professionally and still use the metronome every single day. I tell students if I can, they can too. Some may see it as a crutch that prevents one from developing an internal pulse. I disagree; but maybe it’s a fake it ‘til you make it circumstance.

If you set the metronome to accent the downbeat, it is difficult to allow yourself the luxury of stopping and restarting on errors.

The most frequent issue though is starting the learning process faster than you can consciously process the music. When a student asks me about the correct tempo, my answer is always the same: it’s the tempo of perfection. If you play a piece no faster than you can play it perfectly, most things take care of themselves.

Re: Thelonious Monk’s Tips for Musicians (1960)

#43

Post by the_cat_kittles » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 6:57 PM UTC

biggieshellz wrote: post #24

quacked wrote: post #16

Oh yeah, Monk is 100% right. Keeping time is far more important than both intonation and feel. (And intonation is more important than feel.) Young music students in the US are usually taught in a pre-conservatory style (analogous to how young students are taught in a pre-academic style). This leads to the mental prioritization of playing the correct notes, giving recitals once or twice per season, and following the m…

I agree with you on the vast majority of this, but I think it's a bridge too far to put intonation above feel unconditionally. You are correct that keeping time (what an engineer would call "maintaining a common time base between transmitter and receiver") is necessary to play together with other musicians. But what musicians would call "feel" is what an engineer would call "phase modulation" -- whether a note is ahe…

words of wisdom, no idea who is downvoting this

Re: Thelonious Monk’s Tips for Musicians (1960)

#44

Post by quacked » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 6:59 PM UTC

kashunstva wrote: post #39

quacked wrote: post #16

Oh yeah, Monk is 100% right. Keeping time is far more important than both intonation and feel. (And intonation is more important than feel.) Young music students in the US are usually taught in a pre-conservatory style (analogous to how young students are taught in a pre-academic style). This leads to the mental prioritization of playing the correct notes, giving recitals once or twice per season, and following the m…

> If you've ever been to a kid's recital and all the pieces sound awful, it's not because they can't play their instruments, it's because their teachers taught them the mental habit of stopping when they made a mistake Professionally I’m a collaborative pianist. My job is accompanying pre-college instrumental students in auditions, recitals, master classes. Trust me, there’s a near infinite variety of ways to sound a…

> This is a very neglected area of piano pedagogy. It also relates to the great difficulty of most chamber works for piano.

You are SO right. I really wish that modern composers would come up with a bunch of chamber stuff that actually sounds good (i.e. like real baroque/classical/romantic music) but isn't incredibly difficult. I have never once played in a chamber ensemble as a pianist, and I was up to about the level of the easier Beethoven sonatas by the time I "quit" and started focusing on guitar. All of my favorite chamber piano pieces (Mendelssohn piano trios, Schubert Trout Quintet, Brandenburgs, etc.) would require 2-5 years of intense daily practice to even play a movement at speed with mistakes.

> Trust me, there’s a near infinite variety of ways to sound awful

Yeah, yeah, okay, fair enough. But I'd bet that the biggest improvement most of them could make right off the bat would be keeping time properly. (Maybe not if you're on a wind instrument and can only honk.)

Re: Thelonious Monk’s Tips for Musicians (1960)

#45

Post by dwringer » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 7:00 PM UTC

UIUC_06 wrote: post #22

Yhippa wrote: post #9

Ooh, some good ones in there even for us concert band folks: > Pat your foot and sing the melody in your head when you play. I usually just tap my toes quietly within my shoe. > Don’t play the piano part, I am playing that. Don’t listen to me, I am supposed to be accompanying you! Sub piano for whatever solo or soli instruments have the spotlight. > What you don’t play can be more important than what you do play. > A…

> I usually just tap my toes quietly within my shoe Right. The conductor will hate seeing you tap your feet. So just don't let them see.

I don't think I ever met a conductor who would openly disapprove of foot tapping unless it were loud or maybe someone sat on the very end directly in front of the audience and did it in a very distracting way. The alternative of musicians keeping poor time would be far worse.

Re: Thelonious Monk’s Tips for Musicians (1960)

#46

Post by quacked » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 7:04 PM UTC

kashunstva wrote: post #42

aidenn0 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My son is learning the piano and I cannot seem to teach him rhythm. Aside from the habit of stopping at every error (which bugs me to no end), he can hear a song once or twice and pick out the correct notes, but rhythm is still a mystery to him. I learned rhythm so long ago (it was a core part of my elementary school music class before I ever started learning an instrument on my own) that I have no clue how to help h…

Metronome diet. I play professionally and still use the metronome every single day. I tell students if I can, they can too. Some may see it as a crutch that prevents one from developing an internal pulse. I disagree; but maybe it’s a fake it ‘til you make it circumstance. If you set the metronome to accent the downbeat, it is difficult to allow yourself the luxury of stopping and restarting on errors. The most freque…

> it’s the tempo of perfection

I believed in this as well for many years, but I've taken some lessons with famous bluegrass guitarists and all three of them said that you can't really play fast (which in bluegrass is "blistering") unless your body has a feeling for what it's like to be moving quickly at speed without tensing up. All three recommended occasionally taking a swing a tempo that was too fast just to get the feel there.

