Musicianship Mastery with David Lane

Jazz is a genre that serious musicians at least take time to explore.  Whether it's classical musicians, film composers, rock musicians, pop artists, hip hop artists, even country artists like Willie Nelson...it's hard to find accomplished musicians in any genre who are ignorant of the world of jazz.  While this episode won't get into the nuts and bolts of the genre, this is an introduction to 10...

Composing and Improvising are essential tools for every well-rounded musician, but they are different skills.  Quite often, when someone decides to become a composer, they are making up something from their instrument and then writing it down on staff paper.  This is actually more of a transcribed improvisation than it is true composition.  There's nothing wrong with that, but it is an incomplete...

Many professional musicians and music teachers struggle with charging what their worth, or even what they need to charge to make even a decent living.  Brian Witkowski of The Lucrative Artist helps musicians and other artists to develop their "money voice", to change the way they think about money.  In this episode, we chat about a variety of ways that you can charge more while also creating somet...

Even after you've scheduled your practice time each day and planned what your focus is during that time, the mindset you bring to your practice will absolutely affect how well or poorly you do during your session.  There are 5 common types of practice mindsets, 2 which are helpful and 3 which are not.  Which one or ones do you gravitate towards the most, and might a shift be helpful in improving t...

If you're an independent teacher, there are a number of important steps to go from being a hobbyist to becoming a legitimate business.  Andrea Miller of Music Studio Startup talks about all of this including making a decision about becoming an LLC and what steps go with that if you choose, making quarterly tax estimates, deductions, and other general information to help you be a thriving music stu...

This is a follow-up to Episode 17 from last year, where this podcast introduced 25 pieces of classical music, not necessarily the best or most acclaimed pieces, but 25 that you should know even if classical music is not your genre of focus.  Even after 25 more pieces, there are so many that were left out, but this plus the previous episode in this series will give you 50 pieces you should know no...

The Instrument Spotlight series within The Musician Toolkit is meant to introduce instruments as possible primary or secondary instruments, the challenges, the repertoire, and the capabilities.  Kate Warren is a freelance hornist and educator who also serves as Yaffe Post-Graduate Teaching Fellow for the Yale School of Music's Music in Schools Initiative.  In this episode, we talk about the horn,...

This episode is primarily meant as a primer for music students.  It gives a very broad overview of music history from the Medieval era through what we might call modern classical music.  This episode is limited to Western civilization and some of the common composers.  This episode also offers David Lane's suggestion that we should rethink how we've classified musical eras since 1900.  Let us know...

Dr. Ronnal Ford has learned to play, on a professional level, all of the woodwind and stringed instruments of the orchestra in addition to a few others.  He talks about how he approaches learning a new instrument.  He also talks about the challenges of being a musician of color in the classical community, and some of the recent opportunities that help him and similar musicians to be featured more...

Should you strive for big and hard goals, or safe goals that are fairly easy to attain?  What do you do when it becomes obvious that you won't reach a goal by the deadline you gave yourself?  This episode talks about these questions, along with the importance of balance, grace, pivot, and the importance of failure and discomfort. Let me know your thoughts on this episode at  https://www.speakpipe....

If you're studying music and find yourself unable to progress, or are progressing too little in your opinion when considering your practice time, don't despair.  You are experiencing something very common in music and in plenty of other skill areas: the intermediate plateau.  This episode discusses why it exists and 7 things you can do to break through the barrier to becoming a great musician! Let...

Anyone who seeks to become better a better sight reader will find a lot of information on what your eyes should be doing as you play, but there has not been nearly as much focus on what your hands should be feeling.  If you play the piano or other instrument that involves a lot of movement with the hands, can you manage steps and leaps with accuracy without ever looking at your hands? David Holter...

Whether it's composing a big piece, trying to master difficult repertoire, or wanting to build a full-time  teaching studio when you don't even have your first student, it's easy to see the target far in the distance.  Learning how to build and climb a staircase will help you accomplish absolutely any goal you have, big or small! Previous episode referenced: Episode 40 Let me know your thoughts on...

