When I Was in Heaven - Live Performance

Here's a conversation between myself and some angels before I was born... Based on a true story.

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When I Was in Heaven (Michael Stegner)
Originally Released on the album Fascination Nation
Lyrics:
When I was in heaven
before I was born
I would sing, I would play
in the clouds with the angels and their harps.

They gathered me around
and said my time had come.
Then the angels sang this song for me
to prepare me for the world...

"Sometimes your brains will hurt.
Sometimes your food won't taste quite right.
And sometimes you won't get what you want -
That's more often than not."

I don't want to hear any more.
I just want to stay where I am.
I can't wait to be big and strong.
I'll just run around and do whatever I want.

What do I need to do
to stay up here with you?
I don't want to live down there
in that crazy people stew.

"It's not as bad as it seems.
Some people are really nice down there.
Time will go by so fast...
You'll be back here in a flash."

I don't want to listen any more.
I can see with my own two eyes.
People down there - they can't get along.
Whose to say I won't play along?

When I was in heaven,
before I was born.
The angels sang this song for me
to prepare me for the world.

by Michael Stegner

Copyright © 2009

Elliot Smith Cover - "Between the Bars"

Some friends have been really getting into Elliot Smith lately. This led me to practicing along with his recordings. I finally decided to give "Between the Bars" a try. It's such a beautiful song and I can't wait to get to know it better. Here it is after working through it for a couple of days.

Popular and Rock Piano Tips Part 2

This is the second video in this series of playing popular and rock piano styles.  It will expand on the previous concepts in the last video and add some more intricate rhythms between the hands.  You can try this with many popular songs that are played at this tempo.

Have fun.

Michael Stegner

Why I'm celebrating Willie Nelson and his 80th birthday...

This Tuesday, April 30, will be the 80th birthday of Willie Nelson.  This has become a yearly holiday in my musical calendar the last five years. Andy Sells and I were playing a weekly gig across the street from my house at the Park Pub and randomly decided to do a Willie Nelson night on his birthday.  That was the first time I had sung at a show for over ten years.  I’m positive I didn’t sound very good. But I later discovered it wasn’t the point.

Relearning those songs triggered the awakening of a voice that I never realized I had.  This musical self-discovery is still in process as I hope it always will be.  But I think the right thing hit me at the right time.  And the right thing was the power of Willie Nelson’s musical vision and his artistic voice.

For years I had been guided musically by voices such as Miles Davis, Bjork, Prince, Joni Mitchell, Sly and the Family Stones, Squarepusher and Bill Frisell to name a few.  But as a small child I spent hours listening to vinyl and singing along with the Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson classics.  I remember strumming along on the guitar as well - but I suspect I wasn't hitting the right chords.

Relearning those Willie Nelson songs brought me full circle musically.  It brought me back to the sounds that first mesmerized me.  These sounds made something gradually click for me.  The light bulb faded on slowly and I began to see the connection between Miles, Bjork, Prince, Joni and all the artist I had become enamored with over the years.  As I rediscovered the music of Willie Nelson, I discovered for the first time after many years the reason I always wanted to play music.

I realized I would never be a comfortable keyboard guy who could play the right part at the right time using the right sound.  Those gigs (which I have done a lot of) really stress me out because I can’t relate to that role very well.  But Willie’s music connected me to the source of what turns me on about playing and listening to music.  

Willie and wife Connie with Miles Davis

All of my musical heroes are considered rebellious because they didn’t conform to what the industry and society told them was ok.  This rebellion was not contrived to get attention, to gain a following, to shock the world into taking notice.  It was a rebellion that actually put us in touch with our true and most basic self.  It may or may not be intellectually or academically groundbreaking.  It is a sound and vision that strips away the unnecessary layers that society, politics, marketing, education, religion, the music industry and all institutions put between us and our own integrity.  It is sad that this constitutes as rebellion, but I suppose this is why we need rebellion and this is why we need heroes.

