The Musician Toolkit with David Lane

If you're having trouble progressing as much as you'd like when practicing music, you might like this extreme but very focused approach.  Instead of practicing on something for 10 minutes and thinking about how much progress you can make in 10 minutes, consider how much progress you could make minute-by-minute for 10 single minutes.  This episode will help you learn why this strategy can really work for you right away, and how you ...

It's one thing for a musician to state a goal, even a big one, but it's useless until you've given it some legs.  What's the difference between saying you plan to write a musical and getting that musical staged in an official production?  The difference is that the first scenario takes virtually no effort, and the 2nd takes a lot of steps, work, and perseverance.  Every big success starts with an idea but prominently features a ser...

The skill of observation is a crucial skill for all musicians.  However, it's also a skill that most students have not come close to developing when they're early in their lessons for learning their instrument.  Observation helps you find patterns, to identify structure, to see how one part of the music connects with another, not to mention more basic things to notice such as dynamics and articulation.  In the digital age, paying a...

Jazz is a genre that serious musicians at least take time to explore.  Whether it's classical musicians, film composers, rock musicians, pop artists, hip hop artists, even country artists like Willie Nelson...it's hard to find accomplished musicians in any genre who are ignorant of the world of jazz.  While this episode won't get into the nuts and bolts of the genre, this is an introduction to 10 albums that will give you an idea o...

Composing and Improvising are essential tools for every well-rounded musician, but they are different skills.  Quite often, when someone decides to become a composer, they are making up something from their instrument and then writing it down on staff paper.  This is actually more of a transcribed improvisation than it is true composition.  There's nothing wrong with that, but it is an incomplete look at the craft.  Composing a 2-p...

Many professional musicians and music teachers struggle with charging what their worth, or even what they need to charge to make even a decent living.  Brian Witkowski of The Lucrative Artist helps musicians and other artists to develop their "money voice", to change the way they think about money.  In this episode, we chat about a variety of ways that you can charge more while also creating something incredible and memorable for t...

Even after you've scheduled your practice time each day and planned what your focus is during that time, the mindset you bring to your practice will absolutely affect how well or poorly you do during your session.  There are 5 common types of practice mindsets, 2 which are helpful and 3 which are not.  Which one or ones do you gravitate towards the most, and might a shift be helpful in improving the effectiveness of your practice t...

If you're an independent teacher, there are a number of important steps to go from being a hobbyist to becoming a legitimate business.  Andrea Miller of Music Studio Startup talks about all of this including making a decision about becoming an LLC and what steps go with that if you choose, making quarterly tax estimates, deductions, and other general information to help you be a thriving music studio.

Find out more about Music Stud...

This is a follow-up to Episode 17 from last year, where this podcast introduced 25 pieces of classical music, not necessarily the best or most acclaimed pieces, but 25 that you should know even if classical music is not your genre of focus.  Even after 25 more pieces, there are so many that were left out, but this plus the previous episode in this series will give you 50 pieces you should know no matter your genre as a musician.

Pr...

The Instrument Spotlight series within The Musician Toolkit is meant to introduce instruments as possible primary or secondary instruments, the challenges, the repertoire, and the capabilities.  Kate Warren is a freelance hornist and educator who also serves as Yaffe Post-Graduate Teaching Fellow for the Yale School of Music's Music in Schools Initiative.  In this episode, we talk about the horn, types of motivation, transposing, a...

This episode is primarily meant as a primer for music students.  It gives a very broad overview of music history from the Medieval era through what we might call modern classical music.  This episode is limited to Western civilization and some of the common composers.  This episode also offers David Lane's suggestion that we should rethink how we've classified musical eras since 1900.  Let us know what you think.

Music excerpts o...

Dr. Ronnal Ford has learned to play, on a professional level, all of the woodwind and stringed instruments of the orchestra in addition to a few others.  He talks about how he approaches learning a new instrument.  He also talks about the challenges of being a musician of color in the classical community, and some of the recent opportunities that help him and similar musicians to be featured more prominently.

Let me know your thoug...

Should you strive for big and hard goals, or safe goals that are fairly easy to attain?  What do you do when it becomes obvious that you won't reach a goal by the deadline you gave yourself?  This episode talks about these questions, along with the importance of balance, grace, pivot, and the importance of failure and discomfort.

Let me know your thoughts on this episode at https://www.speakpipe.com/MusicianToolkit or you can send ...

If you're studying music and find yourself unable to progress, or are progressing too little in your opinion when considering your practice time, don't despair.  You are experiencing something very common in music and in plenty of other skill areas: the intermediate plateau.  This episode discusses why it exists and 7 things you can do to break through the barrier to becoming a great musician!

Let me know your thoughts on this epis...

Anyone who seeks to become better a better sight reader will find a lot of information on what your eyes should be doing as you play, but there has not been nearly as much focus on what your hands should be feeling.  If you play the piano or other instrument that involves a lot of movement with the hands, can you manage steps and leaps with accuracy without ever looking at your hands? David Holter has a system called SPARK that hel...

Whether it's composing a big piece, trying to master difficult repertoire, or wanting to build a full-time  teaching studio when you don't even have your first student, it's easy to see the target far in the distance.  Learning how to build and climb a staircase will help you accomplish absolutely any goal you have, big or small!

Previous episode referenced: Episode 40

Let me know your thoughts on this episode at https://www.speakp...

If you've had a music teacher at any point in your life, you've probably heard the advice to "slow down".   It is truly excellent advice...if you approach it a certain way.  If your idea of practicing slowly is to make everything proportionately slower (as if someone filmed you full speed and then put the video in slow motion), this is only one way, and usually not the most effective in most cases.  Check out this episode to hear w...

Whether you're a teacher or a performing musician, you'll only go as far as your goals, your system for dealing with lack of motivation, and your organization.  The guest for this episode is Melissa Slocum - piano teacher, business coach, and podcaster.  We talk about a variety of topics in this episode, including better ways to think about goals, a different approach to the idea of work/life balance, the important 1-word question ...

No single visual aid shows more aspects of how music works than the Circle of 5ths (sometimes called Circle of Keys and Circle of 4ths).  Besides its more widely known uses for showing the order of sharps and flats along with the keys in sharp and flat order, it also shows scale degree frequency, primary and secondary triads, chord groupings, and more.  From the basic to the obscure, this will get into the Circle of 5ths and all th...