Is Performance More Important Than Practice?
In my current musical life, I’m awarded with a lot of performance time. I play in five musical projects and three of them almost never rehearse or practice together. We almost always leave people amazed that we just improvised for three plus hours without running out of ideas. The fun of having a pure, musical conversation with a bunch of great players can not be overstated. Now, do I recommend that every student of music jump into an all improv performance situation? Yes! Maybe after some basics have been developed first. You need to have understanding, basic competence, and basic vocabulary of the style being played.
Like a language, there is a big difference between knowing a few words and phrases, and being fluent. Fluency, in this case, is the ability to express yourself completely within a given conversation (language), or style (music). I feel that true mastery of anything required immersion into the context of what you’re learning. In language learning, interacting with native speakers and living in the culture is the gold standard to adopting a given language. Music shares many similarities with language. Immersing yourself in a music tradition is now easier than it has ever been. One can take lessons with “native” speakers in just about any conceivable style, from just about anywhere on the planet, all through the internet! Not to mention the wealth of music to be found for free on the internet through various sites like bandcamp and YouTube. Just as you speak on different topics with differing levels of expertise, you play in different styles with differing levels of expertise. Styles are the various topics of musical conversations. You will be able to play very well and have tremendous insight in a particular style. At the same time you may have nothing to say at all in another style that you are unfamiliar with.
Some players decide to become specialists in a specific style of music. Their focus becomes narrowed to the traditions, vocabulary, and culture of the style of music they’re interested in, with very little focus on other styles and concepts. Every style has deep roots. Becoming a true student of a musical tradition can be a life long undertaking.
Others players decide to become generalists, knowing a little about many different styles of music. I have taken this approach in my musical development. I’ve found that, despite the topic or style changing within differing musical situations, I am able to acceptably participate by knowing some generalities about a given style. This is how I can play an improvised funk gig on Wednesday and sub for a country band on Saturday. I’ve learned enough vocabulary in both styles to express myself adequately on the gig. Music, at least Western music, has commonalities. Conversations have different contexts and vocabularies but the words are in the same language with roughly the same definitions. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule, but it’s a good starting point.
I believe the generalist and specialist approaches are equally valid. It becomes an issue of personal preference and desire. In fact, I think you should incorporate both approaches into your musical development. I love to take a three month deep dive into a set of three or four topics of emphasis. An example might be a style of music, lets say, Samba. From there, I will break it down into specific subsets of study, all relating back to the given style of Samba. I will investigate the history and cultural significance of the style usually while listening to a playlist of the style of music. From there, I will learn the basic parts used in the style, usually out of context from transcriptions of music or from method books if available. Last I will play WITH the music, using the coordination, vocabulary, and rudiments developed in the previous steps. Playing with the music, especially drumless track, is where it all comes together. You get context when you play with the music. You learn why and when to play a given part.
By taking the specialist approach outlined above, you will go through different styles and gain enough knowledge to adequately play the style when it comes up in a musical situation. However, a curious generalist theme is the revealing itself during the whole process. Each three month “quarter” introduces a brand new set of concepts to work on and become familiar enough with to use in a performance situation. At the end of a one year period you should be well versed in four styles! This is amazing growth when you factor in how well you will know the styles.
Most of us will reach a point where we are captivated by a certain styles of music and they will become our main focus. Mine are definitely funk and fusion. I can still remember the first time I heard the funky and jazzy sounds of Medeski, Martin, & Wood. I all but abandoned my hard rock and country roots for years while I explored the vastness of funk, jazz, and fusion. When I made this change, I was exposed to many new sounds and styles that I had never heard in hard rock or country. Reggae, Afro-beat, songo, soca, linear grooves, I was hooked and I still spend most of my time on funk and experimental music. That being said, I am still on my journey to learn more styles and be as close to a native speaker as I can get. This Generalist/Specialist approach serves me very well in improvised and experimental music. The more you know, the more you can play. If the band goes from a four-on-the-floor dance party to a one drop reggae you will need to make a musical choice based on your knowledge of the two styles. You can probably see how scary it could be if you had no knowledge of one or both of these styles. When speaking a language, your vocabulary helps you to express your thoughts more accurately and completely. When playing music, your technique and vocabulary help you in the exact same ways. The more music you‘ve heard and played, the larger pool of information you will have to draw your ideas from.
So, how do you go about practicing improvisation? For me, it has always been first about listening for context and appreciation, and then applying what I hear and learn about a style during practice. When both of those things are successful, you gain the ability to play those ideas you worked so hard on in the practice room with real music! When I hear a new style of music that interests me, I find several different artists doing that style and try to distill the sum of all the parts into the common thread that runs through all the artist’s unique interpretations of the music. Then I will look for examples of what the percussion is specifically doing in a given style. I will learn the basic structures of the song style and answer the questions of what to play, when to play it, and why to play it. Music is a conversation and the why of our musical parts often lies in the parts of the other musicians. It’s a symbiotic relationship; everyone contributing their unique parts to both separate themselves from the group and unify it. As with any good conversation, it is of equal or greater importance to listen as much or more than you speak. There is a wealth of knowledge for those who take the time to listen to their ensemble mates play their parts.
Let’s revisit my initial question: is performance more important than practice? No. It’s my opinion that practice is the building block to better performance. If you do nothing but practice you’ll never know the adrenaline rush and distractions that come with playing music in front of a live audience. But, if all you do is perform, you’re not getting in the repetition to truly master an idea. Not to mention, practice is where you can take ideas you have from your last performance and fully flesh the concepts out without the distraction of the audience or other players. You can break things down into their smallest pieces, gather a deeper understanding of how those pieces fit into the whole, and really nail the concepts. I call this working the idea in a “vacuum”. You are removing the idea from context and only focusing on the basic elements of the groove without the song and without the other musicians. When you put the idea back into context, you’re adding all the things that make it music. I believe practice should always be relevant to the task and goal at hand, if you have a show where you’re learning specific parts to specific songs, then working on your improvisation skills may need to take a temporary back seat to learning and executing the songs to the best of your ability. Putting a purpose at the forefront of your practice routine will focus and guide your time much better than randomly sitting down and “noodling”. You fight like you train and excellence never happens by accident. Practice and Performance are two sides of the same coin and I highly recommend you find the best balance you can between the two.
