Introduction from "10 Things"

This book deals with the basics, but at a high level. If you’re looking for a guide for playing complex odd time signatures, or a method on improvising out of obscure modes of the harmonic minor scale, this is not going to help you much. As a younger, more inexperienced player, I held the misconception that getting better at music was all about learning more complicated, difficult things. To be clear, I’m not trying to say that there’s no value in learning those things. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized one simple truth: the fundamentals are the fundamentals for a reason. I’m talking about things like sound, feel, and phrasing - the common threads that link the great musicians of every era, and every style. The road to mastery is paved with fundamentals.

Much of the educational material I come across deals with acquisition - how do I learn more stuff? More theory, cooler chord substitutions, better licks. This is all well and good - you can’t play if you don’t have any stuff! But I don’t think the world needs another book of that. There’s enough to last 100 lifetimes at this point.

What I don’t see as much is books that deal with what it really means to make music. A book that asks more basic questions with harder answers: how do you phrase a melody?   What does it mean to play with great feel? What does it mean to have your own musical voice? Big ideas that can inspire your practice for the rest of your life. As my old teacher Chuck Underwood used to tell me:

“Music is a big room, and every day I take another step into it, but every day the room gets bigger.”

Let’s take a few steps together.