Learning Music as an ISTJ Personality Type

I’ve done the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) multiple times over the years and each time it comes back ISTJ. Here’s a description I got from Psychology Junkie:

I = Introversion. ISTJs focus inwards before responding to the outside world. They gain energy from alone time when they can reflect on their own thoughts.
S = Sensation. ISTJs prefer taking in information that is tangible, realistic, and concrete. They would usually rather focus on what exists than hypothesize about abstract possibilities.
T = Thinking. ISTJs step outside of a situation in order to see it as objectively and logically as possible.
J = Judgment. ISTJs like having things settled, having decisions made, and having a sense of control or structure to their life. They are typically work-before-play people.

I can see why an ISTJ might be drawn to playing traditional music. ISTJs seek security in the tried and true and what music is more tried and true than traditional music? It’s a form of creative expression that merges an ISTJ's appreciation for structure with artistic output. It rewards discipline and attention to detail.

Traditional music sessions are not really performances. You can kind of blend in. You don’t have to be in the limelight like a lead vocalist or soloist would be. The music itself as well as the session environment adheres to established forms and conventions, providing a sense of familiarity and comfort and a place where you get to put the knowledge and skills you’ve learned to good use. These are all things that would appeal to an ISTJ type of person.

ISTJs are independent learners and traditional music is something you can easily work on on your own, especially if you are melody player since the monophonic nature of the music makes the tune “complete” even when only one instrument is playing the melody. When it comes to practicing, our ability to focus and maintain concentration for long periods of time comes in handy. An ISTJ has the time and dedication to do a deep dive while researching and studying a topic. ISTJs will put their “all” into it.

There’s also the theory and math-like aspect to music. A typical traditional musician may not get into the theory side of it, but I bet an ISTJ could explain what Dorian or Mixolydian are, for example. In terms of creativity, tune writing is not always a big part of the individual experience of learning traditional music, but an ISTJ can use the established framework of traditional music to be adaptively creative and write original tunes that conform to the conventions of the style.

OK. That might explain it. As an aside, I was entirely focused on writing this piece and could not stop until I got it done. Now that it's done I can move on to the next project!

My Favorite Double Stops in Mandolin and Irish Tenor Banjo GDAE Tuning

Disclaimer: I'm no music teacher, just a hobbyist musician. However, I like to "fill out" a tune with double stops and there is one double stop interval that I like the sound of the best. First off, a double stop is like a mini two-note chord. When you're playing a melody you can create a double stop by playing a harmonizing note on the string lower than the one with the melody note. Playing both notes simultaneously helps fill out the sound.

To explain the double stop that I like the most, I'll give an example in GDAE mandolin/Irish tenor banjo tuning. Here it is: Whenever you're playing an F# note on the 2nd fret of the E string, you can also play an open A on the A string. You can't really go wrong with these two notes together. This combination of notes - F# and A - is most likely going to function as a D-major chord because a D-major chord has the notes D-F#-A in it. But since you're only playing two notes, this combination of F# and A could also ambiguously work as an F#minor type of chord. Worst case scenario is if the person actually laying down the chords to the melody is playing a B-minor chord (B-D-F#) at the moment you play that F# + A double stop. To my ears this hasn't really conflicted with the harmony because what you're suggesting with the notes F# and A resembles a B-minor7 chord which is just a jazzier version of a B-minor chord. It'll work there too.

What I'm saying is you don't really even need to know what the chords are to the tune to play this double stop since it's entirely based on the melody. I've never really been able to hear chord changes per se and I have zero opinion on what the chords to a tune should be. I have never been able to just strum chords to a song and know where to change from one chord to another. I'm just a melody player. But by using this system I am still almost always able to add a harmonizing note to any melody note in the tune without even having to think about it.

That same shape or concept works when you are playing a 3rd fret G note or a 5th fret A note. When you're playing a 3rd fret G note on the E-string, add a 2nd fret B note on the A string. When you're playing a 5th fret A note on the E string, add either a 3rd fret C or a 4th fret C# on the A string. I say "either" because most Irish tunes use the notes D, E, F#, G, and A, but they can use either a C-natural or a C-sharp note or both, depending. So you kind of have to have studied the tune or experimented to decide whether you like harmonizing that A note with a C natural (to give it a minor-ish sound) or a C# (to give it a major-ish sound). If the tune is Sliabh Russell then A + C is going to sound better/correct, but if the tune is High Reel then A + C# is going to sound better.

