I’ve noticed a bit of elitism in the musician community, and it’s always been there but maybe I’m either more aware of it now or it’s gotten worse. In spite of the fact that innovation always arises from limitation and deviation, people doing things the way that works for them seems to be pretty frowned upon.
This can apply to disabilities, as well as physical and mental limitations and deviations. We’re all built differently, and as long as you’re doing something safely then the only thing that matters is sounding good.
If you’re struggling to understand a music theory concept, and your teacher tells you there’s only one way to understand and apply it, your teacher is wrong. Think about it in whatever way you need in order to understand it.
If you keep trying a particular method in order to play a guitar chord and it never works after days or weeks of trying, try a different fingering for it or a different way to hold the neck. Your teacher is trying to get you to do it in what your teacher believes to be the most normal and optimal way to do it, and that’s fine, but there’s nothing wrong with you if it doesn’t work for you. Left handed guitarists flip guitars and play everything upside down or restring the guitar. Because of that we got amazing left handed musicians, and a whole new instrument (left handed guitars). Imagine someone telling Jimi or Kurt that what they’re doing is wrong. Imagine telling Django Reinhardt that he would never be any good because he can’t use two of his fingers.
This really isn’t meant to be a “we should promote inclusion” post, but it’s fine if it gets applied that way. I hate the thought of someone spending years trying to accomplish something because that musician kept trying to only do it the way a teacher said to do it, seeing other students get farther, and then one day the student finally tries it a different way and goes “wait, I could have been doing it like this the whole time?” and then has to make up years to get back to where the other students are.
You’re not a bad musician because you can only make something sound good when you do it wrong. You’re only a bad musician if you don’t make music sound good. In an audio recording, nobody can see how you’re doing it, so do what works. When they can, if they’re pissed about how you did it, then congratulations, you just learned your first lesson about marketing: if you try to appeal to everybody, then you’re not going to appeal to anybody. Play for the people that love you, not the ones who don’t. If what you’re doing sounds good, and is safe, then it’s right.
Submitted August 25, 2023 at 07:38AM by somnipathmusic https://www.reddit.com/r/Learnmusic/comments/160vjmr/just_a_quick_thing_if_youre_being_taught_to_do/?utm_source=ifttt