Essay: How Musicians Acquire and Maintain Physical Skills? - Lesson 25

The essay discusses the acquisition and maintenance of physical skills in musicians, drawing from the Vantages website's "How Do Musicians Acquire and Maintain Their Physical Skills?" It explores concepts like the "rubber band" metaphor for learning potential, child prodigies, and the 10,000-hour rule for expertise. The essay highlights the importance of dedicated practice, the role of teachers, and the need to overcome bad habits specific to each instrument. It also addresses the physical and mental challenges musicians face, including injuries, stage fright, and anxiety, along with strategies for managing them. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of scales, rudiments, and replacing bad habits with good ones to achieve mastery. The essay encourages readers to reflect on their own learning processes and goal setting.

Lesson 25
Read " How Do Musicians Acquire and Maintain Their Physical Skills ?" on
the Vantages website, then post an essay here about what you learned. After writing
your essay, read and comment on the essays of at least two other students.
How Do Musicians Acquire and
Maintain Their Physical Skills?
One way to think of a person’s intelligence is to imagine a rubber band as
the potential for learning. One person has a large rubber band and a second
person has a smaller rubber band. Any certain educational goal that these
two people would like to achieve consists of two wooden pegs a certain
distance apart. If the skill is easy, then the two wooden pegs are near to
each other. If the skill is difficult, then the two posts are far apart. These two
pegs can be far enough apart that no rubber band in existence could be
stretched between the two pegs or the two pegs could be so close that even
the smallest non-defective rubber band could encompass them both.
You have probably guessed that the rubber bands of this metaphor represent
a person’s potential for learning and the distance between two pegs
represents the difficulty of an intellectual goal. People like Albert Einstein or
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart would have among the largest rubber bands of all
time and a person with a learning disability would have among the smallest.
Here’s how this information helps us: Let’s take a specific educational goal like
getting a Bachelor’s degree from a university/college. That goal can be represented
by two pegs a certain distance apart. A person with a large rubber band has to
apply some focus to stretch the rubber band between the two pegs, but it doesn’t
take any significant amount of effort, just the time to apply the band to the pegs. A
person with a smaller rubber band can approach the problem and achieve the same
success, but it will take more than simple attention and time—some work must be
applied to the rubber band in order for it to stretch to the second peg. We all have a
“rubber band” and we all have goals that we are trying to achieve. Understanding
the size of your rubber band is extremely helpful in strategizing how to achieve your
goals. Achieving goals requires an investment of time and the amount of time is a
variable with respect to the size of the “rubber band.”
Child Prodigies
You have probably seen videos of children who can do truly incredible things.
There are some skills for which we have child prodigies and there are some

skills for which there are no child prodigies. Here’s a quote from a podcast by
Sam Harris in which he was interviewing Gary Kasparov:
Sam Harris: “Why do we have child prodigies in music and chess, but not in
novel writing or political science?”
That is a fascinating question. There are certain skills that can be achieved
via repetition and conscientious practice (music and chess) and there are
other skills that absolutely require life experience that can only be gained by
living through decades of a closely examined life.
Let’s look at the experiences of child prodigies. These are nothing
new; Mozart was a child prodigy whose father brought him all over Europe to
demonstrate his skills for audiences that were justifiably impressed by what
the boy could do with a harpsichord. On YouTube, you can find videos of
children who can do amazing things on a wide variety of musical
instruments. AS an example, here is an interesting little boy who plays the
piano. The way this seems to work is that these children have a very large
“rubber band” and they become obsessed with a particular instrument—
investing huge amounts of time in exploring what they can do on that
instrument. When people talk about these children having a “gift,” the gift
that they mean is the large rubber band, not the ability to play the
instrument. I have never heard of a child (or an adult) who could play
complex music without having spent a large amount of time practicing the
instrument. Some people do learn very fast, but they still have to go through
the steps of acquiring the techniques and the understanding of how the
mental and physical aspects of music work together.
10,000 hours
Non-fiction author Malcolm Gladwell has popularized the research of Anders
Ericsson regarding the acquisition of expertise with 10,000 hours of practice.
The number 10,000 is a guide to help people to understand that a huge
amount of work is required to become an expert on any physical skill (like
playing an instrument to the level of a professional classical musician).
This is a concrete way to image the work that a professional musician has
put into his/her craft. Imagine that your goal was to become a concert
pianist. If you were to hire a teacher, buy a piano, and devote four hours per
day—every day—to practicing that piano, you would need to do this for
almost seven years before reaching the 10,000-hours objective. This is an
imaginable goal. It would require sacrifices, and it might be difficult to earn
enough money to pay your bills while you were doing it, but if you were able
to make that sacrifice, the amount that you would learn from those seven

