Music enthusiasts often get trapped in questions like how to nourish their music skills when they fall short of ideas in terms of what to practice and what not.
If you are a musician you will always have the urge to outshine your current music skills or abilities, however, it becomes frustrating when you have no idea how to do that.
Imagine you enter a rehearsal studio without knowing what to practice, what will you do then? I guess nothing.
Whether it’s about learning a musical instrument wherein you are unable to reach the next step or improving the quality of your voice, you certainly get bored of practising the exercises over and over again, and that’s what stops your growth as a musician.
As far as beginners are concerned they can join music schools to improve their skills, however, those who have already taken music lessons find it hard to develop their abilities further. NYC music schools offer commendable music lessons to students and end up making them good musicians.
However, if you are practising music on your own, you get stuck soon with your monotonous routine, and that’s when you need the right suggestions.
Here are some tips on how to nourish your music skills when you fall short of ideas
1. Play An Instrument By Ear
If you have no idea what to do in your rehearsal studio start playing a musical instrument such as the piano by ear.
If there is a piece of music that you have heard recently and you have liked it too much then try playing it by ear.
If you want to outperform your abilities make sure that you do not look for sheet music notation, otherwise, you won’t be doing justice to your practice session.
If you want to master your instrumental skills, playing by ear is what you should be practising quite often.
There are a lot of advantages to learning a piece of music by ear, such as it stays with you forever. That means you won’t be able to forget a tune for a long time if you have learned it by ear.
2. Work On Your Intervals
In the context of music, an interval is nothing but the gap between two pitches which is often elucidated as linear, horizontal and melodic. To improve yourself as a musician, it is essential for you to precisely figure out intervals.
If you start working on your intervals you will eventually become familiar with different types of sounds so that you can process them easily.
Working on your intervals is significant both for advanced players as well as beginners when it comes to enhancing their skills. You must have extensive knowledge of all 12 intervals.
3. Start Transcribing Solos
If you are willing to work on improvisation you must start transcribing solos to understand the technicalities of making music.
However, to get even better results when it comes to making great music, it’s better to learn how to create the language that you are planning to transcribe. Identifying ‘notes’ is just not enough if you want to improve truly.
It requires a lot of time to understand the technicalities of the process of transcription, hence you should get ready to work hard.
If you are unable to proceed creatively, start transcribing blues.
4. Learn How To identify Chord Progressions
To improve a solo it is crucial to hear a chord progression, otherwise, you are never going to succeed in your endeavour.
The piano is one of the most important musical instruments when it comes to identifying chord progressions.
Chose a standard that you have heard and concentrate on chord progressions’ four bars. Instead of guessing or identifying the progression at once try to focus on the movement and attribute of the chords.
This exercise helps in understanding and identifying chord progression.
In addition to that, when it comes learning how to play the piano helps a lot.
5. Start Working On Sight Reading
Sight reading is tremendously essential for any musician and hence if you have no idea what to practice start working on it immediately.
If you fail to practice it frequently you will end up losing this skill of yours. Get sheet music and start working on sight reading by establishing a tempo and trying to emulate the pitches as much as possible.
However, what matters the most, in this case, is rhythmic precision.
6. Listen to The Music Developed By Your Favorite Musician
If in case you are sitting in your rehearsal room and do not want to practice anything, then do yourself a favour and start listening to the music developed by some of your favourite musicians.
This will provide a lot of relief to you and it will inspire you to make wonderful music.
In short, if you are tremendously desperate about improving your musical abilities, you will surely find something interesting to do during your practice session, however, if you are completely stuck you can make use of the advice given in this post.