Learn One Musical Style at a Time

Steve Burks

I’ve found that it’s best to learn one musical style at a time (blues, classical, jazz, etc.). Every genre has traits and performance practices that other genres don’t have, so you need to know the difference. Why?

A client who hires you to play country music doesn’t want to hear you accidentally adding licks from other styles of music, even if (s)he doesn’t know how to label it. Consumers and clients have specific tastes, and to succeed as a performing musician, you need to respect that.

Metaphorically speaking, many musicians consider music a language, so if you’re playing with others on a piece that’s in the classical style, but you play extended, altered jazz-like chords, it’s like they’re speaking Farsi, while you’re speaking Spanish. It’s kind of in bad taste, and you don’t want people to think that you don’t know any better. 

It helps with sight reading. Sight reading music from one specific style at a time cuts down on the number of visual configurations you might encounter on the page (intervals, chord types, textures, voicings, rhythms, etc.). Fewer possible variations in sight reading equals greater repetition and predictability, which in turn equals more accurate sight reading.

Of course it’s fine to learn several styles in the long run, but I think one at a time is best.

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.