years would be massive and you would have traded your sacrifices for some
legitimate skills.
There are some caveats to this idea. Those seven years would need to be
dedicated to improvement and they would almost certainly need to be
guided by an experienced teacher. Many music students in college diligently
invest the hours that they are supposed to spend in the practice room, but
they fall into a trap of practicing things that they already know. It takes
incredible discipline to keep yourself focused on playing uncomfortably
difficult things because your mind is always going to try to relax back into
things that are comfortable—but those comfortable things don’t foster
improvement as much as more challenging activities. There is a difficult
balance to achieve here also, as your skill level keeps improving so what is
challenging one month often won’t challenge you the next month. When
managed properly, the progress from beginner to virtuoso is a thrilling
adventure—comparable to starting a video game with no skills and “leveling
up” throughout the game until you are an expert when you complete the
game.
Injuries are another serious issue for hard-working musicians. Similar to the
problems faced by professional athletes, musicians must be vigilant and
careful to avoid dangerous physical habits. Our bodies aren’t really built to
withstand the number of repetitive physical motions that learning an
instrument requires. Problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome are common
among musicians and injuries to the back, neck, and various joints up and
down the arms/fingers cause difficulties for many people. Wind players
sometimes have to deal with pain from the temporomandibular joint (TMJ).
Violinists hold their instrument with their chin and neck, sometimes causing
difficulties with both—you can often see a hickey-like mark on a serious
violinist’s neck.
The similarities between athletes and professional musicians don’t end with
injuries. Even famous musicians are prone to anxiety on stage (commonly
called, “stage fright”). For many, this can be overcome by spending LOTS of
time in front of audiences, but for some the anxiety is so strong that they
require medication to deal with it.
There’s a low-level taboo about discussing it, but there are a lot of classical
musicians who take beta-blocker medications to deal with anxiety on stage.
There is tremendous pressure involved with getting just one chance to play a
complex piece of music in front of an audience full of people who are judging
your value as an entertainer. It doesn’t matter how many thousands of times
you’ve practiced that piece of music, the time you are in front of the
audience MIGHT just be the one time that you make a big mistake. Beta-
blockers can help some people to mitigate the chances of that stress

interfering with the performance. Some musicians also consult with sports
psychologists to deal with various mental issues relating to performance.
Replacing Bad Habits with Good
Habits
All beginning musicians have bad habits. Over the centuries, players and
teachers have explored the most efficient way to play each instrument.
There is a large body of literature to assist young players with overcoming
those initial bad habits. The habits that have to be overcome are usually
things that are the natural first way to solve a problem. The more efficient
(good habit) takes an investment of time to incorporate into your personal
technical approach, and you can often recognize a professional from an
amateur by whether or not they have overcome those initial bad habits. Each
instrument has its own list of bad habits to be overcome. Here are a few
examples:
 Piano: The fingers need to be curved while playing as if you are
holding an orange in your palm.
 Cello: The fingers are not perpendicular to the fingerboard. Good
cellists’ fingers are slanted down toward the ground.
 Drums: The sticks need to be held firmly, and primarily, between
the thumb and index finger. The other fingers and the wrist do
most of the manipulation of the stick while the thumb and index
finger provide a fulcrum (or pivot-point).
There are also some good habits that are common to all instruments.
Learning to master tension in the body is probably the most universal.
The skill of taking a bad habit and replacing it with a good habit is a vital one for a
musician (or anyone practicing a physical/technical skill. As a percussionist, I have
learned literally dozens of instruments to a professional level and most useful skill I
have ever learned to allow me to do this is this one of replacing bad habits with
good ones. I have been able to take that skill and apply it to many other physical
tasks in my life—from sports to cutting vegetables when I’m cooking. There is
almost always a more efficient way to perform a physical task if you are creative
and attentive enough to figure it out.
Scales and Rudiments
It probably goes without saying that musicians have to practice their scales.
Have you ever asked yourself what those students gain from practicing their
scales? Why do teachers insist upon it? The answer is pretty simple:

