kate | A little bit of meta about music and writing

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A little bit of meta about music and writing

I've been thinking about music, lately. About how I got to where I am, and if I can take what I learned while mastering my instrument and apply it to other things (signs point to yes).

I started playing piano when I was five. I joined band when I was eleven, starting on flute and moving to clarinet pretty easily – and then picking up saxophone for the hell of it. It was easy for an intelligent kid. I find it hilarious that I got out of a ton of General Ed requirements in college because music majors didn't have to have them. Who needs math if you're playing an instrument? Besides, musicians, they're not too bright, right? Au contraire. The best musicians are extremely bright, and have to be, to be able to do what they do.

By the time I hit high school, I'd already realized that I could never be a professional musician – because I didn't feel anything when I played. That wasn't quite true, but I was too young to understand how my teachers had misled me. You see, what I felt was joy. Just pure and simple love of playing my instrument. But I didn't feel sad when I played a sad song, or happy when I played a happy song, so clearly I was defective. I gave up on the idea of playing professionally and, even though I was well on my way to mastery by the time I hit high school, having practiced thousands of hours already, I decided to teach.

It wasn't a tough decision, as I love to teach, but it stung. I was so much better than everyone I knew (small pond, middle Wisconsin), but I could never play professionally because I didn't have the heart.

When I went to Interlochen, an arts camp for the elite, I was at the bottom of the totem pole. So, not only was I not an artist, I was a sucky technician, too. Since I already knew I wasn't going to be a performer, the artist part wasn't a shocker, but the technician part pissed me off. So, I practiced. And what I learned that summer was that if I practiced hard, I could rise in the ranks. I went from second last clarinetist in the whole camp to middle rank of the top band in eight weeks. Not too shabby for a sixteen-year-old who was never going to be a performer.

I was well on my way to becoming a band director when my dad's heart failed, and we found out he needed a heart transplant. It was awful – I was only a year and a half away from college graduation, but there was no way I could be so far from home. I moved back and transferred to the local college, which had a music program. Not a good music program, mind you, but one that conferred Music Ed degrees, so ostensibly one that would suit my needs.

It was another small pond, after I had been out there in an honest to god competitive environment. I was leaps and bounds ahead of everyone around me, and even as I taught them how to be better (the clarinet teacher was a joke), I immediately recognized I couldn't handle more than a semester of that place. Instead, I jumped ship and transferred to a music conservatory almost as close to home. Not somewhere I ever thought I could get in, much less get a scholarship to, but I did. I got a full ride (thanks to my grades, not my performance ability), and that was when things really started to change for me.

My teacher, Fan Lei, had been a child prodigy in China – as a matter of fact, he was only a couple of years older than me when I got there (and only had a master's degree). He was auditioning for the job at the same time I was auditioning to matriculate. He played a short recital and I was astounded to hear someone play so well that wasn't either a huge recording name or in an orchestra somewhere.

He didn't take it easy on us, either. We started over, all our technique suspect. Being smart and diligent came in handy – I practiced every day (only an hour or two, but it was enough), and I 'got' it. I was the one he'd single out to play for the entire clarinet studio. We had a rocky time, but overall, I got better and better, and he began to try to teach me the illusive musicality (artistry for musicians, don't you know). That was tougher. I didn't always get what he meant; I couldn't just practice and eventually get it. That was where intelligence came in. I started to listen to professional recordings, and there were certain things that every clarinetist did. They slowed down at the end of pivotal phrases, they breathed in particular places, they tongued staccato here, legato there. They played with tempo in a particular way.

Once I realized this, that musicianship was really just another set of rules (albeit a far-ranging and incredibly complex set of rules that could sometimes be broken and really depended on your own personal likes and dislikes), I could now perform. I still felt like I wasn't a musician – I was performing music, but I wasn't living it, imbuing it with my soul – but nobody knew that. Not even my teacher. Not even my audience. No one but me.

By the end of conservatory, I was practicing four hours a day, and pretty confident that I could perform anything at all. I still felt like a fraud, though, and even now, I can talk technique with other musicians, but as soon as they talk about musicality, I feel like I'm faking it. I don't know why; I do feel things in music now where I used to feel nothing. I've felt sad or overwhelmed or whimsical when I've performed (and much more often as a listener or audience member), and I know that is the kind of musician I always wanted to be, but it doesn't feel like enough. I think this is why I never continued with music. Even with everything I can do, I feel like I'm faking it.

