Kat Fulton

“There’s no wrong way to play” is usually my mantra when facilitating a drum class or music therapy session with older adults. In music, dance, and art, there is no wrong way to express yourself. Whatever comes out is an extension of yourself. (Leave the judgment and criticism behind during this article.) Truly, as much as we urge people to play the “right” notes, get the “right” rhythm, harmonize on the “right” interval, listen for the “right” chord progression, please be mindful that what’s “right” is relative.

As a classically trained pianist with an undergraduate degree in piano performance and music theory, I strongly value what we consider to be “high quality” performance, according to the genre. At the same time, I appreciate another aspect of music, something that goes beyond rules and standards. Something that touches our very core.

Today, there is a separation between musicians and non-musicians, artists and non-artists, dancers and those who say, “Oh, no, I certainly don’t dance.” The truth is that we all have rhythm, we all make art, and we all dance. The heartbeat, our footsteps, our breathing, toe tapping, finger snapping, hand clapping, and vocal rapping! You cannot avoid rhythm.

In my work as a music therapist, the easiest way to prove my point is to hand out a bunch of drums. I provide music therapy to groups of older adults in independent living retirement communities, assisted living, skilled nursing care, and Alzheimer’s/dementia care.

When I meet a new group of older adults, I always ask: “How many of you took music lessons as a child?” Usually more than 90 percent of the participants raise their hands. When I ask: “How many of you play now?” Less than 5 percent of the participants raise their hands.

When I ask them why, some common responses are “I got my hand slapped by my piano teacher or “It wasn’t fun anymore” or “When I sang in the chorus, our director asked me to lip sync” or “I was always intimidated by the requirement of playing in recitals.” After listening to some comments, I suggest that by the end of our session, negative associations with making music will be debunked. Then I demonstrate how fun, easy, and stress-relieving making music can be.

One music therapy experience that I often use is this: Everyone has a drum. I have a guitar. I say “Everyone play just one beat. On your mark, get set, *GO* On your mark, get set, *GO* On your mark, get set, *GO*… *GO*… *GO*…” By then, everyone is playing the tempo to “Blue Suede Shoes,” so “it’s a *ONE* for the money, *TWO* for the show, *THREE* to get ready, etc.” Because this tune is a standard 12-bar blues form, solo and duet opportunities occur during some of the choruses. I simply provide the rhythmic and chordal framework with the guitar and voice while every player is showcased. I encourage participants to make up their own rhythms and experiment during the music. The music-making is a successful hit on the first try!

As a music therapist, I am able to combine improvisational techniques, performance of familiar tunes, drum circle facilitation techniques, and therapeutic skills in one session. Plus, therapeutic goals are achieved and documented: increased socialization, decreased isolation, agitation reduction, enhanced quality of life, and sustained gross motor movement. And, wow, what a meaningful moment it is to see a wheelchair-bound, arthritic 90-year-old woman playing music happily for the first time since childhood!

Kat Fulton is a speaker and board-certified music therapist whose passion is to inspire others to make music. She is the founder and director of Sound Health Music, an organization that uses music to elicit positive change in medical, corporate, and wellness settings.

Steve Burks

People write songs a lot of different ways, but these are some of the principles that work for me. First are tips on writing lyrics; then melody. Tips on approaching lyrics:

Pick a main idea, thesis, message, or central notion that you want to get across. Not just a subject, but a specific point of view about that subject. For example, don’t write a song about divorce. Write a song about divorce being good, bad, pointless, etc.

•  Use simple, common words. Stay away from the dictionary and thesaurus, so that you don’t distract people’s attention from the song’s meaning to its language.
• Don’t try to be poetic right off the bat. First, crystallize what you’re thinking by getting it all down on paper, prose-style and journal-like. Then go back, pick and choose, fix, edit, discard, elaborate, etc. You have to find out what you want to say first, before you can figure out how to say it well.
• Use active voice and strong verbs.
• Keep lines relatively short.

Tips on approaching melody:

• Align accented syllables with strong beats, also known as “downbeats”: 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. For example, in the word “whatever,” the second syllable, “ev,” goes on a strong beat.
• Have the melody go up and down according to the way you would speak the line, inflection-wise. If your voice rises on a certain word, then reflect that in the melody. The same goes for downward inflections, and stasis (not moving at all). The more conversational your melody (and lyrics), the easier your audience will remember them, and the more invited they are to sing along. Participatory songs are most popular.
• To draw attention to a certain word, have the melody go up on that word, and place the words that come before it, on a repeated, lower note. Contrast draws attention.