Willie Nelson is a hero figure in the classic sense.  He has been honest and open about his lowest points in life and shares them as equals to his peaks in life.  He has used his own suffering to evolve personally and musically.  He has broken down prejudices against gays, African-Americans, minorities, religious leaders and anyone who people don’t consider to have a place at the table - and has done so without shouting, screaming or being angry.  He does this with quiet grace and openness.

Musically, he exudes that same grace and openness as he courageously stays in each moment.  Always in tune with the room and the situation, he makes the song not just his own - but the listeners’ as well.  In the music business there is always pressure to play something the same way each time.  Willie makes sure he plays it the right way each time - not the same way.  He moves air with his sound that penetrates us to our true self.  And in my case awoke something that had been dying to come out for years.

So on yet another run of Willie Nelson birthday shows this upcoming week, I am very grateful for this true American treasure who is now turning 80 years old. 

I sincerely thank you Willie Nelson.

Michael Stegner

We’ll be celebrating his 80th at the Royal Room on April 30 at 8 p.m. - click here for tickets.

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Practicing the Unknown

Once students establish an effective routine in practice, it is always fascinating to see what they do when they practicing.  Often we practice something for a long time only to feel that our progress doesn't match our efforts.  In my opinion, this is a choice to feel this way.  It is a choice in how we practice.  I only say that because I often fell into the pitfall of associating the amount of time to the success of my practice.

I used to be so impressed by the stories of people who practiced eight hours a day.  I did this for many years thinking this was the trick to improving a lot.  Then I realized that I wasn’t improving as much as I would like during the eight hours, so I became convinced by teachers and mentors that correct repetition during the practice sessions was the key.  This did help me considerably.  Lately through teaching and my own practice, I have found the element that was missing from the first two approaches was the “unknown.”

When I practiced something that I was already comfortable with for any amount of time, my focus dipped.  I could go on autopilot and waste valuable time.  Then my eight hours really turned into a diversion - not a practice.  

As a young student, it was stressed to me that I repeat something three times, five times or seven times in a row before speeding up the tempo or moving on to something else.  Neuroplasticians have proven that our brain does not benefit from this static repetition.  Mastery grows and our brains benefit from incremental practice.  Every time we do something, the stakes should get higher (or change).  The tempo should get a little faster.  We add another hand or part to the mix.  We change the key.  We force the issue into the unknown.

I can’t begin to count the times when I would dutifully put the metronome at the tempo recommended by my teacher and have it pound away all week as I repeated the assignment.  Not only was it boring, it wasn’t helping me very much because I could zone out.

The flaw with this type of practice is that it doesn’t encourage our connection and engagement with what we create.  This is very sad and frustrating.  I would even go one step further and say that we can’t possibly create when this is the method.

If we as music teachers get frustrated about sports, video games, dance and all the other activities competing with our time; we really only need to look in the mirror.  The thing that those activities have in common is that they emphasize incremental improvement.  Whereas we were often taught that the way to play music is to do the same thing over and over again.  When we play video games, we are excited for the next unknown challenge.  When we play sports we want to rise to new challenges and improve.  We get hooked on the unknown and the next adventure.

The culture of teaching music has become so repertoire driven, that teachers may confuse harder and/or “more fun” pieces as incremental progress.  Sadly, this only encourages students to perform moderately more difficult pieces in the same way they have played their previous pieces...  Good...  Average...  Poor...  All detached from the creative process of performing.  In sports they call it “going through the motions.”  It's not fun to do no matter what activity we apply it.

Since I use the motto in my teaching studio of “four or more,” let’s start with that.  We play each assignment four or more times each day.  Here are ways you could use the metronome (or MIDI/play-along tracks) to practice the same piece for a week.  Let’s say the piece has a suggested tempo or end-of-week goal of 105.

