Tuesday, December 11, 2018

What Did You Miss This Week? (Week 549, #595)

Listening Skills.

Joe talked some last night about how to improve your listening skills in order to improve as a player.

Number 1, record yourself. Then of course, listen to those recordings very carefully. You need to know what your musical challenges are and recordings give you a more objective way to face them. Doubt the importance of recording yourself? Jim Liban told us when he visited that he recorded himself obsessively in the early days and listened back to the recordings as a growth tool. Jim Liban advising you should be convincing!

Number 2 on your path to better listening skills is transcribing. There is so much to be learned by careful listening to the masters and working to write down what you hear. Over time it gets easier and you will also learn to discern more nuances that you missed earlier. When Joe started teaching at Old Town he sought out the blues masters and transcribed their work, both to help students but also to improve his own ear and playing. You should do the same.

Class Notes

  • See you onstage next week - Joe's Harlem Harp Party is December 18. 
- Grant Kessler, B1 Blues Crew