One Man Mormon Blues Band: Journal

"When you feel in your gut what you are, and then dynamically pursue it - don't back down and don't give up - then you're going to mystify a lot of folks."
-Bob Dylan-

Welcome back. Are you ready for today’s lesson? Ah, you look discouraged today. I see. I have heard this before. I have even felt these same feelings. You don't feel you are making any progress. Your music doesn't seem as much fun as before. You don’t think you are improving. You feel that you have no talent and might as well quit. These are difficult feelings. I am sorry you feel them, but many others felt the same things. Possibly everyone who has ever tried to do something that is difficult, rewarding, and that takes a long time has felt these things. This is an affliction of the heart, but it is caused by the body. May I tell you a story about how your body works? It might help you.

The cells of the human body can grow in two ways, larger in size or larger in number. In fact, probably both must occur during normal development. Cells will not divide into two until they have reached a minimal size. That is why it takes time to grow larger when you are a child, or for wounds to repair after an injury or surgery. While it is a generality, we can say that human cells divide once about every twenty four hours. Some tissues are faster than this and others are slower. When a person has surgery or a serious injury, they are often tired for about six weeks. This is because it takes about six weeks to grow new tissue and heal the wounds. Of course, the type of surgery or injury may cause variation in this time frame, and young people heal faster than older people. But six weeks is a nice average.

When we learn how to do new things that require a physical skill, it is a very similar process. We must grow new muscle cells or enlarge old ones into new configurations. Or maybe it is new neurons branches that we are growing, it is the same. It is reasonable to suspect that this might only happen with constant demand from frequent practice and that it will take some time to complete. Unfortunately, six weeks can seem like a very long time to people. Especially in our culture and time in history where people seem to be in a hurry and do not want to wait six weeks to loose weight, become stronger, or learn a new skill. When you are practicing and nothing seems to be happening it is possible that you are in this period of time when the new cells, or cell connections, have not been created.

The problem of this plateau is that it can cause discouragement. If discouragement causes you to stop at this point, the physical demand for improvement caused by your practicing will stop the process; and the cells and connections may never be completed. On the other hand, practicing even harder cannot really hurry the process. The cells grow at the pace they grow. It does appear that sometimes, when the stimulation has been intent for a period of time, that a rest period will allow the cells additional energy to complete their growth. That is why sometimes, when we have been away from an activity for a time, and then return, it seems that we are better than we remembered or that we have learned in the absence of experience. But it is hard to know when stimulation has been sufficient and how long to rest from practice.

So in general, it would seem to be best to continue to practice, be patient, and suddenly one day there will be a breakthrough. This will happen again as long as you continue to play. Each level of success and achievement is simply the beginning of a new level of challenge and difficulties. I hope this doesn't sound discouraging to you because it is what you will face with each stage of your life. There are times when each of us become tired of being a child, or a teenager, or a responsible adult, or old. I suspect there were even such times before we came to this earth - trailing our own clouds of glory - when we were ever-so-tired of the pre-existence. I have watched elderly people become impatient with this earthly life and embrace the next with impatience. Plateaus seem to be a part of our existence.

I have tried to think of what it is that helps us most through these times. Is it stubbornness? But stubbornness doesn’t seem to fit the concept of love of activity. Is it love? But love doesn't seem to describe the necessary will and determination needed to continue on. Perhaps it is faith, or the belief that we can overcome, that we will overcome, that we will go over, or under, or through, somehow. Do we believe that we are capable people who can do the things our Heavenly Father put us here to do?

We listen to music almost daily. The radio, television and CD players make it easy for us to hear the very best. This can be discouraging to the music student. Listening to music takes away time It takes away the time we might spend practicing, and it presents a constant standard and reminder to us of how good others are. This standard may not even be real. Much electronic music is manipulated to sound better than the artist can. Perhaps you have been comparing yourself to others and thinking that you aren’t that good, and may never be that good. This is a very dangerous thing to do. In sports there is always someone better. Even the winner of Olympic Gold must do it all again in four years, and expect that at some point a younger athlete will beat the record.

That is why in the Flaming Moth studio I am not concerned with who is best. I do not ask my students to play to beat someone else. I ask them to play to express their voices, their feelings, their lives. I ask them to play for the feelings of accomplishment they will get. I ask you to play for the connection it provides to other people. I ask you to play because I want you to know the love of learning to do difficult things. You will experience plateaus. You will be discouraged, but you can work through those discouragements.

All right, enough lecture. Let’s leave these new pieces for a while. Here are three that you played some time back. Oh yea, you liked that one too. Well, let’s use it instead of this one. There. Have fun with these this week. Practice daily, but you don't have to push hard. Listen to how these sound now, and feel how easily they come to you. Take stock of where you have been and how far you have come. Next lesson we will play these pieces together and see how well they sound.

God can use an excellent man in many ways.
He can't use a mediocre man hardly at all. - Me -

There. You played that piece very well. You are making progress. Yes, you seem to have a little trouble with that one phrase, but I think all you need to do is practice it some more. I know you want to play it perfectly, but perfection is a rare thing. Even if you get the notes right, you must worry about the timing and the phrasing and the dynamics. Then there is always the feeling and interpretation. Most musicians never play a piece perfectly every time. Once in awhile, after much work, a piece will go perfectly. That is a thrill, but very often the next attempt will not go the same way.

