An APPENDIX for my main page about
Musical Improvisation, using Creativity + Music Theory
I.O.U. – This page has leftover-cuts that eventually will be revised and put back into the main page. Here are some early attempts to condense-and-revise:
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Learning from Experience — how to excel in welding (or music or anything else) One of the most powerful master skills is knowing how to learn. The ability to learn can itself be learned, as illustrated by a friend who, in his younger days, had an interesting strategy for work and play. ... How did he become such a good welder? He had “learned how to learn” by following the wise advice of his teacher, “every time you do a welding job, do it better than the time before.” ... In the present, always aim for quality of thinking-and-action, and sometimes ask “what have I learned in the past that will help me now” or “what can I learn now that will help me in the future?” This is a good strategy for learning (from experience) how to improve welding, and for improving most other things in life. { MORE – Learning from Experience can improve your Learning-Performing-Enjoying in a wide variety of life-activities. } {the full section} A friend became an expert welder` Learning from ALL Experience You can learn from ALL experience, whether you view the result as a failure or success, or (more likely) some of each. A feeling that “I could have done better, and I want to do better” can motivate you to reflect on what happened (the situation, your actions, the results) so you will learn more from the experience, so you can "do it better" the next time, so you will continue to improve. {my deeper examination of these ideas} {an "inner game" approach} {the full section}
Strategies for Improving Skills You can develop strategies that are mental and/or physical. In a mental strategy you... A physical strategy is similar, but... {the full section includes examples of strategies to improve your pronunciation in a foreign language, and improve your tennis backhand.} ..... The process of learning from experience is similar for a wide range of skills, such as running or dancing, throwing a ball, driving a car, or making music.
Generating Ideas and Evaluating Ideas You may find that sometimes it's useful — after you Define Goals (for characteristics you want in your music) — to use cycles of Generating-and-Evaluating: you Generate Ideas for Making Music (by remembering, imagining, revising) and you Evaluate These Ideas (by listening, and comparing what you hear with your Goals), then you Generate-and-Evaluate again, and again. {from my education website, Generating and Evaluating} Two Objectives — Performing and Learning There can be a tension between two types of objectives: ..... With a performing objective your main goal is top performing now, in the present. With a learning objective your main goal is to learn now, so you will have top performing later, in the future. ..... As an example of tension between objectives, in this page the first suggestion is to "experiment in low-risk situations when nobody (not you or anyone else) cares about the quality or klunkers" so you can just "relax, listen, and learn." This can be useful when your main goal is your learning, but it would not be wise for an important concert when your main goal is your performing. {from my education website, Performing and/or Learning and/or Enjoying} Using On-and-Off Metacognition to Improve Performance You can develop strategies for effectively avoiding or using the metacognition that occurs when you think about your thinking. ..... A valuable metacognitive skill is knowing yourself (and your situations) well enough to know when to use metacognition, and how to use it, so it will be optimally beneficial. ..... One factor in knowing your "situations" is deciding, for a situation, whether your main objective is performing now, or is learning now, as explained above. {in my education website, Optimizing Performance by Regulating Metacognition with Performance and/or Learning on left side, Metacognitive Regulation on right side} |
Experiments produce Experiences
This page begins with "a strategy for learning, a key principle," by encouraging creative experimenting: "instead of worrying about the possibility of mistakes, just relax and experiment, listen, learn" because "you can do a wide variety of creative experiments... to produce new experiences, so you can learn from these experiences." The essence of education is learning from experience.
And what is the basic relationship between experiences and experiments? It's summarized in my link to this section (experiments → experiences) and its title, Experiments produce Experiences.
Because broad definitions are educationally useful, I define experiment broadly as “any situation that produces experience, which includes almost everything in your own first-hand experiences and also (because you can learn from what other people do)* in the second-hand experiences of others.” Or the word can be used as a verb, when you creatively experiment so – by doing new actions – you will get new experiences that are opportunities for learning and growing.
* You can generate creative musical ideas by discovering them yourself (in your experimenting) and also by learning them from others (in your active listening).
Learning from Experience — how to excel in welding (or music or anything else)
One of the most powerful master skills is knowing how to learn. The ability to learn can itself be learned, as illustrated by a friend who, in his younger days, had an interesting strategy for work and play. He worked for awhile at a high-paying job and saved money, then took a vacation. He was free to wake when he wanted, read a book, hang out at a coffee shop, go for a walk, or travel to faraway places by hopping on a plane or driving away in his car.
Usually, employers want workers committed to long-term stability, so why did they tolerate his unusual behavior? He was reliable, always showed up on time, and gave them a week's notice before departing. But the main reason for their acceptance was the quality of his work. He was one of the best welders in Seattle, performing a valuable service that was in high demand, and doing it extremely well. He could audition for a job, saying “give me a really tough welding challenge and I'll show you how good I am.” They did, he did, and they hired him.
