Tire Kicking

I have two serious challenges for you at the end of this blog, so please read all the way through.

I used to do a lot of “tire kicking,” looking for written materials that would help me improve my banjo playing. I found lots of great stuff of course (ain’t the internet a wonderful thing?), but they would inevitably be written in a language I wasn’t fluent in; music! While I’ve known most of my life “how to read music,” it was still daunting to me, especially when trying to apply it to the banjo. Just the sight of all those little black dots would send me scurrying in the opposite direction saying, “Oh well, I guess I really didn’t want to learn that anyway!”

My musical progress was at a snail’s pace because of this, as you can imagine. There are plenty of things you can do without reading of course, but eventually, you reach a point where you just have to swallow that pill if you want to continue progressing. There is a whole upper echelon of knowledge—freely available to you—that is simply inaccessible if you don’t know the language.

I finally found a way to keep myself from running away, and it has definitely worked for me; I am improving at a much-faster pace now, and have been for the last 8 years. I have offered that simple, elegant solution in my online lessons; it’s called Tablature, or TAB for short. Just a few moments orienting yourself to it, and you can read and learn like a champion! I’m not concerned at all if you’re not “good” at it; using it—however slowly you have to—sure beats running away!

There are those who will say “ah, you don’t need that stuff. Just use your ear!” Well, not everyone has a good ear! And I bet that your ear—no matter how good it is—has its limitations when it comes to complex theory concepts, and could be improved by reading. Encouraging someone who doesn’t have a musical ear to “just use your ear” is like saying “I don’t want you to learn the stuff that might make you better than me.” That stuff is available through good old-fashioned study—the kinds of stuff that only reading makes possible.

On the other end of the spectrum are reading musicians who consider TAB to be a “crutch.” In my opinion, this is an elitist sentiment that says “I know how to read, and that makes me better than you. You will have to learn to read if you want to be like me.” I’m in the business of maximizing your learning, not stifling it! If I told you that you would have to learn to read before I took you on as a student, I would have even fewer students than I do! I myself have spent a lifetime earnestly trying to learn to read well (including a degree in Music Education), but I will never be a “natural” at it; it is still hard, frustrating work for me.

Chord diagrams—the typical “play-in-a-day” method for the plectrum banjo (and the way I learned to play)—now that’s a crutch, and certainly not “reading!” Chord diagrams only work for, well. . .chords! And even there, it’s more “paint-by-number” than it is actual music; you learn nothing about music except for which chord shape to play where—an educational dead-end if there ever was one. If you have any intention of going beyond simple Chord Melody or chord strumming (and I hope you do), then that methodology is absolutely worthless!

It would seem to me that there are plenty of well-intentioned folks out there who would ultimately lead you to do nothing, simply because they excel at poo-pooing everything that comes down the pike. If you are doing the poo-pooing to yourself, then let’s do something about it! Stop tire kicking, and put those tires to the pavement!

TAB gives you easy access to the same higher-echelon techniques and knowledge that standard notation does, without needing to read it. That is a huge difference! If TAB enhances real learning, then show me some more crutches! I still highly encourage you to learn to read notation though; used correctly, TAB can help you do that as well. It allows for practical application by translating the notation into a visual guide to both the instrument and the piece of music. Instead of “not knowing where to start,” TAB takes you by the hand and says “start here.” Standard notation then begins to make more sense; you can play what is written (using the TAB), and then compare the two systems side by side, ultimately leading you to increased reading skill. “Oh, that’s what those little black dots mean!”

Anyway, the point of this blog is the subject of tire kicking. Things that scare us away are things we will never use = things we will never use are things we will never learn from = not learning is sure one strange way to improve your playing! No wonder you’re frustrated! There is nothing more frustrating than not trying, simply because you don’t understand it, or you think it’s over your head just because of the little black dots. I know! That was me not too many years ago! Let me show you how I’ve done it; I want company on my quest “to be the best I can be.”

If you are a frustrated tire kicker, I have a challenge for you:

Challenge #1: When I post a lesson, make it your goal to at least try to learn from it! If something is keeping you from doing so (perceived difficulty, “can’t read it,” etc.), please contact me. I would be overjoyed for the opportunity to help; why else would I post lessons at all? And how do you think I continue to learn to teach? I do so by being given the opportunity to see what I need to improve!

And a related challenge:

Challenge #2: If you are reading my lessons and learning from them, please let me know! A simple “like” on Facebook would suffice, or posted questions showing that you are stuck on a particular part. Better yet though would be a posted video showing you playing the lesson. I don’t care how many “warts” there are in the video; it would show that you are doing it, and might encourage more folks to try it. I have also found that publicly-posted videos are very freeing; they show you what you perhaps are afraid to find out—that you have some improvement to do, and the whole world knows it too! Talk about incentive! It would be greatly appreciated; I need to know if I’m doing this right or not. Thanks in advance!