“Best” Form of Music to Learn is in Eye of Beholder

Steve Burks

Many beginning musicians feel obligated to seek out classical training because they have been told that it’s the “best” training to get. Yet, the people who claim that classical training is the best haven’t operationally defined the word. What’s “best” about this form of training?

Here are my definitions of “best:”

1. The best training is in the type of music you want to learn.
2. The best music to learn is whatever kind enables you to do the following (this from a former professor of mine): (a) play anything you can read
   (b) read anything you can play
   (c) play anything you can hear (aurally identify)
   (d) hear anything you can play
   (e) read anything you can hear, and my personal favorite
   (f) hear anything you can read. 

The best reason to study classical music is because you like it and want to play it. It will not, however, give you the tools to compose music (unless you specifically study composition); it will not teach you the concepts you need to play by ear; nor will it teach you how to use scales in improvisation. 

Classical training focuses mainly on three things: reading music; technical expertise, ie, making as few mistakes as possible; and sightreading. If you want to learn 2a through 2f above, you will need to study jazz or other forms of contemporary music. George Duke put it all this way: “The technique is not the music.”

Steve Burks is a graduate of the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Currently, he’s a vocalist and keyboardist in the International House of Blues Foundation’s “Blues School House,” a live musical presentation for 5th through 12th graders that traces the history of blues music and its influence on other forms of contemporary music.