Define playing something correctly.
In one of our Pitch In sessions we had some great discussion and food for thought around playing music correctly.
When I was younger my ‘off the cuff’ answer would be correct notes. However it goes far deeper than that.
Other than the correct notes, which of course is a great start, you’ve got rhythm. After that you’ve probably got performance directions, for example fast, slow, happy, sad etc. On top of that you’ve got dynamics.
This is probably another stopping point for people in the pursuit of ‘playijng correctly’. However I would tend to go deeper than that.
Musicianship is something we should always be thinking about. Music shaping stops pieces sounding boring. Slight swells in dynamics, rubato depending on what era of music you’re playing from.
These are all things you should be thinking about when learning a new piece. Of course it doesn’t stop there. There is something else worth thinking about and that is, when do you put all these items into learning?
Do you learn the notes and rhythms first? Or do you throw in all the ingredients straight away? If you only learn the notes first then you have to relearn them but just playing each note differently.
I truly don’t think there is a right answer. What I think you should do is experiment. Change your approach and see if you can find something that works best for you and go from there.
