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Is Your 9-to-5 Draining Your Creativity?

Tuesday, February 7th, 2012

OK Go are known for their creative music videos, and their most recent release is definitely on par. After all, why stand on stage playing instruments (yawn!), when you can use a car with retractable arms to play the instruments for you? These guys are either insane or genius – decide for yourself. (Click here to watch the video for “Needing/Getting”!)

Musicians are usually creative by nature. But sometimes – especially if music is something you do in your spare time, instead of as your career – it can be all too easy to get caught up with the routine of life. Maybe you have to stay late at work, and the last thing you want to do is practice scales and etudes when you get home. Maybe your goal is to write a song, but the lyrics just aren’t coming to you. Maybe you’ve practiced your heart out, but the idea of performing in front of people makes you break out in hives. But why give up on something you were once so passionate about?

Being creative is something that needs to be exercised, just like a baseball player exercises certain muscles. So if the daily grind is starting to get to you, it’s time to take action. Shake up your routine and jump-start your creative mind. Even if the initial activity doesn’t involve music, it may awaken parts of your brain that will help you in music later on. Need some ideas? Here are 10 ways to rejuvenate your creativity, courtesy of Lifehack.com:

1. Surround yourself with creative people. Hang out with writers, musicians, poets and artists. Often, just being in a creative environment will inspire you and refresh your creative mind.
2. Start somewhere. Whether it’s creative writing in Word or sheet music, the brain will eventually loosen up and it will be easier to break through the barrier and come up with ideas.
3. Expose yourself. Expose yourself to new art – books, music, paintings – all the time. If you’re a rocker, listen to funk. If you’re a crime writer, read fantasy. If you’re a productivity writer, read something about slacking off.
4. Do something new. Play chess. Read a book if you usually watch television and watch television if you read. Go outside. Sing in the shower.
5. Meet new people from different walks of life. Gain insight into their perspectives on life. Strike up a conversation on the bus.
6. Shut out the world. Instead of sucking in new information, sit quietly, go to sleep or meditate. Stop thinking and clear your mind so that the clutter doesn’t get in the way of your thoughts.
7. Don’t be a workaholic – take breaks. Your mind needs a chance to wind down so it doesn’t overheat and crash.
8. Experiment randomly. What does a flanger sound like on a vocal track? Like Lenny Kravitz, of course.
9. Exercise every day, before you sit down to be creative. If you exercise afterward, you’ll get the creative burst – just too late.
10. Spend time with your children. Or someone else’s.

What other ideas have you tried when you feel your creativity dragging? Share your thoughts below! Like these posts? Sign up to receive daily updates right to your inbox! Click here to subscribe.

More Than Just Music: 7 Secrets of Successful Musicians

Friday, January 27th, 2012

Despite the Oscar snubs, music shared headliner status at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Several music-related documentaries premiered at the festival, which continues through this Sunday, including films about Neil Young, Paul Simon, and Ice-T. In addition to the films, an extensive list of music performances were scheduled around the city. According to the Associated Press, festival director John Cooper said organizers added more music to the festival this year to encourage relationships between independent filmmakers and musicians.

Wherever you find yourself in the creative world – filmmaker, musician, artist, teacher – one important part of surviving is being a great learner. After all, how else can you improve your craft without learning along the way? It’s about learning from your last audition, learning from your peers, and learning about yourself. Especially for teachers, who are often great learners by nature, it’s important to be able to pass that mindset on to your students. And for us creative types, this is often the best part of the job. We found a great article on the NAfME website detailing the 7 qualities of great learners, as written by researcher and author Kirsten Olson – read on to discover these qualities:

1. Great learners see learning as pleasurable. Develop your passion through intensive learning that involves focused concentration and a sense of challenge. Recognize that “failure is a huge part of the enterprise.”

2. Great learners have learned that effort is more important than inborn ability. Kids with disabilities sometimes can deal with these through their other abilities and through persistence. In Olson’s words, “Thinking of yourself as an entity always ripe for development is a mark of learners who go boldly forward.”

3. Great learners tend to have a strengths-based view of themselves and others. “This attitude,” says Olson, “is at the heart of learning resilience.” Figuring out what you excel at and practicing being satisfied with these traits can help you learn.

