'My students are full of $@!&' | How to not suck at music #3

Sign up for your FREE trial to the Great Courses Plus here: 

Many thanks to edvard_the_nessward, joseph is rad, Pierre hayed and rhandhom1 for their submissions!

If you’d like to submit something for a future episode of How to Not Suck at Music, please email your submission to....

The Great Courses Plus is currently available to watch through a web browser to almost anyone in the world and optimized for the US market. The Great Courses Plus is currently working to both optimize the product globally and accept credit card payments globally.

SUPPORT ME ON PATREON

FOLLOW ME ON THE INTERNETS

Check out some of my music

Peace,
Adam

[Noobshire]

"If you want to be told you're good at something, ask your nan."

[knelasevero]

He did give them positive feedback about their technique. Its not like he is only bashing the guys. It would be useless to only say that they were fine. He just tries to find your musician level, and give you good advice to improve and go beyond.

[Ben-wone]

Adam's smug 'I'm on TV playing bass' face is the best. You looked so in the grove it destroys any workings of logic.

[keixoun]

I always try to pause the video just before Adam says BASS at the end, the same way i try to stop the microwave 1 second before finishing heating my leftovers.

[OrisStories]

I dreamt I went on a date with you. We had fun. Thanks!

[seangates]

I'll never forget the day I was playing contrabassoon with a student composer in the room, and I saw an A below the staff (lowest note on a grand piano), and told him "we only get down to Bb!"

[sihplak]

For that last submission, a cheap resource that could help that submitter and other people in their position would be the "Essential Dictionary of Orchestration". It's a little pocket book that goes over the range, timbre and mechanical aspects of many many instruments varying from vocal ranges to orchestral strings to mallet percussion and so on.

[mirageowl]

People always call me out when I put my guitar on my left leg, and I do it mostly out of habit since I learned to play that way when I first learned acoustic. There were these pictures of men sitting in the "correct" way and my teacher would show me and you should sit like this and hold like this and such.

[filthycheat]

This is absolutely amazing.  A lot of musicians are self taught and never got to have an experience with an instructor like this.  I just wish you could do drums.

[nsseksr]

How do you cut the back of your head with a cutting machine? I have to ask my mother to help me. Do you have some technique you wanna share??

[waranghira]

Wow, he knows his stuff. Even the physiological effects of small details.

[KerryCronic]

this is the first one of these that i've seen. This is really cool that you do this!

[gargamelts]

Adam,
I have rewritten this comment so many times trying to edit it down until I realized the reason I never truly took lessons in music after childhood was because I had a terrible teacher who would flick my ear when (I assume) he was frustrated at my playing. I dropped my instrument when I was 10 or 11 and picked it up again when I was 16 and began having to relearn it but only enough to get by. It wasn't until this past summer that I have realized some form of discipline to actually focus on music daily for hours on end. I have always enjoyed creating it as a past time but I want to now take it to the next step. I have been taking vocal lessons with this fantastic operatic singer and he has been pushing me to go to school for music (something I've never done. My school system had no serious music programs). As an experiment I took the summer off to really focus on music and lessons. I took stock at the end and realized that I've never felt better. My mental health was the best its been and I was happy, energetic, and excited playing from when I woke up until I needed to sleep so I can get up early to start the next day's music. I finally realized at the age of 29 almost 30 that music is something that I should probably have been pursuing more seriously my whole life (although if I were being honest with myself, I wouldn't have been mature enough to discipline myself to do so until now).

Few weeks ago I realized I needed to create practice routines and a way to ensure I learn and improve daily tracking as I go instead of just jamming over chords to compose a song or 'making beats' day in and day out. I've begun to journal what I am doing and learning. I've also began to really focus on improving my dexterity on piano.

My voice teacher (the only one I have stuck with longer than a few weeks besides my childhood private piano teacher mentioned earlier) has been pushing me to start pursuing music at a comm. college class for voice and also to get more involved there actively participating in chorale groups and surrounding myself with actual music majors. Finally, the music mentor I've needed my whole life! My current goal is to get into a music school hopefully after a couple years or so of community college (I'm lucky they have a great program for music and that I already work for the college doing the music departments sound, lights, and tech work for their performances).

So, what should someone looking at getting into a music school in a couple years work on and have an understanding/working knowledge of so they are not miles behind everyone else (in case they were to get in on a fluke and not actually able to keep up)? Since you are a lot younger and a more recent graduate from a music school than my current teachers, I would value your opinion. Would my age be a significant disadvantage if I am willing to put in the disciplined time and energy to focus on my studies? I know after a certain age the brain is supposed to be less malleable to learning music than of someone younger, but besides that? I am willing to accept that disadvantage as a given and understand that I may need to spend more time at an instrument, or with a subject, to get the same understanding as someone say ten years my younger.

Honestly when I saw your video where you spoke about the atmosphere of a music school where everyone is thirsty for music and practicing and growing, that was when I knew that's where I want to be somehow. Thanks Adam, I appreciate your videos a ton and I understand not being bothered to respond to this ridiculous block of text. Perhaps I should be studying how to make my point in fewer words, not music. :) Anyway, I'm not going to let my age stop me from pursuing music and working towards perhaps an impossible goal. It was only these past two months where I considered that music school may be obtainable if I'm driven enough.

[Thegbear]

Thank you past Adam for precisely explaining why my technique was causing my left hand to slow down, I was making all of the same mistakes as the first guy on the neck. Life saver!

[jamesbarros]

You know, I’ve never really respected your informative and supportive videos where you take your time to help me and countless others out by clearly and simply explaining not only complex theory but also how to improve our playing, but now that I know you were on tv, I guess I will :)

[michaelcalder]

Beautiful a great educator. Learning so much, the musical reasoning that leads to improving performance.

[mariacopley]

My dad is a musician with 50 years experience and 4 degrees in music, especially composition, and he always tells me when writing on Sibelius to remember how instruments actually sound, and also how to make what I'm writing playable - if he's not sure, he always asks a player of the instrument for advice. Things like people writing 3/4 note chords for bowed stringed instruments, impossible intervals and chords on piano and other chord instruments and writing out of range for singers are all problems which can be avoided with a bit of common sense!

[Ty-ziwe]

glad to see you advertising, i want to see more content makers like you going full time. keep doing what ya do <3

[Timliu]

Not a full-time musician and only trying my best to improve everyday, but I love these videos - they give me new insights even if I do not play the bass guitar. Thank you for these videos Adam - you rock!

[SleepSoul]

It's How To Not Suck At Music, not Whether You Suck At Music.