Listen, Learn, Let Go…

I am writing this month from Seattle where I spent some time at the Wintergrass Festival, a wonderful city and a great festival. I got to attend a workshop with the guitarist Grant Gordy who plays with the band Mr. Sun amongst many other projects. The workshop was about taking better solos but the real theme was listening. I came up with the topic for this article a few weeks ago and since then I have heard many great musicians talk about this very topic. So let’s dive in.

As musicians the most important tool we have is our ears. Listening is so important to developing our musical skills. Listening to music and how players do things helps to give us inspiration in our own playing. We also need to listen to ourselves. We need to take the time to hear what we sound like as a tool to determine what we need to work on and what works for us as individuals. This helps us learn.

Learning is a never ending process for musicians at all levels. One of the joys of music is that we never stop learning. Learning new music, finding new takes on music we already know and learning new skills is what keeps us going as musicians. There is a lot out there and every day people come up with new stuff. It is a never ending process of developing tools to make us enjoy playing and listening to music. 

Development is great but at some point we need to just play. We need to Let Go of all the thinking and just play! This is where all the listening and learning pays off. When we just relax and play, trust our instincts, we do our best. It can be a euphoric feeling when it all comes together.

So my advice this month is to Listen, Learn, Let Go, Repeat…

Happy Picking!

Bruce Thompson is a graduate of Berklee College of Music, a certified Wernick Method Instructor and teaches classes at Caffè Lena in Saratoga Springs. He also runs a guided jam for those new to bluegrass at the monthly ABL Meetings.