Originally posted by David Arnold on July 24, 2016
One of the most fun things about playing music is that there are always new things to learn; new directions to take your playing. These goals can be determined by your lesson books, your teacher, or yourself. Ultimately these goals will be more meaningful if they are something you have chosen.
One of my own musical goals is to become a better singer and guitar player. More specifically, my goal is to be able to perform on my own with nothing but my voice and my guitar for an entire gig. In fact, the past six months have been spent honing my craft and building my repertoire in order to accomplish this goal.
I started off small by attending local open mic nights and jam sessions where I played three to four songs on my own. In addition to playing well known standard songs I have also debuted several of my own original compositions. I also sing as much and as often as I can. I have found that the commute to work is an excellent time to really work on extending the upper reaches of my range.
I have learned a great deal about myself as a musician, as well as a person, throughout this experience. I am really coming into my own as a vocalist as I work through which songs work for my voice and which ones don’t. I am learning the importance of placing each song in a key that fits my range while still maintaining the essence of the original performance.
I look forward to my upcoming performance this week with a nervous excitement. I am well prepared and have a good feeling about it. I also understand that this is new territory for me, and there will most likely be some stumbles along the way. That’s ok though, because we learn from making mistakes and we become better musicians from it.
For more information or to sign up for lessons you can contact Marion Music Academy at 319-377-3343, or click here to sign up for a free trial lesson.