Practice and the Influence of Multimedia

About 4-5 years ago a colleague of mine shared a story with me in regards to a young musician. A primary school student was selected to play percussion in the Junior State Wind Band, an ensemble for students selected across NSW from year five through to eight. This student's role, in one piece of music, was to play the snare drum. The rhythms in the piece of music they had to perform were continuous and complex as they would be syncopated then return to being on the beat. My colleague, who was there at the time, was not sure whether or not they would be able to play their part. Come the first rehearsal, the student performed their snare part and did not miss one beat the entire time. After the rehearsal, the percussionist was asked how they learned such a complex part. Their response was simple; "I YouTubed it."

More often than not, I find a lot of young musicians these days conducting a lot of their own research using the internet and the vast websites available to give insight into performances of pieces of music. I'll even admit that I will use a variety of sites to find recordings, audio or visual, to gather some ideas on performing a piece of music or in a particular style/genre.

However, one aspect of this form of research I find very concerning these days is that a recorded resource will be used purely just to tell students how to perform a piece of music. A section may prove to be overly complex, especially in regards to rhythm, so instead of trying to figure out this rhythm on their own a student will instead listen to a recording and take it as gospel without ever really understanding why or how it functions. I have even worked with students who have almost refused to attempt playing a piece of music because they haven't heard the piece or I haven't played it to them.

On the way home from a workshop I taught at, this past week, I listened to an interview with past cricket captain, Greg Chappell, on the ABC sports program Inside Edge. There was quite a bit discussed about his early playing career and his mentors, especially with the influence from his family. One quote stood out for me for the whole interview. I even had to pull the car over to the side of the road in order to quickly write it down.

"If you can't think for yourself, you'll never quite understand it."

In the world of music and reading traditional notation, I find it quite amazing how transparent the language is to read and follow yet can be so simple to skim over and completely misinterpret. I think back to when I was a lot younger going through high school and deliberately missing or skipping basic pieces of detail that would not only make a piece of music sound better (and as intended), but easier to perform.

While something such as the example above would normally be assumed and dismissed as a "lack of maturity", I would disagree and suggest that it is more of a lack of discipline and determination. All the detail and instructions will always be found within the notation of a piece of music, yet there are students out there that don't trust to follow everything that is set out before them on their music (some may even admit it comes down to laziness). The instant gratification of listening to the piece of music is assumed to be acceptable, and the creative thought is sucked out as a carbon copy of the recording is replicated (or attempted to replicate). By no means am I saying recordings should never be used but they should be utilised in a studious manner once we know and understand how the music, we are working on, functions.

Musicians have the ability to anticipate, calculate, and analyse as part of their performance craft. This should be encouraged of all student musicians to embrace, and not purely to allow them to huddle themselves in a corner trusting someone else (or technology) to do it for them.

Yes, it does take time to learn the music without someone parroting it to you.

Yes, technology can give you the answers to your music faster. But, do you understand how you got to your answer?

Think about it.