4. Great learners practice letting go of negative emotions, of flipping the script on what might be regarded as a failure. Let failure go—don’t brood on it. Pick up where you fell and move on.

5. Great learners are unusual problem-solvers who know how to ask for help. These people are both supported and supporters of others in their quests.

6. Great learners don’t let the institution define them. Although they take their educations seriously, they often question labels and define their own paths.

7. Great learners have passions. According to Olson, “research literature describes the importance of passion, curiosity, and deep interests” in dealing with challenges.

Do you see any of these qualities in yourself? If so, you’re on the right track. Leave a comment and let us know if you have any thoughts, questions, or comments! Like these posts? Sign up to receive daily updates right to your inbox! Click here to subscribe.

Photo by nathanrussell.

Posted in Music Careers, Music Lessons for Adults, Music Lessons for Children | 3 Comments »

Stop Stressing: 3 Remedies For Musical Frustration

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

The 2012 Oscar nominations were released today, although only two songs (“Man or Muppet” from The Muppets and “Real In Rio” from Rio) are up for the Best Original Song category. This is the first time only two songs have been nominated, which came as a big surprise seeing as how 39 contenders were originally noted back in December.

Still, the music industry has several other opportunities to shine throughout the year, such as the American Music Awards, the Billboard Music Awards, and the upcoming Grammy Awards. And if you dream of one day taking home one of those awards, you better start working hard!

With hard work, however, may come frustration. Maybe you’re not mastering a piece as quickly as you’d like, or you’re having trouble with a specific section. Perhaps it’s stage fright that’s holding you back. Wherever your frustration stems from, it’s important to learn how to handle it to your advantage. Read on for a few helpful tips for dealing with those musical frustrations:

Tip #1. Give Yourself Credit – Before looking to improve something, look at the progress that has already been made. Appreciate and be thankful for that. Remember when you were a beginner and you couldn’t play at all? You would have been happy to have the skills you have now. Appreciate this, and feel good about what you have achieved up to this point. Many people beat themselves up over their own playing when they are pretty good already. This does not mean that you should become complacent or lose motivation to improve, it only means be happy with yourself and your playing as you continue to improve and move forward as a musician.

Tip #2. Become Aware of That Which Empowers and Inspires You – There may be certain things, moments, scenarios, events, places or people that make you feel good about yourself as a musician. These things are different for each musician. Perhaps you become very inspired by going to see a concert. Or maybe you get very motivated by watching or jamming with musicians who are currently better than you. Or, maybe you become inspired by revisiting some of your old recordings and seeing how much you have improved. Being able to realize (and have tangible proof of) how much you have grown as a musician is a powerful inspirational force for some people. Whatever these things are, anything that gets you away from concentrating on the temporary frustrations and setbacks and focuses you on your motivation and inspiration is what you should surround yourself with.

Tip #3. Let Time Be On Your Side – Many musicians feel frustrated when big progress does not seem to come in a short period of time. As a result, time is perceived as an enemy. However, if you are making at least some progress over time and you are patient enough and let accumulated time work for you, then time in fact becomes your biggest advantage. Learning an instrument is much like investing money with a fixed rate of compound interest. In the beginning, the investment seems to grow so slowly that it seems like you are watching grass grow, but over the years, the growth will explode because of the exponential power of compound interest. If you know that time is on your side, you will be sure to feel much better about your musical future.

How do you handle your stress when you’re feeling frustrated? Let us know – leave a comment and share with the community! Like these posts? Sign up to receive daily updates right to your inbox! Click here to subscribe.

Photo by Saltmiser.

Tags: Practice Tips & How To's...
Posted in Inspiration & Motivation!, Music Lessons for Adults, Music Lessons for Children, Performing | 3 Comments »

Excel at Music by Acting Like a Child

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Many of our students here at TakeLessons.com are older, hoping to fulfill a life goal they may have had for some time. It’s never too late to start learning an instrument, but it can definitely be a bit scary. Don’t let that stop you, though! The secret to success depends a lot on your attitude. You’re at a stage in life where you can just play for fun, so why not make the most of it? By taking on some childlike traits, mastering the instrument of your choice can be a piece of cake. The Lone Guitarist Blog has some great insight into these traits – here are a few “rules” to follow:

Rule #1: Forget about the master plan
Children don’t have a grand plan in their heads, no roadmap with sub-goals and an ultimate goal — not consciously anyway. Adults have a tendency to plan things, map things out over time, consciously allocate time each day to practice, etc. Children don’t do this. They are a lot more pragmatic and as-it-happens with learning new things.

