Tag Archives: music

Practice: Good Practice

100 Day Project, Uncategorized, , ,

Good practice is practice that moves you forward. Obviously.

Wait, come back.

When I was young, I played the flute. Mostly I played the flute because my dad had played the flute and playing an instrument was a thing you did in my hometown. I was technically terrible. I felt no music in my heart. My favorite part of practice was standing with legs spread on either side of my Labrador who insisted on laying down in front of my music stand. When I played notes that were too high for her, she stood up. It was terribly exciting.

I could play all the scales, and when looking at the music on the stand, I could make a solid effort at the marches and church music. I could listen to the metronome or play while it was also on, but neither were particularly connected. A funny thing started to happen.

Eventually, I got better.

At the same time I was struggling through basic musical expression, I was taking math courses harder than anyone thought possible for me*. When the math added concepts like variables and matrices and proofs, the lower level addition-subtraction-multiplication-division got to be quick as a thought. Which was how fast I needed to perform it when I played.

My first writing mentor** told me to listen to dialogue around me in order to develop the sense for natural speech in my writing. During this time, I kept reading books (which I still do) and someone at a seminar talked about removing all the unnecessary parts of conversation. We don’t need the uhm, the mhm, the mmm, the uh, the hi how are you. We need the important part of the conversation. Somewhere in all those books that had gone through agents and editors galore were the important parts of conversations.

In my good practice sessions, I figured out how to combine the “listening to conversation around” me, and the “necessary parts of conversation” for concise, character demonstrating, clear dialogue. I even figured out where to add the well-placed mmm and uh and the difference between hi how are you and hi you alright***.

Good practice moves me forward but it needs more techniques than the single thing that I think I’m practicing.

*When I was ten, I had a math homework worth 25 points. There were 24 questions, and you got an extra point for putting your name in the right place and spelling it correctly. I got 4%.

**In the grand tradition of small towns, Mrs. Betty L Speckles was a friend of my mom’s from quilt guild. When she found out that Betty had published some poems, my mom asked if Betty would give me some pointers. I am forever grateful that she said yes.

***Hi you alright is the British greeting and the answer is Yeah. Or Yes. Or the American ignore and move on because you honestly have no idea how to answer it. I entered the country in September and did not figure out how to answer that question until February.

Structure: Souza Marches

100 Day Project, Uncategorized, Writing, , ,

Hear me out.


I played flute in high school, in the marching band, and was soundly terrible. That isn’t the point. The point is, the one oeuvre of music I took away was the underlying structure of the Sousa march.


Every American has heard a Sousa march, and I would wager, many non-Americans have heard them, too. John Philip Sousa was an American born composer, with a German mother, who created many iconic songs that are still blasted by the barely musical and actually musical alike. Why? Because they’re fun. They have the oom-PAH feel and the typical rising action to blaring climax journey, the scattered woodwinds and the screaming brass. Every. Single. Time.


The secret to surviving the flute contribution of the Sousa march is to play the exact same part on repeat, on full blast – no matter what the rest of the band is doing. The first time, the brass establishes the main tune. You play your piece. No one can hear you. The second time, the brass plays a dissolution which feels exactly like it sounds. It’s as though the sound is unwinding itself and falling apart. In the dogfight, you (the flute) play your part. No one can hear you except for the high notes, so that you poke off the rose stem as a series of aural thorns. The third time, the brass joins in with a rising threat of imminent blare and then it’s blastoff! No one can hear you. Play your heart out, anyway.


In written form, try including the counter theme a few times. The first time, maybe it’s a conversation. Or an authority figure no one likes. The second time, maybe it’s the muddy middle with a contained sub-plot (secondary story with the exact same characters) that play out something you wanted to say about the main plot or want the reader to know about the main plot before you make your big point. The third time, maybe no one can see it. Maybe not even you. It’ll still be there.

Rhythm: Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

100 Day Project, Uncategorized, Writing, , , , ,

One of the seminal alphabet learning books in the last century was, without a doubt, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I have waited a lifetime to be able to write that sentence.


Every year there’s probably around a couple hundred alphabet books or language basics books published in the world. They won’t change. In the USA at least, the alphabet is pretty set.


Each of these books must be different in order to hit the market and that difference is something value added. For children’s books for tiny humans that are such basic building blocks of tiny-human knowledge, there are certain things that can make them stand out:

  1. Audience participation
  2. A story
  3. Playing with the construction of a children’s book in general

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom has all three. While the book has a story, starring kids being daring, silly, and having just a little more hope than sense, it’s 1 and 3 that make the book a classic. By “construction of a children’s book” I mean interesting page turns, something in the illustrations that make the story re-readable (think Where’s Waldo), or a novel rhythm. Years before I was commanded to learn to read music (long story) Chicka Chicka Boom Boom introduced me to the wonderfully unexpected stops and starts of jazz without the complication of a wind section, or my ongoing rivalry with the trumpets (short story but not the place).


As for 1. Audience participation, the title of the work is meant to be read but the refrain is a delight to shout. Usually with a crowd.


Most of us are introduced to music on a bone-deep level, even if it isn’t via formal study. We can read prose and poetry, in the way we can hear the sounds that also have been sung to, or around us.


To mix up your rhythm, listen to music. Steal with wild, respectful abandon. Listen to your words in a voice that is not your own, even if only in the confines of your own head.