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.

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.

Jeanette Lundgren aka "Mom Hen" heads up Mother Hen Promotions.

I have a job that didn’t exist five years ago. I’m a social media manager for independent musicians. In the old days, promoting a musician meant putting together a press kit with a CD, paper press release, photocopies of reviews and interviews from magazines, and any number of other promotional items that might interest the receiver. It meant sending out postcards to fans to remind them of upcoming shows. It was slow, clunky, and hit-or-miss.

Today, it means shouting out from the internet rooftops about shows, reviews, blogs, videos, new songs, radio-play – practically anything that a fan or a friend will want to know about a musician. I am able to do this in up-to-the-minute reports via MySpace, Twitter, ReverbNation, Facebook, Sonicbids, YouTube, AirPlay Direct, Yahoo and Google groups, and e-mail mailing lists. Phew!

A musician hires me because they simply don’t have time to keep up with all of these tools and update them regularly. In upcoming posts, I will talk about each tool separately, and the best way to use each if you’re an aspiring, semi-professional, or professional musician.

Another way to use the internet for your music, besides promotion, is to locate venues. Say you will be touring through Colorado, but you have 200 miles in between stops. You can simply do a search for “Colorado music venues” or “Colorado music coffeeshops” or become a member of House Concerts In Your Home or Indie Venue Bible to find locations you may not have known about.

In the old days, you’d send your CD (or LP…) out to a radio station – and wait. Now, you can simply point the station to a location where your MP3 or .wav files live so they can instantly download and play your music to their radio audiences – whether they are terrestrial (tower-based), satellite, internet, or podcasting radio stations. 

Another way to use the internet is to approach websites and blogs and ask if someone will review your album or interview you about your music. If something is published, you can then run the link on your site, or copy the interview and clearly display the source, copyright, and permissions.

Social media operates largely as a barter system. The website or radio station writes about you or plays your music as a way to increase readers or listeners, and you, in turn, help promote the website or radio station when you post a link from the site or station to your own sites.

The internet is basically a civil place. Just make sure that you are not consistently asking for favors, but offering them as well. And check out Mashable to stay up to date on Web 2.0 and social media trends.

Jeanette Lundgren aka “Mom Hen” heads up Mother Hen Promotions, a social media management company that represents the social media needs of independent musicians that are not signed by major labels. Her clients include Tracy Newman and John Batdorf, both of whom were interviewed by Music After 50, a good example of Mom Hen’s efforts paying off!

Diana Cole is a Boston-area voice teacher.

Stand up straight! Breathe from the diaphragm! Expand the rib cage! Keep those shoulders relaxed!  If singers are preoccupied with instructions of “what to do,” how aware can they be of what is actually “happening?” 

I propose that too much effort on trying to follow commands leaves less room to register vocal feelings. For example, students may be reminded repeatedly to keep the shoulders down and relaxed during singing. “Am I doing it correctly?” they ask the teacher, oblivious to the persistent lift of the shoulders.

At times, they are even convinced that the shoulders are down even though the teacher observes that the opposite is happening. That is because they are trying so very hard. What if a teacher without criticisms or instructions guides the student to observe any movement or feeling in the shoulders during inhalation or singing? The student can can discover the lift or tension for himself or herself. Having registered this sensation, they are ready to compare how singing feels without engaging this habit. 

The teacher can suggest ways to do this through movement, imagery, looking in the mirror, etc. Then, I believe, not only will the student choose the better way enthusiastically, but the “learning” will be lasting. If they revert to the old habit, they are more likely to recognize the tension and know how to release it. 

This guiding rather than telling may seem time-consuming to a teacher. Yes, it can be! The teacher may need to break through a singer’s resistance to even recognizing bodily feelings. Sometimes the tensions are so familiar that the singer initially perceives them as more comfortable than the alternative: this can challenge the inventive powers of any teacher! But one cannot tell a student that he is feeling uncomfortable if he is not.

Gradually, by comparison, ease and efficiency will win out. And the singer’s self-discovery is worth it. The eventual learning and vocal improvement is truly owned by the student. The guidance of the teacher is essential but the vocal breakthrough belongs to the student. 

Diana Cole is a Mezzo Soprano performing and teaching in the Boston Area. She was one of the co-founders of Vocal Arts Collaborative. In her private studio, she offers innovative workshops and recitals. Read a recent interview with Diana.

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.