Learning A Tune: Five Levels ("Beginner" to "Pro")
The vast majority of musicians learn, practice, and play songs as their main subject of musical focus- and for good reason. Songs are the perfect way to actualize our musical skills. This means that our ability to tunes efficiently and deeply will determine our overall musical fluency and enjoyment.
Below I’ll share the things I’ve learned over the years that make song-learning (generally) a breeze, and a skill I continue to improve at.
I’ve learned a lot of tunes over the years. Some gigs required me to learn four, others would require learning two or three dozen (and sometimes really quickly).
Like language, culture, and every part of life, there is a spectrum of familiarity and acquisition when dealing with new material. Some tunes are only trivially different from thousands of others (looking at you, mainstream music) and others can individually take a career of study to play with ease (looking at you, Coltrane).
In my song-learning journey, it’s been helpful to develop a framework of various levels. Due to music’s creative nature, every level is elective. You can stay at the most rudimentary level forever, and have a lot of fun simply engaging with music. Yet more often than not, music might beckon you to go deeper with it.
Here are five levels of song learning I’ve traversed over the years. Articulating these levels was massively helpful for me. I’ll overview each level today and go on a deeper dive on individual points in future posts/lessons:
5 Levels to Pro
Here are the five levels I think about when learning tunes, no matter the genre, whether it’s 4 chords, 14 chords, electronic, notated, etc.
Level 1: Acquiring the Basic Skills
Songs are the perfect vehicle to learn an instrument. I recommend learning a few simple tunes, and well.
The quality of your learning is everything here. One of the insights that’s motivated me to teach on a larger scale is seeing how much I, and most of my students, tend to not thoroughly learn or aren’t consistently focused on a specific goal (enough to see it through to what it could be). This leads to haphazard, infrequent practicing, not to mention the frustration.
Quality always beats quantity with music, and it’s more rewarding when you go deep, hone your focus, and acquire new abilities through it.
So learn a few songs and learn them deeply. Pick attainable material. Be able to play chords by feel only, no looking. Play it in time, slowly, to master the changes. Know the form. We have every educational aid in our age at our disposal. Experiment with the most efficient learning method for you, testing, modifying, and taking from them what’s helpful.
Once acquired a bit, use those songs to get familiar with the underlying musical concepts. The song and its needed skills should be familiar at this level. This is the beginning of understanding music linguistically, but at first it’ll be unfamiliar.
I was about to say that someone “should be somewhat good with the song at this level” just then, but caught myself. “Good” and “Bad” aren’t helpful here, instead I go with the framing I borrowed from Kenny Werner- familiar and unfamiliar.
So get familiar with a few songs, then a few more, and this can take as long as you like, with as few songs as you’d like to focus on. This level also ensures you attain some musical vocabulary and (again) familiarity with an instrument.
Bill Evans (legendary jazz pianist) supposedly said “I would rather play one song for 24 hours than play 24 tunes in an hour.” There’s a lot of sense to that. Learn fewer tunes, deeper, then focus on more as you gain skill and, you guessed it, familiarity.
Example: “Moon River”
Google chord chart/watch lesson teaching song.
Practice the required chords and timing (with clarity in mind).
Start to piece everything together, slowly gaining context in sections.
Work contextually until the whole song (and its requisite parts) can be played automatically at some level.
Level 2: Feel
This is the level that we take some raw skills, vocab, and musical application from Level 1 and make it feel good.
But first, what even is a song?
I used to focus on the exact way it went and how I couldn’t yet recreate that. The details and minutiae: my playing, my tone, my limitations. That’s one of the dangers in learning too much about music.
Now I see that the external chords, parts, melody, atheistic details, etc., are simply in service of a song that feels good. It can’t be too fragile.
A simple, three chord song can be boring, bland, and one-note to a closed-off musician. To someone else (my kinda musician), it’s an opportunity to explore quality, self expression, and take part in something bigger than one’s self.