When a wise friend told me that writing is a craft, everything started to fall into place. I realized that music is a craft too, as much as we think it's some mystical thing that's above and beyond our ken. Music can be taught. I've learned it, I've taught it, I've seen students of mine perform music so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes. All it takes is practice. The more you practice, the more all those things you do become second nature, they become part of who you are as a musician, they become so ingrained you don't even realize they're something you did for countless hours in a small room by yourself before the whole world was watching.

And so yes, music is an art, but one based on mastery of a craft. You can't create art until you've put the time in and learned every facet of the craft (and if someone had put it to me that way when I was a kid, I would probably be playing duets with Richard Stoltzman right now).

Writing, I'm finding, is the same. I have moments of transcendence, moments when I feel like something above and beyond is going on – but that's only happened since I mastered some of the basics of the craft.

And now, knowing what I do about the craft of music, I want to apply it to writing. It seems to me if I put some concentrated time into practicing the craft of writing, I should be able to master it. I don't know that I'll ever be able to create art, but I want to give it my best shot, by mastering the craft.

Practice. It's one of those things that's inescapable as a musician. Kids rarely get it, though I've managed to convince one or two with a really good lesson, and adults are hit or miss. Once I started practicing regularly – and by that I mean every day, at least an hour – I saw improvement. And not only did I see marked improvement in the day that I practiced (the difference between the beginning and end of a four hour session was remarkable), I could tell that I was building on it the next day. If I put in the time, even if I was tired, or uninspired, or unhappy, I would get better. There's nothing like improvement to make you just do it.

Music practice involves a few different steps for me. The first two hours are spent on technique. Long tones (to increase breath and get you to listen to yourself), scales and tonguing exercises (to build technique and facility), and études, (to master a specific technique, and be able to perform it within a piece, with musicality, instead of by rote). The next two hours are spent on repertoire. Learning the cornerstones of the repertoire and finding ways to interpret them to make them mine.

This is where I get stuck. I'm not actually planning on writing four hours a day (who has the time?) but I would like to get in an hour or two, and I'd like to make it pay off. Part of that will be the discipline to just do it, which has always been harder for me with writing than with music, probably because wrapped up in my writing instrument is a handy-dandy time-wasting thing known as the internets.

So, long tones. They're a way to see where you are, see if everything's working, and make sure you sound like you want to sound. I'm thinking maybe non-fiction essays. Or maybe just timed writing, like

15_minute_ficlets? They're really just a warm-up to make sure everything is working like it should.

Scales and tonguing are the meat and potatoes of music. They're basis of all classical technique (and, if you do some of the studies I do, more modern technique as well). This is really tough to translate to writing practice. There's so much that goes into good writing. Even just the nuts and bolts are huge: dialogue, description, sentence/paragraph construction, word choice, metaphor… I'm sure I'm forgetting some. I can come up with exercises for each of those, probably, but if practice is an everyday thing, I think I'm well over an hour before I even hit the third one of these. Maybe I'll have to come up with exercises for all of these and do a couple each day, alternating.

Pacing, characterization, tone, plotting, scene turning, packing an emotional punch… those are definitely études. I used to work on two études a week, but I think I can pick two of those and work them into a single story - one I write and perfect each week.

And repertoire. That's the big stuff. That's the easy part; I've got plenty of big stories, fanfic and otherwise, to work on. The only question is if I do a little of each or just work on one until it's finished.

It seems like a lot more than an hour. It seems like that'd be three or four hours. *frowns* Well, maybe I'll start and then tweak as I go. Any thoughts or suggestions? Anyone want to join me? Practice (like exercise) seems to be easier for me when I've got someone else there ~~suffering with me~~ cheering me on.

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I'd be interested in practicing together, maybe. And the music analogy works well for me - I've got my own whole story about being a performance major and the ways in which that fell apart for me.

A story for another night... I'm just resurfacing after a week offline.

Interesting post! Having talent helps: some people are better at some things than others. It's nearly impossible to keep practicing when you're bad at something and the improvement is in tiny increments, because the goal is ridiculously far away. Being even a little better than average makes easier to imagine success: I could never have been a good basketball player, though I could have been a much better one had I tried.