composers don’t just randomly put notes on the page. The notes are
arranged in patterns that make sense. In our culture (at least up until about
1900), those patterns take the shape of scales and arpeggios (chords that
are broken up to be played one note at a time). By practicing the scales and
arpeggios in isolation—by which, I mean when you are not trying to learn a
piece of music—you are automating the playing of the patterns. When you
then go to a piece of music and you see a string of notes, you can
concentrate on the music instead of concentrating on what sequence of
finger motions is needed to make those notes come out of your instrument.
Amateur musicians often spend so much energy thinking about the physical
process of playing that they don’t have any mental energy left over to think
about the bigger musical concepts like transmitting emotional content or
playing phrases in a way that “makes sense” to the listener.
For drummers, scales are irrelevant—if you can’t play Bbs and C#s, then you
have no need for scales. Drummers have a separate system of training that
allows them to master the skills that they do need: This system is
called “Rudiments.” The rudiments are like scales in that they are preparing
in isolation the skills that will be needed for playing music without being
distracted by the technical demands of the instrument. Since there are no
note patterns for a drummer to learn, the patterns that are taught by
rudiments are combinations of Right (R), Left (L), and Together (Flam) for the
two sticks. The first rudiment is just a simple alternation between R and L,
and they become more complex as you move through the rudimental canon.
Percussionists who are music majors actually have to study both scales and
rudiments. If they are playing a marimba (as in the video above), they must
use two sticks, so they need to be prepared for all of the interactions of R, L,
and Flams. The marimba, additionally, is capable of playing specific notes in
the shape of a piano keyboard. Therefore, the percussionist must also
prepare all of the scales and arpeggios that any other musician must learn in
order not to be distracted by the technical difficulties of the instrument while
playing real music.
Conclusion
The amount of work that it takes to master an instrument is comparable to
that of an athlete. Olympic athletes have devoted large portions of their lives
to acquiring and maintaining their physical skills and musicians of the
highest caliber do the same. Musicians are prone to injury and lapsed skills in
the same way as an athlete.
The good news about this is that just about anyone can learn an instrument
if they have the time to invest in its study. There are no “magical” skills.
Learning an instrument doesn’t take any special “gift.” All you need to learn
an instrument is dedication and a commitment to work on things that you

can’t already do. Your local community college or arts organization will likely
have affordable classes if you’re interested in learning with other people.
That last paragraph is true for anyone who wants to learn an instrument for
personal enjoyment (an amateur). If you want to make a career out of an
instrument (to be a professional), then you just need to devote more time to
your study. About 10,000 hours is probably a good estimate of the time it will
take to become solidly proficient.
Lesson 26
Read "What Are the Typical Roles in an Ensemble?" on the Vantages website, then
post an essay here about what you learned. After writing your essay, read
and comment on the essays of at least two other students.
What Are the Typical Roles in an
Ensemble?
Musicians (in any genre) have to work together as a team. The members of
these teams have particular roles that are tied to the elements of music that
you learned about in the Theory of Music Unit. I’ll list these elements again
below as sub-headings and describe how each of them function in a variety
of genres. Their roles are tightly enough defined that we have a name for the
general structure that is described in this essay: “Homophony.”
Homophony could be said to be the overall unifying concept of Western
Music. The texture of homophony is the thing that jazz, classical, rock and
roll, country, hip-hop, all have in common. The highest pitched instrument or
voice that you can hear is usually playing the melody, the lowest instrument
or voice is usually playing the roots of the chords (also called the bass line).
The mid-range instruments are indicating the type of chord being used at
any given time (major, minor, etc.), and the non-pitched instruments are
playing the rhythmic accompaniment. (Rhythm instruments aren’t always
included in the term, “homophony,” but they are an important part of the
team and it makes sense to include them in our discussion.)

