5 Best Methods to Break Down Music

For many, learning a piece of music is not a short-lived event. Musicians learn their music for a specific performance, or an audition, and can take months to perfect their piece. There can be moments where you feel as though you have plateaued with the music. Here, you’ll find a set of techniques and tools to help your music flourish.

Key Takeaways

• Tiny chunks
• Slower Tempo
• Take the check(s)
• Mental checklist
• Pattern recognition

 

1. Tiny Chunks

Sheet music as a whole can be a formidable sight, even after you’ve learned it. If you find a particular section that has you floundering every time you approach it, it’s time to break it down further. It may seem logical to play the whole passage that ranges over a couple of measures, but breaking it down further will make the chunk more manageable and let you discern where the issue truly lies.

2. Slow it Down

It is more important that you can play a passage correctly at a slower tempo than incorrectly at a faster tempo. While this may seem an obvious statement, many times people think another go at the same tempo will be the key to attaining the rep. What ends up happening is you repeat the same mistake and further solidify it as an issue. Instead, take the time to scale back and play it correctly. Doing this can feel tedious but will prepare you for playing it correctly in the future.

3. Checks

Checks are incredibly effective tools that break down your music even further than you may have realized it could go. The power of a check is that it can take a more complex idea and create a skeleton of the music, which will be easier for your mind to digest.

A good example of this is 16th notes. A set of 16th notes will fit perfectly into two 8th notes. Pulling out and solidifying the 8th notes will help you better locate the 16th notes. This can be particularly useful if you have a 16th note run and when you want the notes to be even and clean.

4. Organize Your Mental Checklist

Sometimes the issue isn’t in your hands or your understanding of the music. When this happens, the issue is often that your mental checklist isn’t correctly in place. To put it simply, you aren’t prioritizing the right thought at the right time. Music is a mental game of maintaining and shifting focus.

5. Pattern Recognition

If you had to read every letter in every word on a page, it would take forever to get anything done. To a certain extent, the same can be said about music. Music is structured on patterns and being able to identify and adapt your playing to a pattern recognition standpoint will increase the speed at which you both learn and execute your music.

This can go deeper into music theory, with recognizing chord structures and patterns, but can be as simple as identifying similar (or the same) passages throughout your music. For similar passages, you can alter your mental checklist to reflect the changes found there instead of learning the passage completely from scratch.

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