Why Your Kid Isn't Going To Make It In Music

This was the original working title, and the idea I had in mind the entire time I was writing my book Get The Most Out Of Music Lessons. As a private music teacher for more than 25 years, I've had a chance to see why kids - and people in general - fail at music, especially people trying to learn modern, non-notated styles like rock and country, on guitar, piano and bass. And it's probably not what you think.

Before we can look at why so many people give up on music, we have to divide music into classical and modern working styles. "Classical" applies to any music produced by writing out parts for the individual musicians. However, "modern" music is non-notated music. It isn't written down before it's played. The sheet music for rock and country songs you buy in stores is all produced after the fact, and none of those parts were written out by the original artists or musicians. You probably haven't thought about it - and neither has your teacher - but it's an important clue to how you learn to play modern styles.

In the year 2020, there is still no clear consensus on what modern music education is, apart from classical music education. This is a problem music educators first recognized in the 1960s. Learning rock music from sheet music is wrong on several different levels. Students who want to play modern music get shoehorned into outdated, classically-based methods that stifle all of their creative instincts.

If you don't take charge of your musical direction, you can spend your whole life on the reading-method book merry-go-round, and never learn to play real music. Many students realize, only after spending years and thousands of dollars, that you can't pull a modern rabbit out of a classical hat.

By ensuring that your lesson experience is helping you to develop your aural skills, learn to interact with music, learn how modern musicians work - by knowing how to set the agenda with your teachers, and how to take charge of your own musical direction - you can get the most out of the music lessons you're spending so much money on.

This book is a reality check for parents, teachers and students. It's not a method book. There are no practice schedules, or parent/teacher/student contracts, or positive affirmations. This isn't just a scathing criticism of the Music Education Establishment. Instead, I offer practical advice and insight for self-motivated people looking for a better way to learn guitar, piano and bass. If you've tried and failed at music, it's time to take another look from a modern perspective.

* How to teach modern, non-notated styles, like rock, blues, country and jazz.

* Shows you the real working methods of modern musicians and producers.

* Why lessons based on reading-method books are not the best way to learn rock, country, and related styles.

* How real musicians make real music.

* A look at the history of modern music in terms of it's complicated relationship with standard notation.

* 'Reading music by ear' is a real thing.

* Perfect pitch versus relative pitch.

* How humans process musical information.

* Understanding music teachers, and the Music Education Establishment.

* How piano players can learn to improvise like guitar players. (Why do guitar players all know instinctively how to play by ear?)

* How to break out of 'slow mode, ' and attain the 'Zen of reading music.'

* Know the difference between types of published sheet music: lead sheets, chord charts, scores, solo arrangements, note-for-note transcription, and chords-over-lyrics charts.

* Making sure you get the right equipment at the best price.

* Includes A Manifesto For Modern Music Education, and Guidelines For Modal Blues Harmony, and The Golden Age of Rock Radio Recreated on Spotify and Youtube.