This texture is not ubiquitous; there are times when composer want to break
these rules just as they break many other rules for a variety of reasons, but
the overall texture of homophony is a guiding principle for the vast majority
of music in modern Western culture—and it is prevalent in much of the non-
Western world as well.
Let’s talk in a bit more detail about each of these roles:
Melody
The melodic person (or section) of an ensemble is the one that is creating
the melody. As you may remember from our unit on Music Theory, this is the
part that you would whistle the next day or hum on your way out of a
concert. It’s nearly always a single line, so it is played by a single player (or a
section singing a unison line). In order to make it recognizable and easy-to-
hear, the melody is usually the highest frequency heard in the ensemble.
It is also possible (and beautiful) to have a second melody that complements
the main melody. This is called a counter-melody and it can be a very
striking sound. Check out the last verse of “Paradise by the Dashboard
Light” by Meatloaf on the Bat Out of Hell album for a fantastic example of
this technique. The male singer’s earlier verse and the female singer’s
earlier verse are performed over the top of each other. They both follow the
same chords and have rhythms that are chosen to interlock in interesting
ways. The result is a beautiful interlocking shared melody between two
equal parts—really, go listen to this right now. It’s also a very funny song!
If the ensemble is a jazz band, then the melody player is the “lead” person.
This could be a singer or a wind player or even the right hand of the pianist.
The melody of the song will be introduced, and played in its entirety, by one
member of the group (functioning as the melodic player), then that person,
or another person, will begin to improvise a new melody based on the same
chords as the tune’s original melody. The band will take turns playing
improvised melodies until the end of the tune when someone—usually the
same person from the beginning—plays the tune’s original melody again. At
the beginning, when you hear the tune’s actual melody for the first time,
that is called the “head-in.” At the end, when you hear the tune’s actual
melody for the second/final time, that is called the “head-out.”
It’s interesting that the drummer can even take a turn as the melodic player
while the band is taking turns improvising new melodies over the “changes”
(the tune’s original chords). The drummer can’t play specific notes such as
C# or Bb, but he/she can play different instruments in interesting ways to
simulate an original melody—and the rhythms of the melody can be included
in this drumming improvisation to make the melody actually recognizable

without hearing any specific notes. When a good drummer does this, it is a
very beautiful thing!
If the ensemble is an orchestra, then the melody is played by various
instruments chosen by the composer. The composer might assign the
melody to the cello section, and then might echo the melody in the trumpet
section. Multiple sections can be assigned to play together to create almost
limitless differing timbres.
In a bluegrass band, the melody is performed by either a singer or one of the
instrumentalists (usually the mandolin, the violin, or the guitar, although the
banjo is also possible and even the bass—on rare occasions). Bluegrass
bands also take turns playing improvised melodies over the given tune’s
“changes.”
In a barbershop quartet, the highest voice would usually perform the melody,
although this is by no means universal.
Bass
The role of the bass player is to show the root of each chord to the audience.
If the group is playing a C chord, then the lowest instrument is normally
playing a C (and a G—which is in the same chord—usually decorates that C).
The bass role is performed by the instrument with the lowest pitch in the
group—which is often the largest instrument in the group. In a string quartet,
the cello functions as the bass. In a jazz band or a bluegrass band, the
upright bass (also called a double-bass) concentrates on the roots of the
chords.
In a full orchestra, the composer can choose to write for a number of
instruments in the bass range. The double-bass is certainly there, but a
number of other options are in the standard orchestra as well: trombone,
bassoon, and timpani are the most common alternatives, but the composer
can also choose from other instruments that are outside of the traditional
orchestral palette: bass clarinet, tuba, marimba, and the bass section of a
choir are not at all unusual as extra personnel is hired for an orchestral
performance.
Additionally, the composer can choose to leave out the lowest instruments
altogether and write some mid-range instruments as the lowest part—
essentially changing their role to that of bass. These mid-level instruments
might include the French horn, the viola, or the cello (which often plays with
the double-bass anyway.)

