Play along with the streaming service/radio/tv commercials

You know who recommended that to me?

Everyone who actually works as a musician.

I have never heard a music teacher say this. So I will.

• Play along with the streaming service/radio/television commercials. You’ll get good faster.

This morning, I meant to go outside to pluck some weeds and weedwack some hedges. As I was heading out the door, though, a Hermanos Gutiérrez song caught my ear drums, and so I sat down and played along with them. And then Khruangbin with Leon Bridges came on, so I had to join them for a song, and before you know it 30 minutes have gone by and I've performed, to perfection, with six bands.

Ok, I am being kind-of funny about the perfection part here, but not really:

Playing for fun, listening to the parts where you can fill in or for the parts you happen to know or for the parts where you’ve always wondered about…that’s not some random garbage task. Those are important skills that improve your musicianship.

And doing it for fun releases you from “I sHoULd PlAy it tHis WaY”. You’re listening for how you would play it, and then you’re doing it in real time, and that is everything.

That’s the whole point.

Yes, you’re going to make mistakes, yes, you’re going to forget this chord and that passage and play in the wrong key.

Who is listening, exactly, for all of that? Not one person except you. And when you’re playing for fun thusly, guess what? You laugh at all that and find work-arounds in real time with joy.

And THAT’S everything too.

It works in all genres:

If you're working on a concerto, yes, you can get the karaoke version. But seriously, why not join Mitusko Uchida with the Cleveland Orchestra on your Bluetooth speakers? You'll have to play louder than her to hear you over her.

Yeah. Do that.

It works at all levels too:

Let’s say you’re a beginner guitarist and you love Rush and are determined to play La Villa Strangiato. First, Alex Lifeson would consider that a very cool honor that you’d spend time working that out. Second, nailing that would so improve your artistry, far more than just attending lessons. If you took lessons while learning this, whoa—the lessons would help guide you to proper form and technique so that you can do this forever. A good teacher would help you build the foundation so that you would not be a one-trick pony—a good teacher would guide you so that your skill set encompasses the technical acumen necessary to play this well…and when you move on to other music, you’ll be able to replicate that quality because you know how you got there.

So what if, in the beginning, you can only play a note here and there along with the song?

So what?

The first time, yeah, it’ll be a note or two in the whole nine minute song or 20 minute concerto.

The second time, though, it’ll be three.

The next time, it might be a whole phrase.

That’s a whole phrase you couldn’t even conjure up in your imagination being able to play one week ago. And now you can play a phrase.

Here’s the other magical thing—

It’s not like your skills only work on the one song. One day, you’ll realize you can pluck out similar phrases on other songs.

And you’ll note that you were not able to hear that one month ago. But today, now, you can.

That’s how that works. That’s why daily enjoyment is so fantastic, even if it’s only five minutes, even if it’s just one song. The skills build.

And one day, you can play the whole song…shaky at first, then with more confidence until you play in front of another and it crashes and burns and you work on the nervousness…and then one day you’re playing YYZ at the company holiday party four tequilas in and it’s truly magnificent and you become Legend in your department.

Keep going.

• Play along with the streaming service/radio/television commercials. You’ll get good faster.

We teach this.