If you've had a music teacher at any point in your life, you've probably heard the advice to "slow down".   It is truly excellent advice...if you approach it a certain way.  If your idea of practicing slowly is to make everything proportionately slower (as if someone filmed you full speed and then put the video in slow motion), this is only one way, and usually not the most effective in most cases...

Whether you're a teacher or a performing musician, you'll only go as far as your goals, your system for dealing with lack of motivation, and your organization.  The guest for this episode is Melissa Slocum - piano teacher, business coach, and podcaster.  We talk about a variety of topics in this episode, including better ways to think about goals, a different approach to the idea of work/life bala...

No single visual aid shows more aspects of how music works than the Circle of 5ths (sometimes called Circle of Keys and Circle of 4ths).  Besides its more widely known uses for showing the order of sharps and flats along with the keys in sharp and flat order, it also shows scale degree frequency, primary and secondary triads, chord groupings, and more.  From the basic to the obscure, this will get...

So many musicians sit for hours a day, or perform a similar motion repeatedly, or maintain their arms in a fixed position...or some combination of those three, and they lead to injuries or fatigue in more than 90% of musicians at some point in their career.  The majority of issues are correctable and even preventable. The guest for this episode is Angela McCuiston, a personal trainer and founder o...

Basic classical music education introduces students to a major scale, 3 types of minor scales, and a chromatic scale.  If you continue a little deeper, you might get a passing introduction to the modes (such as dorian and phyrigian), the whole tone scale, pentatonic scales, and maybe the diminished scale, not to mention non-Western and even synthetic scales.  But how many of these do you really kn...

On Episode 53, we offered 12 areas you want to consider reducing or eliminating in order to clear room on your slate.  This episode follows up to offer 10 specific musical goals that you can add to your own goals in order to become a better more well-rounded musician this upcoming year! Prior episodes mentioned: New Year's Goals Part 1: Letting Some Things Go | Ep53 Designing a Website That Works...

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all our listeners!  This short episode is an introduction to David's 3 favorite pieces of Christmas music: Samuel Barber: Die Natali Benjamin Britten: Ceremony of Carols Les Brown & His Band of Renown: Nutcracker Suite *In the episode,  Episode 54 is promoted as part 2, but that episode will be a special Christmas episode. Let me know your thoughts on this...

This week's episode and next offer some suggestions on New Year's goals.  Episode 55* will deal with suggested goals for getting things done or accomplished, but this week's Episode 53 is important to check out first.  Before you can really get things accomplished that matter to you the most as a musician, you have to make room in your life by auditing various aspects of your life to see if you ca...

David Lane is about to celebrate 24 years of being a private teacher for piano, composition, and theory. He offers 8 tips for becoming a better teacher, some easy-to-apply things that he was not doing from the very beginning, each of which has made him a better and happier teacher. Let me know your thoughts on this episode at  https://www.speakpipe.com/MusicianToolkit  or you can send me a written...

Sherri Chung is a composer of numerous television and streaming series, including Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai, Kung Fu, Riverdell, Based on a True Story, and more.  We talk about her career but also about creativity, the importance of a full education in music composition and orchestration (rather than just specializing in one type of music) and more.  Let me know your thoughts on this episode...

To become a great musician, it's helpful to spend time studying scores, reading books, getting guided instruction, and other things that cost a lot of time and/or money.  However, there are two mindset skills that are free and don't require an expert to teach them to you, and those skills are gratitude and curiosity.  In this episode, I explain why these two skills are crucial to not only guiding...

If there's something big you want to do like learning a challenging piece, writing a large-scale work, starting a band, opening or expanding a teaching studio, or something else that you keep putting off...it sometimes seems like you just can't even get started.  All you have to do is get the ball rolling.  It's a combination of finding the simple first steps and stacking as needed, and finding a...