The Perfect Wrong Note Learning to Trust Your Musical Self

by Westney, William

• ISBN13: 9781574671452
• ISBN10: 1574671456
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781574673906
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-06-01
• Publisher: Amadeus

Summary

In this groundbreaking book, prize-winning pianist and noted educator William Westney helps readers discover their own path to the natural, transcendent fulfillment of making music. Drawing on experience, psychological insight, and wisdom ancient and modern, Westney shows how to trust yourself and set your own musicality free. He offers healthy alternatives for lifelong learning and suggests significant change in the way music is taught. For example, playing a wrong note can be constructive, useful, even enlightening. The creator of the acclaimed Un-Master Class workshop also explores the special potential of group work, outlining the basics of his revelatory workshop that has transformed the music experience for participants the world over. Practicing, in Westney's view, is a lively, honest, adventurous, and spiritually rewarding enterprise, and it can (and should) meet with daily success, which empowers us to grow even more. Teachers, professionals, and students of any instrument will benefit from this unique guide, which brings artistic vitality, freedom, and confidence within everyone's reach.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	8	(1)
Preface	9	(192)
1 Music, Magic, and Childhood	15	(14)
The effect of lessons.
Toddlers, Martians, and Einstein.
Musicality, creativity, and cognition.
A precious resource.
2 Vitality	29	(22)
Judgments and competition.
Which skills?
Lessons and traditions.
Vitality in the practice room.
3 Juicy Mistakes	51	(26)
Honest mistakes.
Careless mistakes.
Mistakes as teachers.
Suppression and denial.
Chaos.
Mindfulness.
4 Step by Step: A Guide to Healthy Practicing	77	(22)
What is healthy practicing?
Bring the mind-body system to a practice-ready state.
Address the music at hand.
Take a break.
To sum up.
FAO: frequently asked questions about practicing.
5 Breakthroughs	99	(18)
Spatial relationships.
Hidden truths.
Alike but different.
Physiology.
Negative space.
Artistry.
6 Is It Good to Be a Good Student?	117	(20)
The good student syndrome.
The good student in the music studio.
Perfectionism. Sight-reading and its dangers.
7 Out of Control: The Drama of Performing	137	(16)
The ego in crisis.
Nerves.
Expansiveness.
8 Lessons and Un-Lessons	153	(20)
Turn the project upside down.
Remove the goal.
Try the (seemingly) impossible.
Brainstorm the possibilities.
Be a student yourself What is a lesson anyway?
9 The Un-Master Class: Rethinking a Tradition	173	(28)
The master class.
The Artist Within: a workshop and its legacy.
The Un-Master Class.
10 Adventurous Amateurs	201	(12)
Advantages of maturity.
Grown-up practicing.
Other musical pleasures.
11 Beyond the Music Room	213	(10)
Alchemy.
A new kind of information.
Postscript: A Word to Health Professionals	223	(5)
Resources	228	(2)
Notes	230	(3)
Bibliography	233	(3)
Index	236	(3)
About the Author	239