You may be trying too hard. Have you ever tried to thread a needle and found your hands shaking so hard it was impossible? And the harder you tried, the harder your hands shook. As we concentrate on a task our mind sends messages to the muscles controlling that area of the body and the muscles tense up in anticipation. But muscles do not work as you think they might. As muscles try to coordinate our movements with our bodies there is a constant feed back mechanism that says to the muscles, “You are moving a little too far left. Move back to the right. Oops! That’s too far. There, now up a little.”

When the muscles are relaxed, the movements are very tiny because only the minimum number of fibers are operating. But as the muscle tenses, more fibers are operating and tense, and there is no slack. When the mind says to adjust, we overdo it. We then easily over-adjust as we try to correct the first error. Our natural, small tremor gets worse and worse. Often this happens when you are nervous during a performance.

There is only one way to perfection. The activity must become as ordinary as walking for you. You must be able to perform the act while doing other activities just as you can walk and talk, listen and whittle, and read and observe. The muscles must not rely on the mind for direction. They must perform their acts from their own “muscle memory”. This memory must be so strong that the muscles cannot perform in any other way.

People who are not musicians often don't know what is behind the performance. The first time I played a hymn on the guitar at Church I practiced by making hash marks in the margin each time I practiced. I did this to make sure I did my minimal practice each day. When I was done I counted and discovered that I had practiced that song, one I already knew and had played a little, 367 times in preparation for that performance. How did the performance go? I did not do it perfectly.

But that is why the perfect performance has such value. It is very rare that someone loves music enough to prepare and dedicate their lives to such achievement. We all wish for things, but not many of us are willing to work for our dreams. It takes love to accomplish such success. The more complex the activity, the more accomplishment must come from love and desire inside the individual. This becomes very clear to the musician. Can you imagine what all this tells you about living a good life? And living a good life is infinitely more complex than playing music perfectly for a few moments. I am not sure that Christ really expects us to have a perfect performance of our lives. But surely he means for us to love him enough to want to. I think that may have been what he meant He said, “Be ye therefore perfect ....”

Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners, she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.
-Martin Luther-

Learning to play an instrument is about more than the instrument. Learning to play an instrument is about learning patience and faith in yourself. It is about hard work, satisfaction, judgment, and good taste. It is about confidence, beauty, and emotions. In my studio I hope you will learn more things about life than just how to play the guitar.

Did you notice that we started with a single note and then moved on to a little melody? It wasn't very hard, although making your fingers go to the right place at the right time is hard for the beginner. Now you have played that melody many times, and it is becoming easier. Sometimes when you begin to play, you might forget how it goes and have to start over. Sometimes your mind will wander and you'll loose your place. The music is not yet a part of you. You are not quite ready to play the feelings in that little melody because you have not played it enough.

It is difficult to express emotions. Many people cannot do it except, perhaps, in private. There are some who cannot express their emotions at all in socially acceptable ways. If you hope to perform this little melody for others so that they can feel the emotions, you must know this music so well that you could not possibly play it incorrectly. Then you can know that you will not make a mistake and then you can think about the feelings and not loose your place.

Most people who do not play music don't understand this. To play the feelings in a musical number you may have to play it hundreds, or thousands, of times. This may sound a bit challenging. But if you have ever disciplined yourself to accomplish a great task and felt the feeling of doing something difficult very well, you will understand why so many people willingly do these things. I cannot make you play your music 1000 times. Your parents or friends cannot make you. You may decide that music is not worth it; but of course, then you will never know whether that is true or not. There are probably easier things to do. But can they yield the satisfaction of having accomplished a truly difficult thing?

If you think practicing music sounds like a difficult task, wait. There is more. Not only may you have to play some music thousands of times, you play it each time the best that you can. Have you ever considered that one thousand repetitions of errors only make it more difficult to learn to do it well? One day, if you find yourself playing beautiful music in front of an audience and know that the feeling is there, you will know it is because you did what you needed to do, when you were supposed to do it, the way you were supposed to do it, every time. Not a bad thing to have accomplished. In the end you will know what kind of person you are.

Of course, it goes without saying that you can only play a song as fast as the song is supposed to be played. One thousand repetitions probably cannot be done all at once. But ten times a day is 70 times a week and 280 times a month. So in about three months you can have played something 1000 times. The decision to do this must come from your desire to do something beautiful and difficult. It must come from your heart. We will know your heart by your discipline.

Truth is deed! The horizon of our knowledge
extends as far as our field of action.
-Bertrand Russel-

It's a great privilege to have you for a student! You have talent. But then, everyone has talent - even in music. Although everyone has musical talent, not everyone develops it. Or maybe not everyone values it as much as you and I do. Also, there are people with more talent than you, or me. To use an analogy of the old west, "There is always a faster gun!"

