Want to become a better musician? Work on these things!

Whether they’re paid pros or passionate dabblers, every musician wants to make the most of their skill and talent, which involves getting rid of limitations and problems. Makes sense, but there’s no point in any of it if you’re not doing it correctly, so let’s look at what it takes to be a good musician.

A Combination of Things

What makes someone a good musician? If you ask bass guitar teacher, musicology teacher and head of an Access to Music school, Davy de Wit, it’s to do with a combination of things, including musicality, creativity, sound, presence, craftsmanship and authenticity (or originality). “Every big-star musician is authentic. They’re not copycatting someone else,” Davy claims. “That’s why I tell musicians not to mimic any famous artists. While it’s smart to pick apart their playing and learn something from it to develop your technical skills, you don’t want to turn into a cheesy copycat.” While not everyone nurtures ambitions to become one of the music-making greats to ever roam the planet, most musicians are always trying to get better at what they do, and Davy has a few tips and tricks to help you do just that.

Break Free From Physical Limits

“Some of the best advice I can give is: try to play solos that are usually played on instruments other than your own,” Davy says. “Here’s an example: almost 75% of all bass solos are based on fourths, which simply has to do with the fact that the strings and frets are laid out in fourths. For classical guitarists, apoyando (rest stroke) is a relatively simple playing technique and it’s one of the reasons why the pentatonic scale is so commonly used.” Since bass guitars are heavy, bassists are inclined to opt for easier and more comfortable playing techniques, so it’s worth noting that the big names that you idolise most likely ended up playing the same pentatonic tricks because of the same issue. Just like other musicians, bassists are often restricted by the physical limitations of their body and their instrument. Davy continues: “Take the violin. The lay-out of a violin is not divided into fourths, but into fifths. This means that converting violin music so that it can be played by another instrument comes with its own set of technical issues and challenges. This is why it’s important that you try to play violin parts on your guitar or bass. For me, it helped me develop my technical skills and also taught me how to play different melodic patterns.”

Four Types of Players

According to Davy, every musician has four sides, two of which are predominant while the other two will always have room for improvement. The two stronger sides will differ from musician to musician. Have a look and see if you recognise yourself in the following descriptions:

1. The Motoric Player

As the name suggests, the improvisations of motoric musicians are guided by their hands and motor skills. You could also refer to these kinds of musicians as lick-oriented or pattern-focussed players. They know a lot of licks and tricks that they can play on auto-pilot, and they adjust their playing on the go. Their hands and reflexes decide the direction. The motorical player’s forte is the musical vocabulary that they’ve developed and lean on, which makes playing their instrument feel safe and familiar. Their technical skills are solid and they don’t need a source of inspiration to deliver satisfying results. As such, improvising is never a problem. Their shortcoming, however, is that their musical vocabulary is limited to whatever their motor skills can automatically recall and replay, which holds back the motoric player from developing as a musician.

2. The Visual-Analytical Player

Visual-analytical musicians basically see patterns when they look at their instrument. They’re not playing what they hear or have heard before, but what they visualise. This type of musician only hears what they play after they’ve played it and redirect and correct their playing on the fly. There’s almost no correlation between what they would’ve played based on their musicality and what they actually play, meaning they struggle to translate an intuitively conceived melody so that it’s compatible with their instrument — something the auditive player (up next) is much better at. While they choose their words carefully and stick to the rules of grammar, they don’t always tell a story. That said, their knowledge of music theory gives them a large number of extra options that the other types of players usually don’t have access to.

3. The Auditive Player

The auditive player has the ability to recognise intervals and plays what they’re hearing internally. They can take a melodic idea and intuitively translate it into a part suited for their instrument. Their weak point is usually their limited melodic, rhythmic and stylistic frame of reference, which needs to be developed if they want to grow as a musician.

4. The Authentic Player

The authentic player is driven by their talent. They allow their musicality and personality to chart out a plan, and play based on what they’ve just heard. Their instrument is essentially a tool used to make the most of their creativity, where their musicality gives them the power to make the right decisions. The decisions they make are exactly what makes them authentic musicians. To enhance that, authentic musicians look for ways to expand their frame of reference and discover fresh sources of inspiration, which is easier than it’s ever been thanks to the internet and platforms like Spotify.

“Most musicians will recognise themselves in one or more of the descriptions above,” Davy says. “The motorical and visual-analytical players are the most common. If you want to grow as a musician, you need to strive towards the optimum balance between all four types. That means working mainly on the parts that you recognise the least.”

Anti-Tablature

A lot of musicians are motoric or visually-oriented players. For them, it’s vital to develop the other abilities and work on their musical hearing and grow their knowledge of music theory. If they don’t, they’ll remain trapped in a vicious cycle. “That’s part of the reason why I’m against tablature,” Davy says. Tablature, or tab for short, refers to a simple form of notation for a specific instrument. Tabs are easier to read than proper music notation and are incredibly popular among guitarists and bassists. So why is Davy so opposed to tabs? “For a number of reasons actually. Notation is preferred because it’s standardised and works for every instrument. Tabs don’t include information about the harmony and don’t enable you to expand your knowledge. Instead of playing a song you’ve heard by ear, you go online and look up the tab. In the end, you’re just mindlessly placing your fingers at the right frets.” The internet is home to millions of tabs, which are mostly created by guitarists and bassists. “The quality of the tabs is often lacking too,” Davy finds. More often than not, you’ll find a fistful of tabs of the same song with no way to tell which one is correct, if any.” Davy is an outspoken advocate for figuring out songs on your own. “Stick on a record and listen to how the song is structured. This helps you develop the auditive player inside you. You’ll be able to hear things that often aren’t included in tabs, like hammer-ons and slides. Playing songs with the help of tabs strengthens the visually-oriented player inside you but neglects your auditive side.”

Be Part of a Bigger Picture

There’s one more thing that Davy believes determines your capabilities as a musician. “If you’re in a band, you always need to be aware that you’re playing in service of the song. Besides the singer, the other musicians usually don’t even know what the song they’re playing is about, but in order to play it well, it’s actually important that you do know what the lyrics are and what they mean.” One of the biggest pitfalls for bands is that instead of a unified whole, they’re just a group of individualists. “I think of bands like a puzzle, where each musician represents a different piece,” Dave says. “Most musicians want to show off everything they’ve got, but letting your ego get the best of you rarely results in a nice and complete puzzle. It just ends in chaos. As a musician, you need to realise that most of the people who come out to see you play are there to see the bigger picture, so the sum of all parts. That’s why it’s important to accept that you can’t pull out every trick that you have up your sleeve. You’re playing to amaze the audience, not to impress fellow musicians. Acknowledge and accept that you’re a small cog in a larger mechanism and, as soon as you do that, the band will immediately sound more whole and more transparent.

Good to Know

Sing Your Solos

In the interview, it’s explained that a lot of improvised solos are guided by the anatomical features of the musician and the instrument. You can break away from these limitations by singing solos before you play them. “When you sing, you’re not constrained by the physical limitations of your body or instrument,” Davy explains. “You’ll also write completely different kinds of solos. After all, you might play a minor pentatonic scale on your bass, but you don’t sing that way. By working on your improvisation skills this way, you reduce the distance between your creativity and the technical limitations of your instrument.”

Tabs

In the interview, Davy explains why he’s against tablature. Tab is simplified notation created for specific instruments, usually guitar or bass. In fact, the first tabs, which date back to medieval times, were written for the lute. Thanks to the internet, tabs have become incredibly popular. Below, you can see an example of guitar tab. The lines represent the strings and the numbers represent the frets.

Want to become a better musician? Work on these things!