Internalize your music!

Most music students learn to play by practicing a specific scale or a specific pattern or a specific piece of music until they can play it flawlessly. The scales, patterns, etudes, and pieces are written using standard western music notation, assigned by an instructor, and practiced by the student in such a way as to master the ability to perform them specifically and precisely every time. This is the time-honored way of learning to master the skill of playing an instrument. Music has been taught and learned this way since the beginning of formalized western music education in European monasteries during the middle ages. Developing skills this way leads to virtuosic technique, enhanced muscle memory, heightened mental concentration and focus, and often a greater understanding of the emotional interpretation of a composer's intent as applied to a specific musical composition with regard to dynamics and expression. As an added side bonus, the students learn to expertly decipher a complex two-part code wherein a series of dots and lines is first translated into a corresponding series of letter-names, and then those letter names translated into their corresponding pitches on the student's chosen instrument.

All of these are Good Things. But they are not the music. The skills involved in learning to play an instrument are part of the tools a musician uses to create music; the notes on the page are part of the road map to get there; but the music itself is far, far beyond the simple mechanics of tone production and notation.

But what is beyond the notes on the page? What is beyond the set of instructions given in the form of a page of dots and lines and squiggles that all mean specific things to a musician but are just dots and lines and squiggles to everyone else? How can one begin the transition from following a specific set of instructions toward actually creating music?

Shift your thinking!

What's necessary is a fundamental shift in thinking. The music is not the notes on the page; those are just instructions. The music itself is art expressed through sound, using the elements of rhythm, pitch, and dynamic volume in such a way as to cause listeners to feel a particular emotion or emotions. The notes on the page reflect a composer's intent, instructions from composer to performer on how to create the music -- but the music itself exists only for an infinitesimally small amount of time, a singular moment while the sounds are actually being made. Prior to that moment, the music exists only as an idea in the mind of the composer which has been set out as instructions to follow; after the music's moment is over it exists only as a memory in the minds of the listeners. Even recordings are only a mechanical duplication of music which has already happened. The moment at which it is being performed live is the only time music actually exists as music.

For this reason, the performer's role in the moment is paramount in the creation of the actual music; in order to truly create music, players must learn to rise above the stature of being simply a follower of instructions, and instead become a co-Creator along with the composer and the other members of the ensemble. This involves taking part in a shared vision that starts with the composer, continues with the performer(s), and ends with the audience.

Make music instead of just playing notes!

In order to share this vision, as a performer, it must become your vision. The composer's ideas must also become your own. The music must be internalized to such a degree that there is no degree of separation between the composer's intent and your own; you must play and feel the music as if you are creating a new musical experience for your listeners, every time. Whether the music was composed by someone else or not doesn't matter; when you perform it you make it yours.

Internalizing the music involves more than just practicing the notes on the page until you can play them flawlessly. To internalize the music, you must gather the notes into groups of phrases that make sense together. Instead of thinking of notes and intervals, think of how those notes and intervals come together to make a melody. Listen to that melody as a whole, which is greater than the sum of its parts. Sing or hum it. Then take that melody and play it in a different key. Play it on a different instrument. Don't think of it as notes; think of it as a melodic phrase. By the time you're through working on it, you should be able to sing or play that melody in any key at any tempo.

When we improvise jazz, we are functioning as both composer and performer - and sometimes also audience. It is therefore doubly important to internalize the groups of notes, melodies, and phrases; not only that, but your entire musical thought process must be internalized in order to be a successful jazz improviser. Even something as simple as a scale should be so much a part of you that you can roll it off in any key at any tempo without even thinking about it.

Practice scales with intent

One way to internalize your music is by practicing scales with intent. Instead of just mindlessly running scales, treat your scales as if they are melodies to be internalized. Break your scales into smaller groups of notes, 3 or 4 or 5 notes at a time, and play these patterned scales in every key until your fingers can play any part of any scale starting from any note, on a moment's notice. Do the same thing for arpeggios and other patterns.

Make music in the moment

But Remember that all of this is just preparation; the music itself hasn't happened yet. The music happens when you play your melody while someone else is listening. All of the practicing and all of the preparation you do to develop skills, this is all to prepare you to be able to Create music in each singular moment of interaction between yourself and your audience. Then that moment is gone and you're on to the next moment. When you internalize the music and make it your own; only then can you expect your audience to respond to what they feel in the moment, instead of just observing.