Day 1 (Traditional):

First Repetition - Metronome at 60

Second Repetition - Metronome at 67

Third Repetition - Metronome at 74   

Fourth Repetition - Metronome at 81

Day 2 (Traditional - Increase Tempo):

First Repetition - Metronome at 60

Second Repetition - Metronome at 70

Third Repetition - Metronome at 80   

Fourth Repetition - Metronome at 90

Day 3 (Traditional - Build Tempo Threshold):

First Repetition - Metronome at 75

Second Repetition - Metronome at 85

Third Repetition - Metronome at 95   

Fourth Repetition - Metronome at 105

Day 4 (Reverse Metronome):

First Repetition - Metronome at 60

Second Repetition - Metronome at 50

Third Repetition - Metronome at 40  

Fourth Repetition - Metronome at 30

Day 5 (Slow, Slower, Fast, Faster):

First Repetition - Metronome at 50

Second Repetition - Metronome at 40

Third Repetition - Metronome at 90   

Fourth Repetition - Metronome at 100

Day 6 (Extreme Tempos):

First Repetition - Metronome at 40

Second Repetition - Metronome at 30

Third Repetition - Metronome at 110  

Fourth Repetition - Metronome at 120

Try this out and let me know how it goes.  Be slightly uncomfortable and engaged the whole time.  Embrace the unknown and see if it doesn’t help your connection to the music.

Michael Stegner

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Creating Positive Musical Experiences Through Practice Routines

Several students have recently come out of musical ruts because we were able to get organized with their practice and they were willing to embrace a simple practice routine.  It is always frustrating when we as students or teachers think that something sounds better the previous lesson than it does at the beginning of the current lesson.  In group lessons, students get frustrated when they start to lag behind the others even when they are more than capable of keeping up.

When we go through these down phases it is often due to falling out of a practice routine.  It seems easy enough to just get back on the horse.  But it really isn’t.  We start to feel all the times we didn’t get our work done stacking up and creating an insurmountable “to do” list.  We make it bigger than it may be and therefore we put it off longer.

This is when you may hear your child or yourself say that it’s time to quit and move on from this whole music thing.  This age-old statement starts to pop up, “I just don’t like piano any more.”  In group lessons students going through these dips in practice can act out in classes with behavior issues because they feel they are slowing their peers down.

Lately I have found a simple and practical way to gently pull students out of these times and make them less traumatic.  I think there will still be these times but often practice routines are the root of the dissatisfaction in learning music.

Putting emphasis on one day of practice is most beneficial in regaining momentum for playing music.  A weighted practice chart of the days in the week is really helpful to students.  For example; if their lesson is on a Monday, Tuesday is the most important day of the practice week.  Then after Tuesday, Wednesday is the most important day of the practice week.  Then Thursday is the most important day of the week.  By emphasizing the days right after the lesson the students will retain the information and build momentum.  

Most of us get caught in a our ruts innocently enough when we decide we just had our lesson and can take a couple of days off before ramping things back up.  The problem with this is that the day you planned to practice coincides with soccer practice, birthday parties, weekend trips, etc.  Before you know it, it’s the day before the lesson and it’s panic time.  We don’t remember all the nuances of what was covered in the lesson, we cram our practice(s) in, show up to the lesson stressed and then the process repeats itself because the mountain seems more insurmountable the next time around.

This is an ideal practice routine for someone struggling to get in the groove (or any of us for that matter):

Tuesday - Lesson

Tuesday post lesson - very short review practice

Wednesday - Master one new concept on each assigned piece

Thursday - Master another new concept on each assigned piece and review Wednesday’s work

Friday - Master another new concept on each assigned piece - review Wednesday’s and Thursday’s concepts.

Saturday - Repeat the same thing.  Review previous concepts.

Sunday - Ideally repeat the same thing - but if you’re going to take a day off this may be the one.

Monday - Review everything so you feel good about Tuesday’s lesson.

I have found as a teacher, if I list out the days and have the students circle each day they follow the script then lessons go really well.  The students can see the cause and effect of doing the routine, having a great lesson and feeling really good about playing music.

High school and college students can make spreadsheets and email it to the teacher the night before.  This helps give them something very concrete to attach to their feelings about playing and practicing music.

It doesn’t take long for the youngest to the oldest students to see the correlation between spending productive time and enjoying the activity.