And the more you love something, the easier it is to keep practicing, mindfully. I liked folk dancing and kept on with it, despite my general lack of coordination. My girlchild keeps on with dance classes and is practicing recorder (because her cast won't let her play her flute). She's got some talent for both and they make her happy. It's a positive feedback loop.

So, I guess playing and writing are not so different from any other kind of craft. (I don't know what makes something ART, though it clearly involves culture and presentation as much as anything.)

You have the talent and the pleasure in writing, I am sure that your practice will help with the craft.

I practiced every day (only an hour or two, but it was enough) [...] By the end of conservatory, I was practicing four hours a day, and pretty confident that I could perform anything at all. [...] It seems like a lot more than an hour. It seems like that'd be three or four hours.

Dude, did you start out, in the hour or two in the beginning, going through long tones, scales, tonguing, études, and repertoire? And if you did, did you spend less time on it than at the end of conservatory? (THE ONLY POSSIBLE ANSWER TO THAT LAST QUESTION IS YES, JUST SO YOU KNOW)

Do you see the point I am trying to make here, because I am tired and going to bed and don't want to try to explain it. :(

This is a good idea. I'm sitting here, reading this at work (instead of working, shhhh!) and part of my brain is saying how much you remind me of the character Rodney McKay and the other part is sticking its (very sharp) elbow in my id and whispering dooooooeeeeeet.

I look back at stories I've written in the past and think they were written better than what I've come up with over the past year or two. I'm not sure why that happened but I think if I did this practicing thing with you (you ALWAYS make me a better writer) it would be good for me.

Very interesting. I guess I'm coming from a slightly different place. I think about most learning by analogy with my ideas about learning to read. I truly believe the most important parts of learning to read is being read to early and often, and having role models who enjoy reading. I took my daughter through Suzuki piano, as that seemed closest to my learning philosophy, so I tend to focus on listening, and natural methods which emphasize imitation and encouragement. Suzuki did believe that talent was irrelevant.

So in writing, I tend to think that reading well written stories is underrated. I also think a lot of writing problems are caused by anxiety and fear of failure or criticism, which can cripple even very talented writers. I'm not sure how much practice helps in writing, I mean obviously it helps some, but it's harder to know how or what to practice than it is in music. Or at least for me it is.

That said, I might be interested in a writing practice community or group.

This made me so happy--I played flute for 12 years and ended up quitting because I'd never have enough wiggle room in my budget to drop $3K on one of those professional flutes that everyone else used to have. So now I still have the same flute I've had since I was 13, although with a silver headjoint I got for a pretty sweet deal on ebay, and every now and then we'll break it out and play some Quantz together or the theme for my favorite movie of the moment. And strangely, I'm totally okay with that.

Who needs math if you're playing an instrument?
I took music theory and I took calculus in college, and in the difficulty rankings, music theory wins every time, hands down. It's like math and science and art all rolled into one fearsome beast.

I seriously dreamed of majoring in music, but my stage fright pretty much put the kabash on that before I even thought of taking the first step. I do fine in bands, but put me up with less than a band? I epically fail. My anxiety kills me every time.

I'd love to exercise with you. Lord knows I need the work and I won't do it if I don't answer to anyone but me. I don't do well with the internal motivation.

Interesting post. Have you read Reading Like a Writer? It touches on some of the technique-related things you talk about.

Interesting post. I definitely do think writing is something people need practice to improve (I tend not to use the term "craft" personally since it conjures up images of that dreadful movie with Neve Campbell) and I think that's one of the hardest things for new(er) writers to grapple with. It's not immediately obvious why a person can't be amazing at writing right off the bat if they just pour enough energy and time into the project--after all, we all know English and how to string a sentence together. And most people who get into writing fiction have vivid imaginations and somewhat interesting ideas.