Harmony
The harmony is played by a chord instrument or a group of instruments that
are working together to play chords. Common Popular-music chord
instruments are the guitar and the piano because they can play the multiple
notes needed for chords and because these notes can be played easily by a
single person on both instruments.
In an orchestra, there usually are no “chord” instruments, so the chords are
played by groups of people working together. All of the brass instruments
might be told to play the individual notes of a chord at the same time—this
would provide the multiple notes at one time needed for the Harmony role.
In a four-part choir, for instance, the melody would be sung by the soprano
section, the bass by the bass section, and the Harmony (chords) would
usually be provided by the alto and tenor sections working together.
Rhythm
It is a fact that all musicians play rhythm all of the time. There is no way to
function in a time-based art like music without playing rhythm. That rhythm
might be a single note, but it has to have a duration, and that duration is, by
definition, a rhythm. There are some “gray” areas to this concept, but they
become much clearer when considered through the lens of this paragraph’s
second sentence.
Some instruments, however, have their primary purpose being to further the
rhythm of a piece of music. The drummer in a jazz band, for instance, has
only tangential roles in the creation of melody, harmony, and bass, which
allows him/her to focus (almost exclusively) on the rhythmic aspects of the
performance.
In an orchestra, the percussion section functions similarly to the drummer
from the jazz band in the previous paragraph. The percussion section divides
into two parts: pitched and unpitched. The pitched percussion instruments
are capable of playing melodies/harmonies/bass parts. These instruments
include the glockenspiel, the xylophone, and the timpani most of the time,
but orchestras sometimes, but more rarely, hire extra people to play other
pitched percussion instruments.
The non-pitched orchestral percussion instruments are the main part of our
discussion here.

While they can be used for sound-effect purposes, they are most useful in
the role of Rhythm when they create a piece’s “groove.” Groove is a difficult
term to define, but it usually involves an interesting rhythm (or group of
rhythms) played with enough repetition that the listener can feel a sense of
comforting expectation about what is going to happen next. The non-pitched
percussion family includes the snare drum, bass drum, triangle, tambourine,
most types of cymbals, and lots of hand-held instruments that you would
probably recognize by sound, but maybe not by name.
Teamwork
As you might imagine, these skills are highly specialized. The average bass
player has little experience with playing melodies and the average soprano
wouldn’t know how to create an interesting bass line (which is second nature
to a bass player). Those who only play a monophonic instrument often have
trouble with using the piano to its full potential as a tool. (You may
remember from the Theory of Music unit that the piano is capable of fulfilling
all of these roles simultaneously from a single player if the player has
enough experience.)
The way that the performers work together is similar to that of a sport’s
team. A basketball center excels at rebounding, but sometimes isn’t very
good at free throws. (I’m thinking about Shaquille O’neal here.) Likewise a
forward wouldn’t probably be as successful as Shaq under the boards
elbowing for rebounds…
A standard rock band (orchestra, jazz band, etc.) works the same way. Those
who specialize in playing melodies, and who play higher-pitched instruments,
are given the melodies. In a rock band, this would fall to the singer and the
lead guitarist. Those who play instruments in the middle range are
responsible for the harmonies—in the rock band, this would be the rhythm
guitarist and maybe the backing vocals. The bass role is fulfilled by the
electric bass and the rhythm role is played by the drummer on a drumset.
Overlap
We have to understand the precise, well-defined models mentioned above
(Melody, Bass, Harmony, and Rhythm) in order to understand how music
works in the “real” world. The rhythm guitar is a good example of the
overlap that is not only possible, but common outside of the models
presented above. The rhythm guitar refers to the guitarist that is playing
repetitive/rhythmic chords behind the lead (melodic) guitarist. The primary
role of the rhythmic guitarist is to play the harmony (chords), but this