No matter how much talent you have, you can still become better. You can play an arpeggio just as well as you can. You can perhaps play a tremolo better than you did a year ago. You may not become a concert music star, or a professional musician. You may never be able to play as well as you wish you could. But along the way, you will be learning new skills. Each song you learn will challenge you in different ways. Each will demand that you master unlearned techniques. Some songs are better played on the guitar with a flat pick while others are better played with the fingers. Talent belongs to everyone and skills are our tools.
So which skills do you need to develop? And in which order do you develop them? This is like asking, “which is most important, "what I do with my life", or "how I do it"?” Obviously doing evil things well, isn't admirable. It might seem better to attempt good or grand things, but if they are done so poorly that you fail, or even cause harm, it may not be a better strategy. There are many things we must learn from life and questions we need to ask ourselves. What kinds of things should we do? What kinds of things do we want to do? How much are we capable of doing? What price are we willing to pay to do the things we want to do? What skills do we need to do what we want?

The skill question is sometimes called the “baseball dilemma” because baseball so perfectly captures the quandary. A baseball player may have a natural talent for hitting. But if he cannot field the ball, he cannot help the team in the field. His team may never even get up to bat. So should this player concentrate on developing his inborn, natural skill of hitting to the exclusion of practicing fielding? To do so he runs the risk of having fewer opportunities at bat to hit the ball. Or should he develop his defensive game at the risk of not becoming the hitter he might have become?

Scales are skills. You will never stand before an audience and play the A scale to applause. But scales are fundamental skills. If you cannot play them well, you probably will not be able to play the difficult passages that you would eventually like to play. Or you may not be able to improvise the creative jazz run that you have heard. Even if you never play on stage to acclaim, you can still practice your scales and skills so that you can be prepared for whatever opportunity comes. You will also be able to do what you can do - well. There is joy in knowing you are doing something well.

During your lessons in the Flaming Moth Studio we won't be spending much time with scales. Here we'll make music. But as you practice your instrument, play each scale as if it were the most important skill to be learned. In fact, tackle learning all the skills this way. If you decide that you want to do what you should do, and that you are willing and able to pay the price, then you will acquire the skills that lead to playing beautiful music.

There are more love songs than anything else.
If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another.
- Frank Zappa -

We learn to talk before we learn to read. Making sound is natural to humans. Making pleasing sounds also comes naturally. Listen to babies and notice that they will make the same sounds over and over. Very young children love to sing simple melodies over and over again. All children like to blow on whistles, clap their hands, and dance. Making musical sound is a natural and pleasing thing to do.

Almost anyone, beginning at very young ages, can learn to play a melody. Making a melody can be compared to talking. If you just practice enough, you will probably be able to make the correct sounds at the correct times to make a recognizable melody. So why do the melodies of some people sound better than those of other people?

Every melody has a meaning. A melody can be written about virtually anything, and it can make us feel everything from happy to sad. But it is not the mechanical placement of notes and beats that gives a song meaning make a song enjoyable. You and I enjoy a melody because it makes us feel something. What we feel depends on whether or not the performer feels those same things and is able to share them with us.

If you are a person who does not share your feelings well, it may be hard for you to play with feelings and convey them to the listener. On the other hand, like many people, you may find that you can express feelings in your music that you are otherwise unable to express. For example, there are few things as beautiful as a Mother singing a lullaby to her child. The Mother’s voice doesn't need to be perfectly trained. It's the tenderness and love of her expression that creates the feeling of beauty in her song.

Did you notice that you have learned to play your melody without any written notes? Learning to write and read the language of music will add to your development as a musician, and as a person. For one thing, through written language we are able to save our work for generations to come. In the same way many more people can hear and play your work when it is written down. Too, if the music is written down, you can play the music of others no matter how long ago they lived and no matter how far away. It will be important for you to eventually read music.

Mere music notation is not music, and yet we have no acceptable word for music notation other than music. However, we use the word "music" for many different things: written notation, live sound, recordings, playing, and sometimes even for feelings and other phenomenon. We even talk about “making beautiful music together” or “facing the music”.

For right now, though, it is more important that you feel your music and therefore, learn to play it so others can feel it too. Feelings are not a product of reasoning. But one must understand the music to decide what the feelings are involved. Feelings are not conveyed with technique or even with correct notes. Feelings must come from your heart. Just as people can say words and we recognize that they don’t mean them, so can we play music that others will not believe. It's very hard to let our feelings show in public, but we must share our feelings with others if we want our music to have meaning. And when it comes time to perform, you probably won't be able to think that much . You will simply have to just play. That is why it is so important to practice the way you will play and then be sure to play with feeling.

The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.
- Irving Berlin -

Hello. Welcome back to the Flaming Moth Studio. Go ahead and set up your music and get your instrument out. Today is an exciting day because today we begin to learn melody. We are ready to put together a number of things that you have already learned: one note played with feeling, two notes played in tune, and the rhythm of sounds and silences.

This is a little melody. Listen closely and watch my fingers. There. Now see if you can play it. Very good! Notice that a melody is played one note at a time. Sometimes the notes may be close together on the neck of the guitar and easy to reach with your fingers. Others may require you to stretch, and that will cause you to be slow reaching them. Then you might find that you aren't playing in rhythm. Also, some notes are close together in time. It may be difficult to move your fingers fast enough to play all of them.