The bridge between those two ways of playing is feel.
Musical feel might be defined by:
-A pursuit of a certain musical vibe
-A pursuit of groove
-A pursuit of dynamic playing
-Articulating and pursuing what makes the song best work
-A pursuit of authenticity and openness.
-An awareness of how we feel when we play.
Feel is hard to focus on when Level 1 familiarity isn’t attained yet. It’s more qualitative and requires a deeper command of the material.
It’s worth it though. Making the music feel good feels like “success” when learning a song. Similarly, I think we tend to be drawn to music and musicians who make us feel good with their music. They are able to transfer that feeling to us because they themselves are benefited by their own music making.
Musical feel can be exercised and practiced by:
-Leaning into dynamic contrasts of playing, strumming, rhythm, etc. Be heavy-handed, go above and beyond. Think of a song as a vehicle for musical intent and expression. Without that intent, the song is a shell of itself. With that intent, it has a magical power to cause ourself or others to listen and give it focus, or simply make the body, mind or heart to lose itself temporarily in the sensation.
-Feel the Groove. Promote the Groove. Get into the rhythm, and learn from other songs how pivotal it is for a song to feel good. Listen for accents, and embody a drummer (on any instrument).
-Explore what you have to bring to the table. What feels uniquely good to you? How you’ll learn, and how you’ll sound will be a unique process when learning and playing any kind of music. Embrace the unique vibe that you bring to your music. It turns out, authenticity feels good, especially regarding music. Authenticity is really the only right in music.
-Explore why music you love feels so good to you. Even more, explore this with everything in life and you’ll naturally find your attention and awareness to what feels good musically (a sort of compass, if you will) will deepen.
As Kenny says, a better desire than “I want to play like they (the masters) play”, is to wish instead to “feel like they feel when they play”. It’s a small but powerful shift. They probably feel the most like themselves, free, and at ease.
Again, quality beats quantity with music. A good feel provides much more quality than a 100% “correct” performance, every time.
Example: “Moon River”
Carry that familiarity from Level 1 even farther: know the chords so well they can be played subconsciously (eyes closed, with a deep trust in one’s body and muscle memory).
Optimize touch, as well as musical and physical smoothness.
Optimize groove and rhythmic feel (smooth timing, consistency, overall groove).
Optimize for as dynamic as possible performance, and practice dynamic playing.
Focus on your own feelings while practicing (and especially while playing). In the case of Moon River, notice the beauty in the tune, the lyric, the harmony, the whole thing together.
Level 3: Zooming Out a Bit
This is the level we do some growing. Having played lots of tunes in Level 1, and making them feel good in Level 2, Level 3 is where we zoom out a bit and get familiar with the big picture.
Some skills that emerge in Level 3:
-A familiarity with some general musical frameworks underpinning songs: thinking in a key, knowing about common grooves, different styles, forms, etc.
-The ability to rework a song for our own interests (or for practical purposes): changing up the style, key, genre, groove, vibe, tempo, mood, etc. Another way of framing this: feeling ownership of a song (and freedom to make it your own).
-Interpreting a song with authenticity and intention, even if this yields unique results.
-Using songs as a way to deepen and practice big picture foundational intuitions.
At this level, you can play enough music to be familiar with certain genres or a specific way of playing. You’ll know (having played a decent amount) of keys, some harmony (or some common groups of chords) or at least have a decent ear.
Level 3 players have been around the block enough to know a few things and have some good assumptions. Many people are on this level, probably the vast majority of musicians that actively study or teach music.
Good things about Level 3:
- We make some connections/music makes more sense. Playing enough songs, knowing some theory, and occasional active listening will all start to develop some key deep intuitions: a sense of harmony, melody, rhythm, form, convention, style, etc. It makes sense, songs are the best contextual ways to develop them all together.
-The above intuitions will contribute to not only more musical understanding, but more enjoyment when engaging in music in general.