Children live in the moment, and they don’t worry about the future. They take things in one step at a time. This is a very important thing as it basically prevents you from becoming overwhelmed. If you ignore the bigger picture and ignore what you’ll be doing a week, a month or a year from now, you can focus on what is important to you today.

Rule #2: Very focused, short learning bursts
In the absence of a master plan, it comes down to being able to spot a missing piece in your existing knowledge and then focus your entire concentration on getting it right. When a child is presented with something new, say a single word, they will focus their entire energy on it: first by listening to it, then either trying to pronounce it, or remembering the word and what it is associated with. Children will focus their whole attention on this one word, but only for several seconds, and then move on when they feel they have absorbed the new piece of information or it has simply become boring.

As a musician, you can adopt this approach into your own routine. When you learn something new, and you have trouble with a small part of it — maybe a bar or two in length, maximum — devote all your energy on improving this part. Try to get it exactly perfect, repeatedly. Do this until you feel satisfied that you have improved, and then move on.

Rule #3: Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, or to look foolish
Children do things that they will be embarrassed about later on as adults. In fact, they do this all the time. You probably have a lot of these painful memories that you’d rather not talk about. Somehow, when you’re a kid, you don’t really mind or think about it all that much. And as a kid, you get away with these kind of things. Therein lies the power, though, because it allows you to really experiment with things when you’re young.

Adults are expected to behave “properly.” But if you want to improve, go ahead and do that whacky thing that you’ve been too scared to do. If you do get a weird look, just laugh it off, but above all, don’t be scared to look foolish!

So there you have it – taking music lessons as an adult doesn’t have to be scary! Sometimes, you just have to go for it.

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You might also like…
- 5 Key Benefits of Taking Music Lessons as an Adult
- How to Tune Into the Perfect Music Teacher for You
- Composing Life Lessons from Music

Photo by kellyv, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.

Tags: Practice Tips & How To's...
Posted in Inspiration & Motivation!, Music Lessons for Adults, Performing | 2 Comments »

How to Tune into the Perfect Music Teacher for You

Friday, January 13th, 2012

Whether you yearn to be the next Billboard chart-topper, or just earn first chair in your orchestra, excelling in music takes hard work, dedication and a commitment to practicing to get there. Yesterday we discussed some tips for avoiding injuries as a musician, including warm-up exercises, stretches and proper posture. But if you’ve been playing for a while and adopted bad habits from the start, it may take the expertise of a professional music teacher to help you correct those habits. While YouTube videos may be good for learning a couple of guitar chords, they don’t provide the one-on-one feedback that a private teacher will.

Music lessons are a very personal experience, and finding the best teacher for you is often half the battle. Here, TakeLessons Student Counselors Kathleen V. and Danae G. explore the most important things to consider when finding a music teacher:

First, think about why you are learning to play your instrument. Are you trying to get a scholarship for college? Are you a stressed-out business executive unwinding after work? Are you an aspiring artist or rockstar? Do you just want to have fun and check this off of your bucket list? Once you have that figured out, you’ll have a better idea of what you need in a teacher. Of course, use your intuition to feel everything out. For a student to grow to their full potential and learn the most effectively, safety and comfort are very important. For example…

- Has this teacher had a criminal background check done?
- Have you seen any letters of recommendation or feedback from previous students?
- Are the lessons taught out of a safe and comfortable home or studio location?

Next, you want to find out about quality. This is something that causes many people to be misled. If you lower your standards too much, you will end up taking lessons for double the amount of time, causing you to pay far more in the long run and feel frustrated with the lack of progress.

Here are a few more questions that may help you to make a decision:

- Does the teacher have credentials to teach?
- Are there any videos of the teacher performing or teaching that you can watch to get an idea of their style in teaching or performing?
- What level does this teacher teach up to? (Beginning – Advanced)
- Does this teacher work best with adults or children?
- Is this teacher connected to a reputable affiliation?
- How many years of experience does he/she have playing? Teaching?
- Does the teacher have group lessons and individual lessons available?
- Is there any type of Money Back Guarantee if it isn’t a perfect fit?