But if you will play the notes over and over again for a little while, you will find your fingers remembering what to do and being able to make the stretches and quick changes. On the really hard parts you may want to pause and play just a measure, or phrase, over many times. Here's the promise. If you play the notes correctly often enough, you will eventually be able to play any melody. (Some people say that to be able to play a piece correctly, you may need to play it as many as a thousand times.)

You may be able to play some melodies well after only ten or twenty repetitions. But there may be times when you will have to play a melody many hundreds of times in order to control it. That may seem like a lot, but success comes from hard work.

Repetition is the mother of all learning. Repetition is the mother of all learning. Repetition is the mother of all learning. Repetition is .... Well, we'll repeat that again later.

It's important to realize that because you have to repeat melodies many times to remember them and play them well, there will only be so much time in your life to learn melodies. That's why it is important that you choose carefully the melodies you learn. You cannot learn them all, so learn only the best ones. Or maybe you can write your own melodies.

The limitation of how many melodies you can learn in your time to play music is a good reason for wanting to learn to read music. It will take time to learn how look at notes on a page, remember their names, and then translate them into the appropriate movements of your fingers on your instrument. But if you repeat this process enough, soon your fingers will automatically go to where the notes tell you. This will greatly increase your ability to learn more melodies as well as more beautiful melodies. (Did I mention that repetition is the mother of all learning?)

There is a lot in this lesson to think about. You can only live your life a second, or a minute, at a time. There will be times when you will feel stretched too thin with too many responsibilities. There will be times when things are happening too fast for you. But if you practice and persevere through those times, you will find your ability to handle the stretch and speed of daily life improving. Learning to read what others have done will also greatly improve your ability to make beautiful melodies with your own life. So remember that repetition is the mother of all learning, and embrace opportunities for learning when times are difficult.

OK. Now go home and practice this melody during the week. I suggest you use ten pennies. Place them on one side of your music stand. Then every time you play this melody, move one penny to the other side until you have played the melody 10 times. If you do that every day, you will have played the melody 70 times by the next time we meet. And every time you play this little tune remember two things. First, living life is like playing a melody. We must do both one note, or one minute, at a time. And secondly, repetition is the mother of all learning.

"Information is not knowledge; knowledge is not wisdom; wisdom is not truth; truth is not beauty, beauty is not love; love is not music; music is best."
- Frank Zappa -

Your music is born within you. Now is the time for growing and developing; now in your musical youth. Yet the young are impatient. There are so many notes to play and songs to sing. What if we run out of time? Why do we have to wait? Why can’t we play it now? And when we try to make that beautiful sound, it doesn’t sound like we wanted it to at all? It can be so discouraging.

Learning to play the melody takes a little while. We have to learn the sounds. We have to learn where to put our fingers. We have to learn how hard to play, and how soft to play. We have to learn what the music is supposed to mean. Then, we may have to learn how to read the notes written on a page. Oh yes, and we want you to count too. It may seem very hard and slow learning all these things.
Could we say that learning the melody of your music is a little like being young? There are so many things to learn and think about as you do them!

You might be tempted to say, “Why even try?” But if you watch, you will see others who are a few years ahead of you. They are playing the music. You like their sound. You see other people relating to them, laughing, crying and being moved and inspired. Then you look at still other people. They aren’t playing, or they play poorly. If someone asks them to play some music, they are either embarrassed, or they have to say that they can’t. Did you know that learning to play music now actually makes you free later? See, if you can’t play and someone needs help to play in Church or foe some event, you are not free to help. You are a slave to your inability. You are not free to say you will. But if you can play, then you are free to play on request, or to decline for whatever your reason. But only if you first learn are you really free to say "I will".

In a few years you will be expected to play. Whether or not you are free to say yes depends on whether or not if you learn now. Too, whether you play poorly, or well, depends on your preparation now. The song you can make depends on you. The life you will live depends on your choices now. Which choices lead you to freedom and which lead to bondage?

"Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom.
If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn."
- Charlie Parker -

Well that is enough for one lesson. Go home now, and live! Oh yes, you will need to practice if you want to be a musician. But your instrument is not your life, though your instrument can teach you how to live. You must be fully alive to really play an instrument. Just remember the things you have learned about your instrument. You need to pick it up every day. Decide to do it, and do it. Afterward there will be plenty of time for other important things in your life. Every day, be sure to be in tune. Playing out of tune can teach one many bad habits. So check your standards every day, and make sure you are living wisely and playing well. Feel the rhythm of life by counting under your breath, or at least tapping your foot. There are times to rest and times to work. There are times to practice and times to play. There are times to make your instrument laugh and times to make it cry.

You seldom have all the information you will need, so use life’s rhythm to help you see the outline of what you can become. I’ll see you next week in the Flaming Moth Studio.

"A child wants some kind of undisrupted routine or rhythm. He seems to want a predictable, orderly world. For instance, injustice, unfairness, or inconsistency in the parents seems to make a child feel anxious and unsafe." - Abraham Maslow -

Let’s play together. Ready ... begin. Ooooops! Let’s try again, and we'll see if we can start together. This time I will count the beat to a measure, and we’ll start on one. “One, two, three, four, one.” . . . . There, that’s better.

