If you only do one thing this month...
Welcome back! If you remember from previous columns, my number one rule with learning music is ‘contextualize everything’. There’s absolutely zero value in being good at playing exercises, after all. An exercise is simply a way of distilling a principle into a memorable, repeatable version so we can train our hands and ears in that basic version and then apply it. Knowing the pattern is solely a means to an end, which is deploying the knowledge and skill in a musically meaningful way.