What is musical fluency?
We are, each of us, already fluent in our comprehension of music. From exposure at an early age music becomes another thing in life that just makes sense. We can confidently recognise changes in harmony, rhythm, melody etc. - they don’t need to be explained to us. We have a fully developed inner musician.
Traditional approaches to music teaching tend to make us feel that we need to do a lot of thinking and ‘figuring out’ in order to play music fluently and that we may not already be musical.
We are taught that in order to understand music we must learn reams of theory or to play with real expression we must first achieve a high degree of technical proficiency.
But, just as we did with language, we can become fluent at music through doing it as opposed to studying it. Most of us don’t know what the ‘present perfect continuous’ tense is but we speak it effortlessly all the time.
Fluent musicianship is the ability to communicate and express ourselves through the language of music with an effortless understanding of the elements of rhythm, harmony and melody.
Gaining this level of mastery is done in the same way as with language - from the get-go everything is played with AUTHENTIC EXPRESSIVE INTENTION using simple musical improvisation techniques.
Traditional music education tends towards passive, muscle-memory playing where the music played is more reproduced than deeply felt. We learn to play things in a ‘how it goes’ sense. The equivalent in language might be learning and reciting a Chinese poem. Yes, you may understand, through translation, what the words mean but you haven’t grasped the structure and vocabulary on a deeply felt level. So you recite it by relying almost totally on muscle-memory.
Most music is taught using this muscle-memory approach and the result is usually the dull playing of pieces that are not understood so are
Playing to express, not impress.
My own earliest memories of playing the piano - before I took lessons from a teacher - call to mind a playful curiosity I had whenever I sat down to play. I would improvise different sounds all over the piano, content to explore the instrument in an expressive way.
As soon as I took formal lessons I was enrolled in the carrot-and-stick method that is familiar to so many. I was required by my teacher to practice - to ‘work’ at music. If I didn’t, she would scold me, and if I did, she would praise me. I can vividly recall practicing furiously throughout the week in order to present to her at the beginning of the next lesson the fruits of my labour: usually a tune played at break-neck speed with as few missed notes as my muscle memory dictated.
And so this was my approach to playing music for many years. Get to the end of the piece with my mind fixed on 'getting it right' - rarely a thought that I might use music to express myself.
I was then encouraged to take piano exams and participate in end-of-term performances. These ‘targets’ felt like life and death to me. I can still remember the deep anxiety and fear I would feel at the thought of playing in front of anyone, let alone an examiner or an audience of 30 or so parents.
As I got older this life and death need to sound good became more and more internalised, to the point where I became my own biggest critic and gave up piano altogether.
My whole music education had been based around impressing others and myself. The act of playing was always for some reward that would come after the music.
It is only by shifting our focus to moment-by-moment honest, authentic expression that we can get back to the simple joy of playing for playing’s sake. From that place music becomes therapeutic and meaningful to who we are right now, not some idealised version of ourselves.
Playing everything with this deeply felt expressive intention opens the door to deep learning - the kind of learning we experienced as a child when we learned to walk and talk. Back then we had no concept of impressing ourselves or others with these new skills. We mastered them because we brought curiosity and moment by moment intention instead of judgment and anxiety.
Letting go…
In order to become fluent we must adopt the mindset of a 4-year-old child. We must connect with and surrender to our natural playful expressive side. We must abandon judgment and all the mental habits that block us from learning on a deep level.
The musical fluency method is not complicated. That is it's strength. It requires no working-out or any heavy cognitive effort.
What it does require is that you adopt a playful, childlike expressive mindset. This requires moment-by-moment focus which can be a challenge for many. You must train this focus bit by bit. You may need to start with short practice sessions of only a couple of minutes to stay in this focused flow state. Always working with manageable musical improvisation techniques.
But like any skill, it will get stronger and stronger over time.
Intention creates retention.
Unlike traditional methods which can encourage mindless repetition of scales and musical passages, in order to gain fluency you must learn to intend every note you play. That means being aware of each rhythm ‘cell’ you play as well as exactly where you are on the keyboard, without ever looking down.
This means you first start with simple concepts. The idea is that the vocabulary you are ‘speaking’ is always in your range to allow deep learning to occur. This requires a large dose of humility as you abandon playing sophisticated music in favour of improvising simple ideas on your way to becoming a fluent pianist.
The good news though is when you start to play everything with deep expressive intention practice becomes a completely different experience to mindlessly drilling muscle-memory into your fingers.
The act of learning itself becomes more and more enjoyable.
The ego will of course protest and demand more complex 'impressive' music for its own validation but that voice will fade more and more over time until it’s barely audible over the sound of every intentional sound you call on as you openly and fluently express yourself at the piano.