This is another reason why rhythm is important. It helps us coordinate our actions when we want to play together. If we can both feel the rhythm and count in our heads as we play, we can know when the other is coming in. We can also know when we should play our notes if they are arranged at different times. Timing is very important. Sometimes one of us might loose our place or forget where we are; but if we can keep counting, we know how to come in again. Rhythm helps us when we sit down to play with someone - even if we have never played together before. It even helps if neither of us knows the song.

You might be thinking it is hard to play and count at the same time. It is . . . at first. But you will discover that if you don’t count, you might as well not play. Without counting it won’t sound like what you want to hear anyway. You can copy songs you already know without counting just by mimicking what you have heard. That is counting of a sort. You are just remembering a pattern instead of counting the individual notes. There is nothing wrong in doing that, but you can’t remember all the songs there are to play. And you can’t write any new songs until you can learn to count. So counting while you play is a very important skill to learn.

In life, we seldom have all the information we need to make decisions. Often we feel like we wish we could just get a little more information. Even in business and science, we seldom have all the facts. That is one reason why we make graphs and charts. Knowing where some points are, we can guess other points will be somewhere along the line between those two points.

In music we don’t have all the information either. We usually think that the right note and timing are somewhere evenly spaced between the others. That works pretty well. So don’t be afraid to play a note, and don't be afraid to make a decision. If you are feeling the rhythm and counting under your breath or tapping your foot, you are probably doing just fine.

Music provides us with many opportunities to become better decision makers. The trick is to stay in life’s rhythm. It is hard to do more than one thing at a time in life, as well as in music. If you do not have a method of accounting for your life's actions and behaviors, that you review frequently, you will not be happy with your life's song. It will not come out beautiful and rich. I guess we have to count under our breath while we live, constantly trying to recall what the rhythm of life is, and knowing what to do at each moment. We must make it a high priority to count and measure our actions on a regular basis if we expect to live beautiful music.

Rhythm is something you either have or don't have,
but when you have it, you have it all over.
- Elvis Presley -

Now that we are playing two notes instead of one, there is another discovery we can make. Listen to "how" I play these two notes. Notice that I can play them quickly, with very little pause between them. But now listen. This time I waited a longer time between playing the two notes. I can play the notes quickly so they are "staccato" like ... or I can pause between notes - holding each note out for a long time. The lengths of time between notes, the silent times, are as much a part of the music as the sounds are. Too the length of time a note is held also changes the way the music sounds. The timing of sound is what we call rhythm.

Rhythm is a little like doing dot-to-dot pages'. The page of music is a collection of seemingly random dots, lines and half shapes. Many of the dots are numbered; and if you connect the dots in order of their number sequence, a picture emerges from the lines. This is a little like music where the dots are notes or sounds, and the silent times are the lines that connect them. Together they make pictures in our minds. It seems strange, in some respects, to think about this: that silence is as important to music as sound. But the result of alternating sound and silence can be tremendously compelling.

Rhythm helps us see the pattern of the music. The process can be compared to staring at clouds until you see images of imaginary dragons, heroes or great ships. It is like seeing a face in a rock or in a knotted piece of wood. It is like anticipating the punch line to a joke, and being surprised because the pattern is disrupted. It is like knowing what you should do even though you don’t know why. It simply feels "right". It’s like a still small voice, so small it is almost silent, telling us that God lives.

Sometimes what we don’t do can be as important as what we do do. Most of us are not talented enough or able to do everything we might like to do. We have to pick and choose carefully the things we will spend our time doing because the time in the days has so many important uses. There may be work for pay to provide a living for yourself and loved ones. There are family members who might need our time. There are friends we will want to see or talk to. There are emergencies that need our attention. There are important subjects that must be studied, so we can prepare for responsibility and accomplishment. There are communities and people who need our help. But there are seemingly less-important uses of our time as well, such as: sleeping too much, watching passively while others do things (sometimes called television), playing games to the exclusion of productivity.

People who choose not to read might as well be illiterate. People who choose not to be involved with their community might as well be hermits. People who choose to watch and listen to other people play music when they could be playing music themselves, might as well not have learned to play. Think about it carefully. If you are to become a musician, you will have to carefully choose what you spend time on because you will need to spend a lot of time learning to play your instrument.

Does music sound like a hard taskmaster? It is. But so is every skill at which you wish to excel. You may have to give up a movie or two, end a telephone conversation a little early, go a little later for an evening out, or drop some other activity that could be pleasurable. But choosing how you spend your time is part of the rhythm of life. What we choose to do is the beat, what we choose not to do is the silent part. Both are necessary to the song.

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget the perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.
-Leonard Cohen-

Are you ready to move on? All right. Now try playing these notes. How do those notes sound together? Ah, you have just made an important discovery. Those notes didn’t sound quite right when they were played together, did they? See, some sounds go together well, and some don’t. You will spend a lot of time in your study of music learning which sounds go together best and which sounds do not. And you will probably discover that whether a sound works or not depends a lot on which sounds have gone before. It's important how sounds are arranged in sequence, and with accompanying sounds. But all of that is a little too much to go into just yet. We will talk about sound arrangement ideas later in your lessons.

