David's Tip of the Day: A Blues Harmonica Player's Journey - Part 3

I'll now spend some time on the areas I footnoted.

1. “three to six every afternoon” represents the average amount of daily practice time for the serious student of music. Dr. Anders Ericsson, expert in skills acquisition, states that it takes commonly ten thousand hours to reach a basic level of mastery.

2. “scales” represent where a music student’s study begins, preparing them for muscle memory on their instrument of the patterns needed for playing songs and the basic ear training required for tune recognition and ultimately creation.

3. “arpeggios” represent the next step in a musician’s development, chord knowledge, which ultimately leads to more melodic choices in improvisation.

4. “exercises” are scales and arpeggios put into action over the range of the instrument, preparing the player for the integration of technique with music soon.

5. “tunes” application of scales, arpeggios and exercises… now making music!

6. “music printed” is the common medium of directions for what to play with classically trained musicians.

7. “could not find a place for himself” due to the fact that his familiarity is with common modes (primarily Major and Minor). In the music you can hear Peter playing essentially the Major scale, while the jazz musicians are not.

More to come tomorrow....