I've ended up on the following practicing diet, all to metronome:

CYCLE THROUGH:

- 1 rep Slow, No Mistakes (you can think really deliberately about what comes next)

- 1 rep Medium, 1 Mistake Max (you're using mostly muscle memory)

- 1 rep Fast, 3-5 Mistakes Max (focusing on how your body feels moving this quickly without tensing)

Then at the end of the practice session I'll take one or two (or admittedly five or six) inappropriately fast just for fun. I've been informed that this is possibly undoing some of the work I did in the practice session, but I'm playing music to enjoy myself, not to get as good as possible as quickly as possible.

Re: Thelonious Monk’s Tips for Musicians (1960)

#47

Post by biggieshellz » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 7:16 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #36

quacked wrote: post #16

Oh yeah, Monk is 100% right. Keeping time is far more important than both intonation and feel. (And intonation is more important than feel.) Young music students in the US are usually taught in a pre-conservatory style (analogous to how young students are taught in a pre-academic style). This leads to the mental prioritization of playing the correct notes, giving recitals once or twice per season, and following the m…

My son is learning the piano and I cannot seem to teach him rhythm. Aside from the habit of stopping at every error (which bugs me to no end), he can hear a song once or twice and pick out the correct notes, but rhythm is still a mystery to him. I learned rhythm so long ago (it was a core part of my elementary school music class before I ever started learning an instrument on my own) that I have no clue how to help h…

Not sure how old your son is, but this is what I'm doing with my 5 year old with the same issue. Find some good old-school funk from the late '70s / early '80s with a four-on-the-floor type of drum beat. Zapp, Cameo, Gap Band, or something like that. Get your son to count along "1-2-3-4" with each of the beats and clap his hands on "2" and "4". Once he's reliable at doing that when you don't start it for him, then get him to stomp his foot on "1" and "3", or just "1". Once he's got that down, there are all sorts of things you can do. He can copy rhythms you clap, or if he's good with notation, he can practice writing down a rhythm you clap.

Alternatively, you could always get him drum lessons. This is the meat and potatoes of what a good drum teacher would cover.

Re: Thelonious Monk’s Tips for Musicians (1960)

#48

Post by angst_ridden » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 7:22 PM UTC

There's a quotation, which I think may have been Monk, which I've been trying to track down the exact source. It's along the lines of "All I want is a simple melody, and I gotta go through all the bullshit again."

Ring any bells? I had someone tell me that I was completely high and it was Ellison, not Monk, but I cannot confirm.

Re: Thelonious Monk’s Tips for Musicians (1960)

#49

Post by aiwv » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 7:26 PM UTC

quacked wrote: post #16

Oh yeah, Monk is 100% right. Keeping time is far more important than both intonation and feel. (And intonation is more important than feel.) Young music students in the US are usually taught in a pre-conservatory style (analogous to how young students are taught in a pre-academic style). This leads to the mental prioritization of playing the correct notes, giving recitals once or twice per season, and following the m…

> If you look up "Victor Wooten Music Lesson" on YouTube

I can't recommend Victor Wooten enough. His book "The Music Lesson" is also great.

Re: Thelonious Monk’s Tips for Musicians (1960)

#50

Post by aiwv » Thu, Dec 22, 2022, 7:33 PM UTC

quacked wrote: post #44

kashunstva wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you've ever been to a kid's recital and all the pieces sound awful, it's not because they can't play their instruments, it's because their teachers taught them the mental habit of stopping when they made a mistake Professionally I’m a collaborative pianist. My job is accompanying pre-college instrumental students in auditions, recitals, master classes. Trust me, there’s a near infinite variety of ways to sound a…

> This is a very neglected area of piano pedagogy. It also relates to the great difficulty of most chamber works for piano. You are SO right. I really wish that modern composers would come up with a bunch of chamber stuff that actually sounds good (i.e. like real baroque/classical/romantic music) but isn't incredibly difficult. I have never once played in a chamber ensemble as a pianist, and I was up to about the lev…

Yeah, I was astounded by how quickly my singing improved when I started practicing with a metronome. Keeping time seems to me the easiest thing to improve if you focus on it (but that's just my subjective opinion). Once you can keep good time, the rhythm of the song imposes restrictions on you that actually help you figure out how to physically perform the movements demanded by the music and then subsequently groove them so that you can focus on all the other elements of making music.