What you need to learn right now is that your instrument must be "in tune” when you play it. Each sound that you make must be arranged to the other sound in a pattern that you can hear and that sounds good together. In music of the western hemisphere, the sounds are usually arranged by regular intervals in a progression of sound-wave frequencies. If you are playing a guitar, the strings must be tuned so that as you press down on each string behind the fret bars, you move up by half steps on the progression of sounds. So one of the first things you must learn to do is “tune” your instrument, or at least hear when the instrument is out of tune so you can get someone else to do it for you.

Three things are needed to tune your instrument. First, you need a standard; a sound of the correct frequency for you to try and match. Secondly you need to listen very carefully to the standard and to the sound your instrument is making. Then you need to be able to tell when the two sounds match. This can be hard to do at first, but almost everyone can learn to hear these sounds. Listen carefully and hear the difference. The third thing you need to know is how to adjust the sound of your instrument until it matches the standard. Your teacher can show you how to do these things and help you find standards. As you keep trying to tune your instrument, you will become better and better at hearing the sounds and matching them.

Just as there are three things to learn about tuning your instrument, there are three things you need to know about to live well. Again, you must have a standard; something that describes what and how you want to be. Then we must "listen" to your life and examine it very carefully to see if you sound or look like the standard you have chosen. Finally, you must find ways to change what you are doing so that your life more closely resembles the standard. Change can be hard. But if you keep trying, you can learn to live like your standard shows, and you will live well!

When we try to play instruments that are out of tune, a lot of the music may sound fine. But every once in a while when we play the note that is out of tune, it will sound wrong and those listening will cringe and be embarrassed for us because they will know that we made a mistake. The more out-of-tune your instrument is, the worse your music will sound. If you practice with an instrument that is out of tune, you will learn to hear the music wrong. After a while, you will not be able to hear the wrong note at all. Then, when playing the wrong note has become a habit, it will be very hard to play the music correctly when you learn of your error.

Likewise, when you try to live your life without a standard, or when your life is a little out of tune, you might do things that embarrass or harm others. The more you live without standards, the more out of tune you become; and the worse your life will sound. If you live your life out of tune for a long time, the time will come when you will no longer be able to tell that you are living wrong. When you discover your error, it will be very difficult for you to live right because you will have practiced it wrong for so long and developed bad habits.

So, it is important that every time you sit down to play your instrument you check to see if it is in tune. It is equally as important that when you get up in the morning, you check your life's standard before you begin your day to be sure you are living right

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.
Victor Hugo

Play this string. Like this. Yes, I know you are a beginner. But you can play a note. There, that’s right. Now play it loud. Oh, come on, really loud! OK. Now, how soft can you play the same note? Again. When I was young we had an old piano and I would play just anything. I would bang on it by the hours. Sometimes I would play a single note over and over. I loved doing it. Hearing a sound that you have made yourself is very fulfilling. Then someone taught me chopsticks. I think it was my sister. I must have played chopsticks a thousand times. (That is an important number to remember. You will see it again.)

As a beginner you cannot yet play what you hear, but you can hear what you play. And you can hear the sounds that others make, and think about how they made those sounds and why they make you feel a certain way. It is a little like life. Or should I say life is a little like music. You can pay attention to living, long before you can live very well. So play this note and ask yourself, “What does this tell me?” and “What does this sound like?” Then play your note with that specific feeling in mind. In the coming weeks and months you will learn to play many notes. You will learn when to make them sound for different intervals, and when to wait for other intervals. Then you will add melody and harmony, and maybe even counterpoint. But it all begins with playing one note. If you cannot play one note with feeling, you will not be able to play many notes with feeling.

You won’t always know what feeling to put into a note or a song. You have to know the music very well to feel all the feelings in it. Sometimes you may play the song and make mistakes. Sometimes you might discover that you have been playing the wrong feeling in a song, but that is alright. Just, as when you live, you sometimes work too fast and make mistakes, or say something that hurts anothers feelings, or forget to do something you were supposed to do. Life is a constant challenge to learn how to live properly. But there is no way to find the right way to live except by living and trying. Likewise, there is no way to find the feeling in the music unless you keep playing. You may not accomplish everything you want in life, but you can accomplish a great deal. You may not be able to play all the music you want, but you can hear the music you play and that can make you happy.

In the Flaming Moth Studio, I am at least as interested in how to live as in how to play. Or maybe they are the same thing. It's easy to get mixed up. Well, I think you are ready now to play two notes.

"When you want genuine music - music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whisky, go right through you like Brandreth's pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pin-feather pimples on a picked goose,- when you want all this, just smash your piano, and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!" - Mark Twain

Everything begins with a decision. Will you pick up your instrument? The choice is up to you. There are things that happen to us that are not of our own making; but then, we decide how we will react and deal with those events. There may be decisions made for you by other people; people with money, people with power, people in foreign lands, people who are careless, people you don’t even know. And it's true that these decisions can influence the events in your world. But it is just as true that you will be the one to determine who you will be in the face of all the forces of the world. Likewise, it is your decision whether or not to play music.