I’ll write a follow-up to this, but one essential component to this is that we work on new material when we practice.  Many of our ruts our self-induced because we stick with what we’re able to do.  No matter how great something is when we first learn it, it will get stale.  The energy of always working on something new will snowball into a sustained positive experience.  Constantly playing something we mastered a month, week or day before leads to a dip in the enjoyment and productivity of the creative/practice process.

Hopefully this is helpful.

Michael Stegner

Moving Mastery

Recently several of my students have found themselves on the tangible side of much hard work, frustration, hope and dedication.  The tangible side being the stage when we know we are onto something.  We know we sound better.  We are aware there is a command developed over our art form that allows us to be more fluid, spontaneous and creative.

This personal acknowledgement is often the most rewarding part of all the hard work.  After all, if we practice for the praise of our peers, teachers, parents, fans, etc.; we may become disenchanted very quickly.  Those things are out of our control and often have nothing to do with the quality of what we do.  The ultimate fulfillment is to know that we are able to communicate through our art - becoming aware of this is very special.

With my own practice and my students’ practice, I have seen this climb to the top of the mountain most often end up in disappointment and frustration.  This is mostly because of our programmed belief that we have passed the exam, we have graduated or we have achieved a certain rite of passage.  We see masters perform and create and think that if we just get to their level things become so effortless and easy.  As we experience these little epiphanies in our own creative pursuits, we relax thinking we’ve made it one step closer - or we are one step beyond what we worked on last week, last month, last year or decades ago.

This thought pattern is often the seed of us getting stuck.  We’ve all been in our ruts where we get frustrated, bored or tired of our own art.  We just can’t see how to get to the next level or break away from our bag of tricks.  If we can catch ourselves going down this path, I feel that we can create a cycle of momentum that can be monumental for long-term growth.  If we keep trying to graduate to the next thing, our art becomes less and less rewarding and meaningful - motivation becomes more and more difficult to come by.

The idea of graduating or passing from anything in performing or the creative process is ill-founded at best.  I have found over the years of practicing and teaching that the highs come when a strong foundation of concepts come together and the lows come when we discover (consciously or unconsciously) gaps in our foundation.

Just like most flowers can’t continually bloom all year round, our playing can’t continue to go from one peak to the next.  Our practice has to be always advancing and receding.  We have to have the courage to tear down what we do well and build up what we can’t do.  This process is very humbling but I believe that this is where we find our artistic voice.

When we master a song or concept and are feeling really good about ourselves, it’s time to change something.  Start with the basics...  Change the key - try transposing whatever you are doing into all twelve keys.  Change the tempo - if you are playing something at 180 beats per minute see how you sound at 30 beats per minute or 280 beats per minute.  Change the articulation - reverse all the legatos to staccatos and vice versa.  Listen to 10 recordings of the piece by great artists and emulate their phrasing and ignore what is on the page.  It will only make you able to execute what’s on the page better - or make well-rounded decisions on your own interpretations.

Recent studies by neuroscientists have shown that we do not improve with static repetitions.  If we do something “correct” three times in a row we are not improving.  We only improve if something changes each repetition and our brain make the proper adjustments.  Even moving the metronome five points one way or the other will benefit us more than repeating something the same way several times in a row.  Would video games be as popular if we sat and played the same level over and over once we mastered it?

The final approach mentioned in this article is the application of concepts.  If we can only apply a concept to the specific (or original) piece we are practicing, then we don’t own the concept - the specific piece of repertoire now owns the concepts and concepts will not be easily transferable.  When this happens, we will feel like we’re starting all over with every piece.  We’ve all been there and it is not fun.

Let’s say we get obsessed with playing “My Romance” like Bill Evans.  After hours and hours of hard work we can sound really good on “My Romance.”  Then we go to play through another tune and we sound exactly the way we did before we started on the “My Romance” project...  Maybe even worse since all of our practice time was taken up by this project.

