Module Four Lesson Six: Values To Goals: Using Your Musical Values As A Springboard For Ideas And Inspiration
DISCOVERY SHEET
TRANSCRIPTION:
Songs provide one kind of focus for your practice. But there are other areas of music to study and practice too — things like learning an instrument, vocal improvisation, or reading and writing music.
So, how do you decide what to focus on next? And how do these other areas of study fit into your practice sessions?
In this lesson, you’ll learn how to create a practice plan using your musical values as a springboard for ideas and inspiration.
Let’s do this together. Before we begin, grab a cup of coffee or some tea and your musical values sheet. Download and print the Values to Goals and Vision to Action discovery sheets. You’ll find them in the notes section of this lesson.
Your Musical Values
Let’s start with your musical values. Slowly read through your list. Notice which ones feel “complete”, like you’ve worked with them enough for now. Notice which values have some room for growth. Write those down on a separate piece of paper.
Read through your list again. Find the two to three values that you’re most drawn to and give you the most energy when you read them. These will be your focus for now.
As we go through this process together, feel free to change your choice of values. You can always work with the others later. This is a lifetime project, after all!
Here’s my list of values. After reading through them, I picked three that I felt had some room for growth — Composition/Arrangements, Improvisation, and Musical Competency.
VALUES TO GOALS: What do you envision yourself being able to do?
Now, take each of the musical values on your shortlist and write them down in the left column on the Values to Goals discovery sheet.
Now ask yourself what kinds of skills or capacities are related to this musical value. If you turned this value into a competency or goal, what do you envision yourself doing? Write those ideas down in the right-hand column under goals.
Here’s what my sheet looks like so far:
Values To Goals Sheet
My first musical value is compositions and arrangements. I’m drawn to many songs, but it’s the arrangement — the chord reharmonization and stylistic “clothes” that a song is wearing, that makes it fun to sing. (For BAS: By the way, we’ll take a closer look at arrangements in Lesson 8.)
I could hire someone to create arrangements for me, but that can be expensive, plus I’d like to know how to create my own. So, that’s my first musical goal.
Improvisation is the next musical value on my sheet. I’d love to be able to scat over chord changes with confidence. So that’s my second musical goal.
Musical competency is the final musical value on my sheet. Though there’s always room for improvement, at this stage of my development, I feel like I have a fair amount of musical competency as a singer. However, I’d like to develop my piano and sight-reading skills so I can accompany myself on the piano — even if it’s just in my practice sessions.
So, those are my final two goals — become a better pianist and sight-reader.
Now it’s your turn. Go ahead and create some musical goals from your values. Then come back with your list.
OK. You’ve taken a look at your musical values sheet, picked one to three values, figured out what competencies you want to develop from them, and turned those into goals. Now it’s time to figure out the actions you’ll need to take to realize those goals.
HOW ARE YOU GOING TO GET THERE?
What do you need to practice to acquire these skills? What resources could you gather or seek out to help you?
Are there books, records, or learning tools you’ll need? Are there teachers or other singers you could learn from?
Take one goal at a time and brainstorm a list.
Here’s the list I came up with for my first practicing goal — create interesting arrangements and reharmonizations.
GOAL #1: CREATE INTERESTING ARRANGEMENTS AND REHARMONIZATIONS
Step 1: Create a list of songs I’d like to arrange.
Step 2: Pick one song off the list. My goal is to arrange one song a month. I want this to be doable. Once I learn the ropes, I can increase the number of arrangements I’m working on.
Step 3: Start by creating a chord chart in iReal and add intros and endings. Here I’m chunking the goal down to one step. But I’ll need some arranging ideas for the song I’m working on. That’s what steps 4 and 5 are about.
Step 4: Study and use concepts in one of my favorite books for singers — The Jazz Singer’s Handbook. Chapter 10, ‘Creating An Arrangement,’ has some fantastic ideas.
In Step 5, I’ll take one lesson a month from an arranger to get feedback on my arrangements and learn some tips for re-harmonizing.
Do you have your brainstorming list?
Take your list of possible action steps, and put them in order under each goal on your Goals sheets — like this:
[GOALS SHEET]
You’ve taken your musical values, transformed them into musical goals, and figured out some action steps. Now it’s time to add those action steps to your weekly practice plan.
Your Weekly Practice Plan
This part’s easy.
Each week, take a look at the songs you’re learning and the musical goals you’re working towards. Write them down in the left-hand column on your Weekly Practice Sheet, and you’re ready to begin.
In my Weekly Practice Sheet, I’ve taken the first steps from each of my goals and added them here.
Each time you work on one of your goals, check off the circle for that day.
You can use your Daily Practice Sheet to track specifics for each goal you’re working on — notes that will help you know where to start and what to work on in your next practice session.
CONCLUSION
Using your musical values to create goals for your practice sessions is just one way to make your practicing more meaningful, productive, and even fun.
In the next lesson, Tools For Practicing, we’ll be taking a look at a few more.
See you there!