How did he become such a good welder? He had “learned how to learn” by following the wise advice of his teacher, “every time you do a welding job, do it better than the time before.” Or, in my expanded version, every time you do a welding job, do it better than the time before. One strategy is to learn from the past and concentrate in the present. Or, if you're alertly aware of what you're doing now (and how this is affecting the quality of welding) your awareness may help you do it better the next time, so you'll be intentionally learning from the present to prepare for the future. Here is a basic approach: In the present, always aim for quality of thinking-and-action, and sometimes ask “what have I learned in the past that will help me now” or “what can I learn now that will help me in the future?” This is a good strategy for learning (from experience) how to improve welding, and for improving most other things in life. { MORE – Learning from Experience can improve your Learning-Performing-Enjoying in a wide variety of life-activities. }
Learning from ALL Experience
Some useful principles are described in my two sections that include these ideas:
You can learn from ALL experience, whether you view the result as a failure or success, or (more likely) some of each. A feeling that “I could have done better, and I want to do better” can motivate you to reflect on what happened (the situation, your actions, the results) so you will learn more from the experience. ... A conscious intention to learn — by asking “what can I learn now that will help me later?” — can occur before an experience, during it, or afterward. ... An inner game approach describes "learning from all experience" as learning in your personally customized Greatest Seminar on Earth.
We rarely “get it right” the first time. Therefore, partial failures (each with partial success) usually are necessary. ... How? During iterative cycles [of Generating Ideas and Evaluating Ideas] we want each cycle to "yield results successively closer to a desired result" as we continually learn more from our experiences in each cycle of Generate-and-Evaluate. ... My ideas-page about Music Improvisation [in the page you're reading] begins by encouraging you to "just relax-and-do, listen and learn." ... [And when you're aiming for high-quality music,] according to jazz artist Ben Sidran, the most important action in musical improvisation is productively graceful recovery from perceived mistakes.
Strategies for Improving Skills
We use a process of problem-solving design` for "almost everything in life," whenever we are designing a better product, activity, strategy, or theory. I think this claim about "everything" is justified because a common use of design is to develop strategies that are mental and/or physical. "In a mental strategy you make decisions about the actions you will do, and then you actualize the strategy by applying it to do these actions. A physical strategy is similar, but there is a more direct connection between deciding and doing, with more emphasis on the quality of doing when you apply the strategy." One example of a mental-and-physical strategy is A Problem-Solving Approach to Improving Pronunciation` when learning a foreign language:
In this problem-solving approach you use Quality Checks (the essence of Design Method) by comparing your actual pronunciation with the goal-pronunciation you want, and doing whatever is required — by “experimenting” with the way you are speaking — to move your actual speaking-sounds in the direction of the goal-sounds you want. In pursuing these goal-sounds, some conscious thinking may be useful, but your main focus is on the results, on the sound that you produce by applying the “physical strategies” that your body (your mouth, tongue, lips, vocal chords,...) is using when it makes physical adjustments in its attempts to achieve the sounds you want. You are mainly focusing on improving the results of strategy-application, not the strategy itself.
When you are developing a mental-and-physical strategy for a skill (such as pronouncing words) the balance between mental and physical varies from one skill to another. If your goal is to improve a backhand stroke in tennis, you consciously decide some broad features of a skill-strategy (what kind of grip you will use, with one hand or two,...) but most details of the skill-strategy are determined by your body, when it “does experiments” and you observe the results, and you make adjustments (consciously & unconsciously) in response, in an attempt to achieve your goals for the backhand stroke.
The process of learning by observing-and-improving is similar (but with some adaptations) for a wide range of skill-strategies, such as running or dancing, throwing a ball, driving a car, or making music.
Strategies for Learning How to Make Music
If you want to improve your skills in musical improvisation, a useful application of design (and thus Design Method) is a Learning Strategy that is a process of design in which you observe-and-improve. A process of design — by making a Plan (choosing a Skill-Strategy), then using the Strategy so you can Observe the results and then Evaluate the Strategy (and your actions in Strategy-Application), so you can Make a New Plan — forms a cycle (Plan, Observe, Evaluate, Plan,...) that lets you continually improve the quality of your learning and performing.
This process of design is a Strategy for Thinking, to improve Learning and/or Performing. Above, you saw one application of a Learning Strategy, for the mental-and-physical skill of pronunciation. With suitable adjustments, you also can use this Learning Strategy for the mental-and-physical skill of musical improvisation. My most complete description of a Learning Strategy (it's a Design of Thinking Strategies`) is its application for the skill of learning from lectures, which is mainly mental. But the same principles — using a cycle of design that lets you observe and improve — can be used for any mental skill or mental-and-physical skill, including musical improvisation.
I.O.U. — Eventually, I want to write Thinking-and-Action Strategies for various aspects of music, ranging from long tones (discussed in my page for "... Improving Pronunciation") to improvisation & composition & performance (music covers a very wide range of physical-and-mental Strategies and Strategy-Actualizations), but I have not yet done this.
