One of the books I’m currently reading is Effortless Mastery, by jazz pianist and teacher Kenny Werner. He explains his understanding that in order to achieve mastery of one’s chosen instrument, one must reach a state where the music can flow freely and effortlessly. He points to Vladimir Horowitz, Bill Evans — and one might add, himself — as examples of people who played as though they were breathing, whose hands seems to float over the keyboard as though they were ‘watching the music play itself.”
I was attracted to the idea of the book, but I admit, I was worried it might be feel-good nonsense — pardon my cynicism, but I wondered why we should encourage the freeing up of mediocre talent. However I’ve come to realize that perhaps it’s because I don’t feel free at the keyboard that I’m not the pianist I’d like to be; and conversely, a lot of what he’s describing is where you have to be to sing Gaelic songs, and where I’ve learned to be when I sing them.
With music of most kinds, if you’re just thinking about getting it right, then you’re already wrong. And if you think too much while singing the traditinal Gaelic songs, you’re ruining them. You have to kind of let the song sing itself — amazingly, my friend the Gaelic singer Peter Mac Lean seems to do this. However, the way you let the song sing itself is to be so damned familiar with it that you’ve absorbed it. You pore over the words, think about their meaning, thumb through the dictionary, discuss the song with musical or gaelic-speaking friends — then you’re ready to sing it. In my own experience, if a song comes out well at all, it’s because I’ve learned the words and the melody so well that i don’t have to think of what’s coming next, and that allows me to be free to let the song do its thing, or to have some fun with it.
I strongly suspect that this “space” Kenny Werner talks about is where Jon Brion ‘goes’ when he’s soloing on guitar, or doing an inspired live mix. But he’s be the first one to admit that he practices like crazy. Sure, he has a great natural talent, but this is the man who claims to have sat in front of the TV for 2 years playing along with everything. He might be exaggerating, but the upshot is that he practiced a lot.
It also ties in with my friend Margaret’s theory that genius requires preparation — she used many precedents beginning with Mozart — and she’s pinned down the prep time requirement to 12 years. In the case of Mozart, it’s his approximate age when he composed his first highly accomplished works. In the case of Jon Brion, well, Jon left school at 17. 17 + 12 = 29 = 1993 = the year he produced Aimee Mann’s first solo album, which you might point to as the start of his real career.
Whatever natural talent is there, it seems to require both preparation, and the confidence/freedom/assuredness to let it out in a free and personal way.