When you were born, you instinctively gasped for breath as the unaccustomed cold air and bright lights flooded your senses. You decided to live, and from that moment on you gasped, cried, kicked, and struggled to stay alive that you might learn to master your physical body. The tide of breath came naturally. You have learned to walk, talk, and care for yourself. You have learned to run, dance, brush your teeth, ride a bike, get along with others, cooperate, and the list goes on. You have learned these things because you decided to.

It's human nature to want to do things that we cannot do. That is the way we are. We want to feel competent, capable, and able to take care of ourselves. Of course, we have the help of parents, family and friends as we learn. Your decision to make music is simply like other decisions you have already made - to do things you cannot do yet.

You have decided that it is not good enough to let other people make the music for you. Listening is enjoyable, but it is not good enough for you.. You have decided to master your fingers, arms, voice, diaphragm, ears, and whatever it takes to make your own music. Making music is simply an extension of your life-long (eternal) quest to master the physical world, to master yourself, to do things that you couldn’t do before. Music is for the participant, and it all begins with the decision to pick up an instrument.

Maybe you do not have an instrument yet. Then you must decide which one to pick up. This is both an important decision, and simultaneously one of no great consequence. You may want to try out different instruments: listen to their tones, see which ones feel comfortable as you hold them in your hands, or which ones are pleasant to hear when others play. We are born with a limited number of years on earth. It may take a lifetime to learn everything we need to know about our instruments. Do you want to spend your life playing a sound you do not enjoy or holding an instrument that you find uncomfortable? Will you waste precious minutes trying to coax beautiful sound from an instrument you don't really like?

But on the other hand, there is an instrument for everyone. You do not need to be in a hurry to choose yours or fear you will make a mistake in choosing the "right" one. You will know what instrument is for you if you listen carefully. And perhaps you will be one of those people who know "your instrument" immediately.

Pick up your instrument. But do not pick it up tentatively. Give birth to the music of your soul with determination and purpose. From the moment you make the decision that the mandolin will be your instrument, grasp it firmly, seat yourself seriously; and, though it be but a single note, play it with all the purpose and feeling of a grand master on the stage! The guitar is an instrument. An instrument is a tool used for the accomplishment of a task. Could your life be an instrument? Could you use your life to accomplish a task? What task would you want to accomplish with your life? What music will you play? Or maybe it's the other way around. What music will you play with your life? I always get that mixed up.

When you do not feel like practicing, pick up your instrument anyway. Just by making yourself do that, you will want to practice more than you did. You will begin because you made the decision to begin, and because you have invested energy into the process. I sometimes watch people in stores trying out instruments. Some play a few notes here and there, tentatively and casually. For them, I suppose it is like kicking the tires on a new car. Others sit down and play a few bars of one song, then another, but they never finish any of them. Still others sit down and play music. They are serious and attentive to the whole process. It is as if they are performing. I watched one little girl use only two fingers to play "Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater" on the piano. She played the song the best she could, then laughed, and said to her Father, “I like this one.” When you pick up your instrument, or begin any task, do it with purpose. Do it as if you were on stage. In the end you will learn that you were. Play with a purpose and you will find that your playing has purpose.

OK. Now play your first note! Do this.

The way to learn to do things is to do things. The way to learn a trade is to work at it. Success teaches how to succeed. Begin.
Anonymous

“In the beginning was the Word . . . ”, and presumably the Word was spoken, not written. This means that the word had at least some of the qualities of sound: tone, duration, pitch, volume, and/or intensity. Prior to the Word, there was no sound. Following the word presumably there was no sound again for the space of a time. The time between sounds was there in the beginning and has always been there. That space of time between sounds is rhythm.

Long before you were born, before you could see, or taste, or smell, you could hear the rhythm of your Mother’s heart beat: sound, then no sound, then sound. You also felt the repeated rhythm of your Mother sleeping and waking, of having meals and fasting, quiet times and tumultuous times. With your first breath you began the rhythm of breathing. Later you listened to the strange rhythms of your native language as adults spoke to you, and you strained to make sense of the babble of sounds. When certain sounds and rhythms were repeated often enough, their meanings began to become clear.

Now, where does life come from? Where do we come from? Do we come “streaming clouds of glory" from another sphere, as the poet said? Where does music come from? Why is repetition of rhythm, space and time so pleasing to us? Is the rhythm of life born within us? Is that the singing we heard in Heaven at the birth of another child? When you pick up an instrument to learn to play, what is born? Is new music a type of birth? Is birth a type of new music? The only way to find the answer to these questions is to play the music.

"I took violin lessons from age 6 to 14, but had no luck with my teachers, for whom music did not transcend mechanical practicing. I really began to learn only after I had fallen in love with Mozart's sonatas. The attempt to reproduce their singular grace compelled me to improve my technique. I believe, on the whole, that love is a better teacher than sense of duty."
-Albert Einstein-

Welcome to Flaming Moth Productions. You may lay your instrument over there for the moment. My name is Gary McCallister and this is my recording studio. Come in, but close the door. The telephone, dishwasher, and all sorts of noises get picked up in here, and that makes making music difficult. This is not a big professional studio. In fact, it occupies just a corner of a spare bedroom. But it is where I make music, and where you can too.

