Why Your Music Doesn't Feel Good (How to Get and Feel Better)
I’m always taking the musical “temperature” of my lesson students:
“Did you get some time to look at this?”
“What have you been listening to?”
“What are some musical things that light you up?”
“What did you think of your performance?”
“What are some ways we could improve this?”
“How did your practicing go this week?”
Underlying all those questions is really a question of feel. Not only what music makes us feel something, but how we feel when practicing and playing music.
It took me over nearly 25 years to really understand this, but I’m especially thick. I’ll try to distill it down to a blog post.
Musical Feel
Most of us have some kind of understanding of the importance of qualitative musical feel.
I do a fair amount of cooking, and I find it to be a useful analogue to music. It’s easy to get the importance of seasoning, technique, and general quality of food because we all are the receiving end of eating. Our discernment of quality serves as a compass for what we want to consume. It’s similarly easy to listen to music and experience the difference that quality makes (and desire that quality for our own music).
Quality is all there is to music, or at least what takes neutral notes, sounds, and rhythms and turns them into a conduit for human expression, in all its limitless diversity. And everyone I discuss and listen to music with is drawn to something different about it.
I went through my practicing for years comparing what I did to the obvious quality of music that I loved. Yet I would struggle to give my music a similar feel. Often the harder to drive to improve quality, the worse it got. It was clearly crucial in the music-making process, yet focusing on the exterior quality of the music usually led to interior chaos and overwhelm.
Worse yet, I would often be doing this qualitative audit and comparison on my music while playing it. I suspect most of us have been here, and more times than not. We are hyper aware and critical of the difference in quality from whatever the “ideal” model is in our heads- often from the very beginning of our journey.
As Kenny Werner says, If wishing for better quality music (in short-caring more) made us play better, we’d all play amazing, and then we could finally “make it”. When this process fails to work, we often chalk it up to not being “talented enough”.
This confusion is worsened by incorrectly framing music we love and play as a product or thing. It is occasionally treated like that, but that framing can be unhelpful for a performer.
Music is a multifaceted experience for both player and listener. Though we like to pretend there is any objectivity involved, everyone gets different things from it.
How We Feel
I recently played a drum gig for a volunteer big band I’m in. Afterwards, I heard a few others in the group talk down their performance. Chatting about how it went, I couldn’t help but mention the advice I’d taken to heart from up the chain of teachers:
It’s pointless to, while playing, judge our performance.
The pros know to let it go how it’ll go, accepting it mistakes and all.
That the time for critiquing and judging is during our practice.
I feel for those that are often let down or frazzled by your musical performances or overall progress. I know how that feels, and thankfully it doesn’t have to be that way (no matter your skill level). This is really the heart of all that I wish to teach about music.
The turning point that got me out of that tired, old cycle was the message from wiser musicians, letting me in on a better method:
Instead of focusing on the feel and quality of our music while playing, focus instead on how we feel while playing.
To explain, we must first revisit the difference between practice and playing.
Playing
When I used to perform music, I would often actively critique and judge my own playing. It’s amazing how, with a little proficiency, our egos (or mine at least) could be consumed with trying to appear as good as possible and at the same time be deflated at the smallest misstep.
I think this is often exacerbated by (paradoxically) studying music. As helpful as they can be, conventions of right and wrong can make performing seem like too serious of an act to actually feel good about it.
I come back to a few analogies here. Playing music is like :
driving a car
playing a basketball game
acting in a play
cooking a meal
All those experiences requires one’s physical/mental/emotional presence at some level, is meant to be trusted, and leaves no room for judgment. While we play, we have little to no executive control of how we play (isn’t that hard to admit?).
The moment you can accept your sound and the experience overall, performing tends to be a pleasure. It’s no longer falling short of your expectations, because what else could it be than what it was?
I’m convinced- that place of acceptance, being at peace and on board with however it’s going, is the only way to play music (to be at play, like a kid on a playground).
From that space, authentic, good feel is more attainable. I find the more accepting and present I am, the sharper and more accessible my musical intention is. I can mentally, emotionally, and musically serve whatever I’m playing.
The alternative- too busy feeling sorry, overwhelmed, and careful to actually enjoy the music or explore any subtlety-no longer makes any sense.
By the way:
I was happy with my performance at that drum gig (as I usually am these days). It wasn’t because I played perfectly (I didn’t), but because I rolled with the punches and remained present and mentally out of the way.
I’ve been drumming for about two years (around 3-5 hours a week invested). I joined the band feeling pretty green and now can at least pretend to have some proficiency (more importantly, I can enjoy it and never stop progressing).
If we do seek improvement and deeper familiarity, that’s where practice kicks in.
How to Practice Feel
(…and practicing)
Like an athlete, cook, or actor, good feel is attained in performance via practicing concisely and contextually. This bakes good feel into the way we play.
As Kenny says, we play how we play (and can’t intervene during) and we play what we practice. Practicing is the only way we can intervene, slowly progressing the quality over time.
My practicing for most of my career looked like:
- trying to just “do the thing” as I put it. Trying music full speed, giving my best college tries over and over again, unable to avoid mistakes.
-generally avoiding the things I couldn’t do, unable and unwilling to feel bad at something, even temporarily (or worse- sound bad to someone else!).
-practicing (and playing) from a place of obligation.
-unable and unavailable to focus on feel (both how the music felt and how I felt) because I was caught up reacting and becoming distracted with what I was attempting.
Again, back to analogies:
For the majority of us, the musician inside us is like:
a class of hyper middle schoolers, shoestring basketball team, or armchair mechanic- possibly well meaning but clueless on how to improve.
I tell my students- I’m there to create a teacher in their head, someone that can direct the clueless musician in us.
We must serve as:
the teacher that can keep the class engaged and learning a bit every lesson
the coach that can break down the skills needed for the game in an engaging, accessible away
This is an art because we are all different, and learning to work with yourself can be (from my experience) quite the ordeal. What tips the scale in the positive direction is self-acceptance, which provides clarity when it’s time to practice.
Suggested Practice Regimen
(for great feel)
To contextualize all of the above advice, here’s a framework on how to get some stuff done during your practice:
Learn the content, slowly and throughly (the smallest chunks of info you can stomach). Instruct your body and mind on the one way you want it to play. You can’t make it feel good if you don’t know it-your brain will be consumed with steering the ship.
Bake the feel and timing in as early as possible. This automates both, meaning you slowly become a musician who effortlessly plays with intent, good feel, and good time, not a musician who has to attend to those elements in performance because they were never practiced.
Go back and really do No. 1 and 2. You probably need to go slower, practice less material, and more frequently. Realize, additionally, that focusing on feel takes conscious attention (until it doesn’t)- meaning, ensure your body and mind know the stuff!
Widen your spectrum of feel (the lows and the highs). Be inspired by examples from your favorite music and use those to help widen what you’re capable of feeling. Go overboard at first. How intimately can you play? How viscously? How funky, how smooth, how dynamically? Seek to have your musical intent be obvious to the listener. This comes back to being focused on what you have to say and how you feel more than how you think it’s going.
When it’s time to play, accept it. Music is a gift and luxury, after all. You can always address what could’ve gone better in your practice. The more intention your practicing is, the more your playing and practicing resemble each other.
Until next time. Happy practicing!
Chris
P.S.
Here’s what I’ve been spinning.