Design and Music
In the context of musical improvisation, the objective of a design project could be a product (such as a skilled improvisation during a particular song, which is preserved by recording it or converting it into a composition), activity (e.g. a live performance for an audience), strategy (for improving your skill in improvising, or in some other aspect of music), or theory (about effective ways to improve your musical skills and musical results).
You may find that sometimes a conscious use of design process will stimulate creativity-with-quality when you Define Goals (for characteristics you want in your music), Generate Options (by imagining, remembering, revising), and Evaluate Options (by listening, and comparing what you hear with your goals). But at other times, does just "letting it flow, without conscious control" produce different results? Maybe you can get the best of both strategies by using on-and-off metacognition, as explained below.
Using Metacognition to Stimulate Creativity, or Allow Creativity
In my Overview of Design Method the concluding Part 3b — about ways to more effectively use metacognition (this occurs when we "think about thinking") in a process of design — the section about Optimal Performance by Regulating Metacognition` (with "Performance and/or Learning" on the left side, and Metacognitive Regulation on right side) seems especially useful for musical improvisation. It begins by explaining the benefits of On-and-Off Metacognition, by developing strategies for effectively avoiding, using, and regulating metacognition:
Sometimes your best strategy is to go with the flow and allow productive thinking. But in other situations you'll want to stimulate productive thinking by consciously making plans or finding strategies. If you develop an accurate knowledge of yourself and your situations, this will help you regulate metacognition by turning it on and off, to maximize its actual positive effects (in helping you improve your thinking, learning, and performance) and minimize its potential negative effects (in being a distracting Interference that will reduce Performance) in an effort to achieve optimal benefits. ... A valuable metacognitive skill is knowing yourself (and your situations) well enough to know when to use metacognition, and how to use it, so it will be optimally beneficial.And it ends with "Inner Game" principles (Performance = Potential - Interference) for optimizing performance.
One factor in knowing your "situations" is deciding, for a situation, whether your main objective is "optimal performance (by doing in the present) or optimal education (by learning for the future)," as explained below.
Two Objectives — Performance and Education
A friend became an expert welder` by following the wise advice of his teacher: “Every time you do a welding job, do it better than the time before.” How? Remember what you've learned from past experience; always concentrate in the present so you can accurately-and-thoroughly observe what you are doing and how your thinking-and-action is affecting the quality of your work. This now-focus will help you do a better job now, and you'll also learn more now that will help you in the future. But...
There can be a tension between two types of objectives: • When you're doing an important job, so you're on-task with a performance objective, your goal is to always concentrate on quality of thinking-and-action in the present, which sometimes does (but sometimes doesn't) involve metacognitively asking “how can I do it better” or “what have I learned in the past that will help me now?”, and occasionally you'll ask “what can I learn now that will help me in the future?” • But at other times in life you'll be on-task with a learning objective (a personal education objective), when asking “what can I learn now?” is the top priority. / With a performance objective your main goal is top performance now, in the present. With a learning objective your main goal is top performance later, in the future.
For example, in this page the first suggestion is to "experiment in low-risk situations when nobody (not you or anyone else) cares about the quality or klunkers" so you can just "relax, listen, and learn." This can be an effective way to learn when your main goal is your learning (personal education), but it probably would not be wise for an important concert when your main goal is your performance.
I hope you find these ideas interesting, with many exciting areas for deeper exploration. It should be obvious that I'm excited about musical ideas, as part of my more general enthusiasm for Educational Ideas - Thinking, Learning, and Teaching. But developing ideas requires time, which is limited, and in the near future (as explained in the IOU above) many of my plans will remain dreams for the future. But there are plenty of fascinating musical possibilities for you to explore — above and below in this page, and in many other ways — and I hope you will continue exploring and will enjoy the adventure.
LEFTOVERS — I might use some of the following ideas later, maybe during late-September 2019.
it's coming from your long-term memory if you're "alone in silence," or it's from your short-term memory (of what has been happening in the song you're hearing) plus your short-term imagination (of what you predict will be happening in the song, based on your memory or imagination)
Strategies for Thinking: For both singing and playing, you can use a thinking strategy (to improve your learning and/or performing) that will help you learn more from experience when you want to improve a mental-and-physical skill such as singing or playing (for music) or speaking (for conversation).
{comment: In this page, usually instead of “white keys” (or “black keys”) I'm writing "white notes" to avoid the confusion that might occur if I say “use white keys to play the key of C,” with "key" having two meanings. more }
There are plenty of fascinating musical possibilities for you to explore — above and below in this page, and in many other ways — and I hope you will continue exploring and will enjoy the adventure.
musical examples (leftovers, not used) – Purple Carnival – Flamingo (Ellington Orchestra with Herb Jeffries) 1999 Remastered – |