But if you liken writing to any other skill, it becomes much more obvious why nobody really jumps into writing a brilliant novel the first go round. I agree with your comment that having talent can be a hindrance in that it can cause writers to grow complacent with their writing, and to stick with writing what feels comfortable as opposed to what will challenge them and force them to grow. I'm sure we can all think of authors who write the same story over and over again--and each story may be well written, but it's akin to playing the same piece of music over and over again instead of moving onto a different, more challenging piece. I think new challenges is key to growth here--mindless repetition may make you very good at writing a particular type of story but eventually you're going to plateau. That's why I try to participate in many different challenges, write in different genres, and experiment with different subject matter.

I've been writing for over ten years and man, I started out the worst badfic writer you could ever imagine. Not a spark of talent in me--I was starting from square one. But I kept chugging at it and I can track the growth of my writing over the years; during my prolific periods the improvement was incredible, while during the periods where I barely wrote at all, I simply stagnated. And the first 8 years were rough--I would look at the more talented writers (both pro and in fandom) and wonder, why could they do it so much better than me? What separates them from me? My ideas are just as good (and in some cases better). The answer is usually simple: practice. They'd written millions of words to my piddling hundreds of thousands.

As a slight side note: I think writing is also one of those skills that is greatly improved by more life experience and maturity. The years that I've been alive had provided me with a wealth of information and emotion and humor to infuse my writing with, and has allowed me to understand more of life's complexities. To some extent, that kind of experience can't be researched or imagined or feigned--you just need to live it before you can feel it, know it, and write it.

I played piano and cello for many years, not because I was ever going to be any good, but because I loved it and because I loved playing with others. I practiced enough to play to the level that I wanted, but I didn't have the time or inclination to put in more than about 90 minutes per day at the most (well, maybe more on the weekends or just before performances!) This is very much what fanfic is to me - something that I enjoy, but not something to which I want to dedicate a tremendous amount of time and energy. In my case, I went a lot further with music theory than I did with performance (and also studied literary theory more than the craft of writing!) - I wonder if that's influencing me enjoying reading as much as or more than writing.

I absolutely agree that to improve, practice and maturity are required. It's just that it's not my highest priority. And I think that's okay, too.

You are very committed! I am not sure I would survive writing on a schedule with exercises. But you got me to thinking about how often I write, probably about 2 hours a day, yikes. I write longhand and just fill up notebooks, one after the other (there is always one at hand and a spare 5 minutes). I probably throw away at least half of it all. Unlike music, I think it's probably harder to know when you've hit the right notes. I read some things aloud, which helps with pacing and dialogue. Everything I was taught about how to write (especially academic writing) only made me write awkwardly and badly. Fanwriting was very freeing to write; the first thing I ever felt I could write (I am a very, very inarticulate person, so feeling that I could convey something, that was a rush). Good luck! *hands you a notebook*

I'd be very interested in such a community :)

Here from metafandom. Awesome post. I'd stop and chat, but I'm suddenly burning to go sing scales. Excuse me.

Here from Metafandom.

Your music analogy works for me in ways I didn't think were possible. I haven't touched the flute for at least a decade, but comparing writing practice to music practice somehow made all of those lectures about just writing to perfect the craft make sense. It's one of those things I knew (you have to write to improve, and to improve, you just write write write!) but it never really sank in.

I majored in writing; one of the requirements was naturally a class on craft, and while we never had a full story assignment in that class - it was all snips, scenes, and revisions of those scenes - the structure worked out okay. The class met once a week, and it went something like this:

1. Read the assigned short story.

2. Answer four questions about the craft element assigned for that week (i.e. one week would be detailed description, another would be dialogue...), based on your reading. I don't recall the exact questions, but it involved four steps in which you had to analyze the text and pick out examples, then explain why it works - typical.

3. Write a snippet or scene of your own, focusing on the thing we're studying that week, with a strict one page word limit.

4. Post this on the class message board, read the entries from the rest of your group members.

5. Meet in group, discuss everyone's work. We were allowed to comment on how they used the craft concept correctly, but technically not allowed to criticize. Everyone learned how to get around this rule.

Rinse, repeat. It worked for me, but it's not for everyone - and it can be slow. But I also think it can be tweaked to fit a different model, maybe a daily one if you're ambitious. Personally, I think choosing a craft element to work on every day, with a prompt from Fifteen Minute ficlets maybe, would make a great warm-up. I'll have to try it.

So anyway, that's one suggestion. I wish I were better at this, but the same applies to writing, really.

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YAY MUSIC

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Dissent!

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