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Probably the best two activities any songwriter can and should be doing is listening to and playing music. You’ll learn more by listening to good songs and being curious about what they’ve done to create those songs, and then imitating those ideas with your instrument, than by doing practically anything else.
Here’s something that will reinforce the power of listening and playing as important learning activities. A number of years ago I taught university-level ear training. All students in the various music degree offerings were required to take my course for two years.
I had students whose ears were so good they could, as the expression goes, hear paint dry. But I also had students who struggled. Most of my students passed, but some seemed to have almost no ability to identify chords by ear, and certainly had very limited skills in transcribing melodies by ear.
There’s no magic pill for suddenly being able to hear musical constructs and identify them by ear. My job, as I saw it, was to give these struggling students some tools for being able to do just that. Sometimes I’d see improvements, but as I say, there was no magic pill. You could pretty much know on the first day of class who would be passing my course with flying colours, and who’d be struggling, or perhaps even failing once or twice.
But here’s the interesting thing: By the time all students, even the ones who struggled with my course, got to the end of their degree program — usually a 4-year program — they all had pretty good ears. Even the ones who passed my course by the skin of their teeth seemed to somehow, in the next two years, become able to hear and identify musical elements by ear.
I like to think that the techniques I gave them are at least partly responsible for their new abilities, but I think there was more to it than that — much more. In every course they took to complete their degree, the common activities were listening to and playing music.
Whether they were learning music history, theory, studying counterpoint, harmony, choral conducting, composition and/or music education, the two common activities were listening to music, and playing it.
And just those experiences were, I believe, responsible for this tremendous increase in their aural skills.
With songwriting, you can (and should) be talking to other songwriters, reading what songwriters and songwriting instructors have to say about the proper construction of good music, working with a good producer or sound engineer, because any and all of those things allows you to draw on the experience of other successful musicians.
But just as my weakest students seemed to greatly improve their aural skills even without my help just through the act of experiencing music on a daily basis, I believe the best thing you can do as a songwriter is to:
- listen to good songs every day, and get curious about was done to get those songs sounding the way they do; and
- play your instrument daily. We don’t often think of playing as an important songwriting tool, but it really is! You can generate good songwriting ideas as you work on improving your instrumental technique.
Written by Gary Ewer. Follow Gary on Twitter
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