You really don’t need a studio to make music. I made music for many years in my living room, or on my back porch. But now I have a separate area for my own little studio. Since music has always had a place in my life, it is nice to have a place in my life for music.

If you have fun in my studio, you might like to come back. I hope you have fun here because I like making friends through making music. Making music and making friendships involve a lot more than you might think. For instance, both music and friendships can teach us a lot about life; where we come from, why we are here, and where we are going. We'll talk more about that later.

But for now, I need to make a confession. I can't teach you music. No one really can. Only you can pick up the instrument and make that first sound. Only you can decide which sounds are pleasing to you. Only you can practice the sounds until they are pleasing. But what I can do is share with you some of my thoughts about music that will help you understand why you might want to make music. Perhaps some of these same thoughts will encourage you not to give up, but to stay with your music when the going gets tough. Thoughtful, isn't it? Music can even be “thoughtful”!

All musicians are beginners at the next level. For example, you may have mastered some scales, but be a beginner in theory. You may be completely new to music, or someone with an extensive music background. Either way, Making More than Music is for you. Playing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” is not the end of study, but the beginning of your study of sonatas. If you are a beginner, perhaps you won't have to unlearn bad habits. If you are an experienced musician, you may yet learn the wisdom in your skill and how you might share more than music with your students.

So my lessons are not about learning the skills of playing an instrument or reading the foreign language of music notation. These skills are mostly developed through your own physical experience and practice. Music notation is knowledge, and the time will come - if it hasn't already - when you will want to have that knowledge. That learning will come with time and patience, line upon line, precept on precept. This book is much more about the spirituality and wisdom to be found in the study of music.

Now, I am not a particularly wise or spiritual person. I just hope to be someone who will encourage you to practice more, and help you think about the meaning behind your actions and the notes you play. I sincerely believe we can all learn important things about life when we play music. For most of us, becoming aware of something new, or having a new thought, is the first step in the process of learning. So let's begin by looking at some "old things" in "new ways".

This book is divided into six parts. Each part relates to a fundamental concept of music: rhythm, melody, harmony, theory, creativity, and symphony. Each part builds on, and leads to, the next part. However, each of these parts is also used as an analogy for the stages in the life of a person: birth, youth, young adult, mature adult, elder, and the "grand finale". These six parts are divided up into 52 chapters. There were many more than 52 themes to be explored, but I limited the chapters to fit the common pattern of music instruction; that of having one lesson each week for a year. In fact, the fundamental idea in this book is that learning to play an instrument is much like learning to live. Or is it the other way around? I always get that mixed up.

As we begin, you may wonder about my credentials. Who am I that I should be taking on this task? So let me tell you a little about myself. I began playing the guitar when I was a child and have continued, off and on, for all of my life. I also dabbled, without instruction, with piano, organ, trombone and harmonica. But I am not a professional musician. I am a biologist by education and career.

Several years ago I was asked to display a showcase of my musical “talent”. Because I often get nervous when I perform, I simply displayed some of my tapes. I invented the "Flaming Moth Production Company" as a name for my display. At the time, my studio existed only in my mind. But today, though, my studio is a reality in this little bedroom. But "Flaming Moth" is not about music, business, or the music business. Flaming Moth Studio is about becoming someone - someone that I want to become, but not yet am. This book, Making More than Music, is about helping others become what they want to be.

Jesus Christ is the person I want to be like, and I have come to understand him best through the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So naturally, I make some reference to our teachings throughout this book. However, you do not need to be a member of this particular Church to want to become "what you want to be" through music. You do not even need to be a musician, . . . yet! You need only the desire to become a better person, and the desire to make sound.

When I began to study the guitar and then the mandolin more seriously a few years ago, I frequently had the feeling that I was learning something more than just the skills needed to play these instruments. I first saw applications for my experience as I realized that being a learner helped me become a better teacher. Or, at least, I became more sympathetic to the struggles of my students. I now believe that that the quest for musical mastery can lead us to a richer understanding of our own lives.

Because my quest has been conducted on the fretted instruments (guitar, mandolin, banjo, and bouzouki), I will refer to them occasionally when explaining principles of living. You may want to envision the keyboard, clarinet, violin, or even your voice in place of these stringed instruments as we study and learn together.

Just as life is a physical process, the mandolin makes physical demands upon your hands, ears and eyes. Just as life is a mental process, the guitar requires mental knowledge, judgment, and memory. Just as life is spiritual, the banjo can be played with sensitivity or abandonment, emotion or passion.

Musicians, of course, come in all ages. Some may be too young to read these pages. Others may have difficulty playing because of age and rheumatism. It doesn't matter who you are. Music has something to teach all of us. But that's enough talk. It is time to make music and didn't you come here for the purpose of Making More Music? Or maybe we can even make More Than Music together. Maybe we can begin now to make our lives what we want them to be. So now, if you will pick up your instrument . . .