If we are not able to apply the concepts from Bill Evans’ “My Romance” to “Happy Birthday” or Stephen Foster songs or nursery rhymes then we will always be starting over with each new piece and there will not be enough hours in the day to improve on each of them.  

Try taking whatever concepts you are working on and spend some time (even a little time) applying them to something else - keep it simple.  Find some simple folk songs from around the world and apply the concepts there.  If we can’t apply our most complicated concepts to simple applications, then something is not right and a rut could be waiting.

Michael Stegner
Copyright © 2012

Technique - An Introduction

Continued from this previous article...

The compartmentalization of musicianship can lead to several blocks and disconnects in our practice and performance. We study theory separately from technique, technique separately from repertoire and repertoire separately from improvisation. This can lead to large gaps in artistic development because we tend to pigeonhole ourselves way too soon and too often. We decide that we can improvise but can’t read. We can read but can’t memorize. We can memorize but we can’t do Hanon. We hate theory but love repertoire.

It’s as if the musical dots are discouraged from being connected!

Scales, arpeggios, etudes and other technical exercises are often presented as mindless athletic drills separate from playing music. They may increase our athleticism but decrease our musicality and awareness... Especially when they are practiced with no intent or awareness.

This mindless way of practicing can also have a detrimental effect on our attitude towards our own playing and our judgement of others. We discount other players for being too technical. Others dismiss our playing as being too technical. We get frustrated by what we can’t do. We think that our technique gets in the way of our expression.

However, the technique (or lack of) is not the issue at all - it’s the intent behind the technique. Practicing our instruments with no intent to accomplish something musical or no awareness of how we sound, makes technique the end of the means. Sadly, it’s often all we have to show of ourselves when we play our instruments. Our chops are merely part of the whole picture - maybe even invisible to most if we are truly creating art.

I would like to share some philosophies that have helped my technique practice time be more productive and musical. Then I will get into very specific practice methods that help curb the isolation between technical work and the other musicianship elements.

First, let’s look at a definition of “technique.” Technique can be defined as “a method of performance; way of accomplishing.”

If we understand when we sit down to work out our scales, etudes, etc., that they are in fact “methods of performance” our focus and creativity will increase. And if we saw this part of our practice as a “way of accomplishing,” we would have much more motivation and a positive attitude.

If we approach technique practice as anything other than a method of performance, the dreaded autopilot will take over. Then we get bored... We lose focus... We develop bad habits... We want to quit... We waste large chunks of time each day that we can never get back.

As artists, I think it is essential to always ask ourselves, “What do we want to accomplish?”

Do we want to impress everyone with how fast we play? Do we want to impress everyone with how much soul we have? Do we want to show everyone how much we know? Do we want to show everyone how we don’t have chops and don’t need them? Do we just want to play for fun? Do we want to please our teachers? Do we want approval from our peers or parents?

These are all ego-driven motivations that depend on our relationship to something outside of ourselves. These reasons to play music typically lead to short-lived peaks, really frustrating valleys and practice that doesn’t help us improve to our potential or fulfill us artistically.

Whether we realize it or not, when we go to our instrument we become an artist. The artist is supposed to be a messenger - to communicate. The source of the art lies within all of us. Technique is simply a conduit to bring the artistic source within to our instrument and eventually our audience - even if we’re playing for ourselves.

A prerequisite to technique practice is to know what and how you want to communicate. A purpose and sound is what we are trying to accomplish. Technique is merely the way to create music - artistic music.

Technique develops our sound, our tone, our touch and our facility. In other words, it’s the creation, delivery and development of our sound that is our musical fingerprint. It’s something that we should always be conscious of in practice and performance. It takes relentless focus and awareness to practice technique in a way that will give us a solid voice.

It is very detrimental to play a scale (or even a note) without having a plan - without deciding and knowing what you are to accomplish during that repetition. This is why we can so easily play a gig and not really remember how we got from the downbeat to the end of the set.

Next I’ll walk through practice methods that use technical exercises as a way to increase our level of artistry.

Click here for the previous article.

Michael Stegner

Copyright © 2012