A Neat Little Exercise.

For those who can identify pitch and rhythm on the stave, but are slow to interpret it, I have some exercises that will help you hone these skills. These exercises can also be applied to practice on the instrument.

For the first exercise in pitch recognition, you have to choose a melodic pattern. This can be something as simple as an interval, a scale, a chord or arpeggio, and so forth. The goal is to then perform or notate that pattern in at various tonal centers, while keeping the same rhythmic pattern. Basic subdivisions like crotchets, quavers, and semiquavers are more than sufficient, but you can experiment with mixing subdivisions and using tie's and dots as well, the only requirement for the rhythmic section in this exercise is that it remains the same. So if you've chosen straight semiquavers in 4/4, you retain that rhythm for the entire exercise. It's also vital that you visualise the instrument, and imagine the sound of each note/phrase/passage/etc.

The second exercise which is in rhythmic recognition, is the opposite to the previous exercise. Instead of repeating a pattern in pitch over a various tonal centers with a specific, locked rhythmic pattern - you play or notate the melodic/chordal pattern over just one tonal center, and experiment with variations of rhythmic patterns over that one pattern.

The third exercise is a mix of the two. Repeating the melodic pattern at various tonal centers with varying rhythms.

These exercises help to cultivate pattern recognition in listening/playing, and reading/writing, and other than the three direct outcomes of the exercises themselves, they have three other possible outcomes that will manifest in your reading and writing:

1. Pitch pattern over fixed tonal center with fixed rhythm.
2. Free notation and identification of possibilities in pitch and rhythm.

The first two exercises plus these three extra outcomes are hitting five birds with three stones. Highly effective and efficient practice!

A Return from Hiatus and What to Expect in the Near Future.

In the past few months, I had made more effort into promoting and creating content for my Youtube channel. I took a break after a while to ensure that I don't burn out.

Other than building a bigger presence on Youtube, and occasionally busking and teaching a few students here and there, I haven't been very active at all in my musical endeavours.

A major contributing factor to my lack of productivity that I only realised in the past few days, is that I had ceased my music journaling. My music journaling consists not only of before, during, and after reflections on my practice, but also philosophical and intellectual ideas behind things like effective practice and creative processes - the kind of stuff that I publish on this website.

I had considered ditching posting articles here in favour of making Youtube videos, but now I have the conviction that keeping up with publishing articles on musicianship is a habit that will keep me mentally fresh and proactive. I have confidence that this practice will also help me be more proactive in my Youtube content and other areas of my music career, and managing life in general.

So what can we expect in the near future? More journaling, which means more articles, more videos, more lessons, more recordings, and more performances. Journaling was the missing key.

Journaling is important guys! If you're not journaling, you're missing out on a lot of potential!