As any professional musician, composer or producer will attest, when you take the leap to the professional domain, everything changes. Music is (and I realise that I’m preaching to the converted here) a largely unseen commodity that has the ability to take you to the very heights and the lowest depths of emotion, in some cases remarkably quickly. But the moment finances enter the fray, working in music becomes a very different affair, and you have to feel like you’re permanently on top of your game.
During my teenage years, I found myself arranging music for various sizes of acoustic ensemble. Synthesizers were (and in so many cases still are) very expensive, and beyond the reach of my humble bank account at that time, so scribbling dots on a score before handing out parts for friends to play was like operating a form of acoustic DAW, before DAWs were a thing! There were many fringe benefits; apart from the absence of any tangible costs, I quickly discovered that the more arrangements I undertook, the better and more fluent I became. As I studied my craft and flexed the ‘arranging’ muscle, my scores became more complex, with each taking a little less time to complete. Strangely, I also found the process enjoyable, and it was immensely fulfilling to hear my workings out loud.
Several years on, I was working on a media project; with DAW wide open, pianistic challenges lay ahead. The ideas were there, but you try telling that to my fingers! They had clearly decided that they would not be playing ball on this occasion — which, for a media composer attempting to write hybrid scores, creates something of a challenge!
What followed became a consuming passion. That evening, I dug out all of the old piano music that I had played in my youth, and to my total dismay, I couldn’t get close to any of it. Tough problems call for serious solutions — I had to do some practice! Formulating a plan, I found myself practising almost every day, for at least an hour at a time. Grabbing a copy of Hanon’s legendary The Virtuoso Pianist exercise book, I set about retraining my fingers. As is the case with most instruments, playing the piano is all about muscle memory. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a live modular/electronic musician, or whether you play the bagpipes: you really have to train those fingers!
I now find the process of practice very calming and cathartic, with many moments of immense personal achievement.
The good news is, it worked! Several years on, my practice regime remains firmly in place, and I’m now back in command of my fingers. But interestingly, I now find the process of practice very calming and cathartic, with many moments of immense personal achievement. It’s also invaluable for drawing inspiration from the compositional past masters, harmonically, melodically and timbrally.
A friend of mine, who is a headteacher in a secondary school, often mentions how much he wishes that he’d practised the guitar properly during his teen years. I’ve seen the look in his eye as he watches young students playing effortlessly. It’s not so much jealousy, as the slight tinge of regret. As I hope he will one day ascertain (and as I discovered to my own advantage), it’s never too late to pick it up again and enjoy that essential practice, regardless of your musical discipline!