Musicianship Lives In Your Ears

Scat-urday Night Fever

Hellooooo everyone, it's Danny! I want to tell you the thing I think about more than almost anything else when I'm teaching. It's important, deeply silly, and changes how you should practice no matter what instrument you play.

All Ears, No Hands

Can you sing along to a song? Can you match the pitch? "LA LA LA..." "la la la...." Can you clap or scat a beat that you just heard? If yes, then you're already a musician. I mean that. Being a musician is being able to copy the notes and rhythms that you hear. The hands part, the feet part, actually playing it on an instrument, that's just motor function catching up to what your ears already know. Than it's just a matter of time until your hands can do what your ears have already been doing.

Scat Happens

So here's the trick. If I'm trying to learn a riff on the guitar, the kind of stuff we work through in our guitar lessons, I don't start by fumbling around on the fretboard. I scat it first. I sing it to myself before I ever try to play it.

And only after I let my own ears hear my own voice do the pitches and rhythms become easily accessible on my instrument. I'm setting up a target in my brain to then compare what I'm trying to play on my instrument.

Same thing on drums. If I'm learning a fill during my drum lessons, I sing it to myself, scat it to myself — and now my brain knows exactly what to listen for before my hands ever get involved. Skibbitty-bim-bam-booom!

Why Singing It First Actually Works

There's something about closing the loop in your brain from hearing, singing, and hearing again. I'm sure it's incredibly scientific, and please let me about any published research in this area. You hear a rhythm. You say it back to yourself. You hear your own voice say it. That loop, hearing it, then hearing yourself say it, is what sets your brain up to actually recreate the same notes and patterns on whatever instrument you're playing.

And the more you scat and the more you sing back the notes and rhythms you hear, the easier it gets to play them for real.

Musicianship lives in your ears, not in your hands. In your brain, not in your body.

It's the same story whether you're trying to find a melody line on the keys or if youre searching for a melody to sing with your voice, the ear-first approach is a sure-fire way to recreate music. (It also carries straight into piano lessons and singing lessons too.)

If hearing all this gets you stoked to continue your musical journey please contact us about private lessons on zoom or in person at our West LA studios. Let's let the scat outta the bag together and see how far we can take your musicianship!