Pitfalls of Level 3:
-Information overload can be an issue at this level.
-Musical information is always easy to consume but much harder to apply. If unapplied, it just takes up useful mental space. Apply one thing at a time, and don’t be afraid of being unfamiliar with something.
- Those teaching themselves without the direction of musical teachers, mentors, and those farther along, often get lost and don’t know how to make these bigger connections.
-If we trade a general focus on musical intuitions for focusing shallowly on too much specific material, we can just make lateral progress by learning a bunch of stuff- yet not deeply, and without inching up our musical fluency.
Example: “Moon River”
Learn Moon River in another key/meter/feel.
Find multiple chord voicing or ways of playing the tune.
Explore and learn multiple techniques of playing. Take inspiration from listening to a diversity of music.
Learn more common movements in a song in-between the chord changes (bass walk ups, ornamentation, etc.).
Level 4: Details (Zooming In)
This is the highest level regarding technical proficiency. Levels 1-3 naturally lead to Level 4 with enough familiarity, application, and musical context.
Level 4 players:
Can learn a tune a variety of ways: by ear, by reading, numbers, lead sheets, memorized, etc.
Can learn more exact music (melodic content, certain chord voicings, etc.) and counted on in a performance setting.
Have a clear understanding of the harmony and bass line.
Usually play in some “professional” capacity. Professional here means playing regularly for the public in an expected way, or compensated for their playing.
Often study improvisation (and should if they don’t).
Often (but don’t always) teach music.
Have active music/repertoire they keep up.
Have an active practice, pursuing goals and skills.
Example: “Moon River”
Be able to perform from a deeply automatic, trusting, calm state- equally for yourself, for others, or for a performance.
Learn, Arrange, or even Improvise the tune for a solo instrument.
Know how to indefinitely practice improvising on the tune, with frameworks you have developed through levels 1-3.
Have at least a working understanding of harmony, melody, and rhythm and the accompanying intuitions.
Level 5: Free
This is the level we can actually shortcut to at any time, from any other level. It doesn’t take a certain amount of skill, but a certain openness, commitment, and sense of trust, as well as a solid understanding of the music being played.
Level 5 Players
-Play in total service to the music, knowing what they need to know so deeply that they can trust it and remain present, and musically and emotionally open.
-Know the material from enough angles to play it relaxed and at complete ease.
-Embrace the uniqueness of how they sound, and do anything they’d like with the tune.
-are self-empowered, affirming their music into existence.
-benefit from others’ and self musical expression.
This is clearly the ideal level to be on, and anyone can reach it. Yet, it’s a lifetime of practice to stay on it. It’s about learning deeply, and the smallest needed, and being led and changed by songs and other sounds you’re into.
It’s not about what you know, but how well you can use what you actually know. Level 5 players know this and find a way to disappear into the tune, enjoying their music. Meanwhile, someone on level 3 is fighting abstract, reactionary self-talk blasting in their head while they try to play a half decent guitar solo.
Anyone who has played music long enough knows the feeling I’m describing. But playing a song on level 5 feels like a walk in the park or a good conversation. There’s no obligation, no wrong note, and no mental chatter behind the scenes. You might as well by listening, in the crowd.
A two chord song or a symphony can be performed in this way, and it should be our goal for all the music we study or perform.
I’m still learning how to play at Level 5 more consistently. It’s learning to give the tune your full attention and authentic self, and learn how your unique interaction with the tune is just the outlet for your self expression. It doesn’t “mean” anything (or doesn’t have to), besides the joy that it can emotionally convey.
Example: “Moon River”
Play Moon River, so automatically you feel like the first listener.
Withhold judgment on the way others play, as well as how you play when you perform. Practice is the time for inspection and educating our body, never performance.
Fully accept and lean into your performance, flaws and all.
Become the Instrument, in short.
What level are you on? What frameworks help you learn tunes?
I’ll be breaking down some action steps for each level in the subsequent posts. Thanks for reading!