instrument is inarguably a part of the “groove” of the tune. The bass player,
likewise, is primarily showing the roots of the chords, but is also an integral
part of the groove. The notes played on the drummer’s bass drum (right
foot) are strongly connected to those of the bass player—adding a little bit of
extra “punch” to the bass role. When the drummer takes a solo, he/she is
(hopefully, for the audience’s sake) considering the melodic possibilities of
the drumset and not just showing off the number of esoteric patterns that
can be jammed into one solo.
Lesson 27
Read " Why Do Musicians Need a Conductor?" on the Vantages website, then post an
essay here about what you learned. After writing your essay, read and
comment on the essays of at least two other students.
Why Do Musicians Need a
Conductor?
This is a question that I frequently hear from Music Appreciation students.
It’s a logical question: If a rock band can play without a conductor, then why
can’t an orchestra? The sub-headings in this essay will each address an
aspect of why these two ensembles are different in their need for a
conductor.
Rhythmic precision is an important aspect of high-quality music. Have you
ever tried to clap EXACTLY together with another person? It’s a surprisingly
difficult thing to do. You can nod your head, you can “count it off,” but there
will usually be a little bit of difference between the two claps.
Try this experiment with a friend: Try looking at each other’s hands and
trying to clap together without using any words. Now add a head nod by one
person and try it again. Lastly, try this video to help the two of you to find
the exact same moment with your clap.
In the concert, the conductor’s duties are primarily rhythmic and stylistic—
getting the orchestra to play together and to “feel” things the same way. The
stylistic elements of the conductor’s technique are accomplished by altering
the size and shape of the conducting pattern. The conductor’s eyes and non-
dominant hand drift over the group communicating a surprising number of
concepts to group.
You may not know it, but orchestral musicians only see what their part tells
them to do—most of the time, their reading of music leaves them oblivious

to the other 74-ish parts. They learn about the other 74 parts during the
rehearsals (or by listening to recordings of the piece, if available).
During rehearsals the conductor is typically the one person who has the
score—a book showing what everyone in the orchestra is doing at any single
moment. Ideally, the conductor has studied that score in depth and knows
what everyone is to do in great detail. The conductor is the one who makes
important decisions about how fast loud, and so on, the orchestra will play.
Conductors also determine who is correct when there are disagreements
about how things will sound (intonation between sections is often an
important issue). If any player is playing a rhythm or a note incorrectly, it is
the conductor’s responsibility to hear the error and to make sure that it gets
corrected before the concert. (There is a lot of diplomacy/politicking that
must be done by a successful conductor.)
The musicians in the orchestra can only see what their part tells them to do
—most of the time, they are not aware of exactly what the other 74-ish
people are doing.
Composers have some tools that allow the music to pause for an
indeterminate length of time. It is important for there to be a single person
(the conductor) who determines just how long those sections will be. These
can be short (like the luftpause) or long (like the grand pause), but the most
common one is the fermata. This looks like a little eye that sits over some
notes on the page. When a player encounters a fermata, he/she knows to
hold that note out longer than the rhythm would normally allow the player to
hold. Time pauses during that long note, then resumes after some dramatic
tension has been created. All 75-ish members of the orchestra must leave a
fermata at the same time or there will be massive confusion among the
players in the next phrase. This is accomplished by the conductor holding
his/her hands still (stopping time), then restarting the time in the same way
that was done to begin the piece.
Conductors also help musicians in other ways. If a player or group of players
is playing too loud, then the conductor might communicate (with the left
hand and the eyes) that they should play softer. If a musician gets “lost”
during a long passage of silent waiting, then the conductor can show where
the musician “re-enters” the group. This is called cuing and it helps the
player even if he/she is not lost by reinforcing the correct location of the
upcoming notes. Cuing is also usually accomplished with the left hand.
The conductor’s right hand is mostly concerned with showing the musicians
the time signature and the ongoing beats of the music. The beats are shown
by a slight bounce at the bottom of the pattern while the pattern unfolds.
The time signature is shown by grouping the beats into a longer
choreographed pattern that shows the last beat of a measure/bar as an “up”