By now you may have noticed a pattern. All you're really doing is taking the note that would be a 3rd up from the melody note you are playing (in the context of the scale or mode you're in) and then playing a lower version of that note. In other words, the note D is a 3rd up from B, so if your melody note is on B then play a lower open D as your harmonizing note. Following that same logic, F# is a 3rd up from D, so if your melody note is on the 5th fret of the A-string (a D note) then play a harmonizing note on the 4th fret of the D-string (an F# note). Note: there's a slight chance that the F could be an F-natural if you're playing a D-dorian tune such as Sgt. Early's Dream or Maids of Mitchelstown.

Chords are made up of stacked notes in thirds, so this interval is completely within that theory. There's a reason that it works almost every time. Below I will insert a picture of this concept in tablature format. 

One thing I haven't mentioned is what about when your melody note is on an open string? In that case, something I hear banjo players such as Theresa O'Grady doing all the time is playing a harmonizing note on fret 2 of the lower string. So if a melody phrase is ending on the open D of the D-string, a good harmony note to add is fret 2 of the G-string which is an A note. And if your melody note is on the open A of the A-string, then a good harmony note that will work more times than not is fret 2 of the D-string which is an E note. 

Give this a go!

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How Long Have You Been Playing?

I hear the question "how long have you been playing" asked a lot. It's asked at an Irish session and might be directed toward a fiddler, flautist, or accordion player. Quite often the answer is surprising. A fantastic fiddler (who is probably in her late 50's or early 60's) might say "about ten years", or the flautist or accordion player - who are very good mind you - might say "3 or 4 years". 

In each case the person has likely been playing music a lot longer than that. It might have been on a different instrument and/or might not have been Irish traditional session tunes, but it probably dates back to when they took piano lessons as a child, or played trumpet in a middle school band, or studied classical violin, or played some instrument in church growing up, or guitar in their teenage bedroom, or bass in a reggae band as a young adult.

What about an Australian actor playing a Chicago cop who learns a Chicago accent for the TV series but then speaks in their normal Australian voice while doing the press for that show? Both the Australian voice that comes to him naturally and the Chicago accent that he learned for the role are the products of mimicry, but in only one case is he speaking with his own voice.

All musicians are practicing some form of mimicry, and I guess it's possible to mimic a style and still speak in your own voice. That may be the answer to "how long have you been playing".

The Wheel is Turning and You Must Hold On

I'm trying to get back into the beginner's mind and remember what it was like to be first learning a musical instrument as an adult. One concept that is kind of hard to get at first, or hard to understand the importance of, is what I am calling "The Wheel is Turning". What I mean by that is if you're actually playing a tune or song you have to play it all the way through without stopping, in time with whatever bpm you have set for yourself. In other words, staying in time with "the wheel". 

Picture a merry-go-round and you're on the horse riding around on it. If you get off of the horse, the merry-go-round keeps turning. That merry-go-round is the melody that you are trying to play. Once the merry-go round starts moving you have to keep moving with it. You can't stop just because you made a mistake or forgot how the tune goes. You have to keep going.

Of course when you are first learning the tune it's OK to isolate certain sections and practice those on repeat until you have it down. What I'm talking about is when you actually sit down to play the tune in its entirety, you should have this wheel concept in mind. The best way to do that is play along with a timing device like a metronome or drumbeat. I find drum beats to be more fun because they are more musical, just make sure you know where the "one" is and/or the down beat of each measure to make sure that you are keeping in time with it.

AI made this image

Practicing this way will improve your sense of time so that when you do play with other musicians you don't lose your place as easily. If you're playing Silver Spear or Swallowtail Jig with a group of other musicians, you don't want the group to have to start/stop/re-start due to your or any other person's glitches along the way. You want the group mind to take over and play the tune in rhythm so that if someone were dancing or clapping along they wouldn't miss a step or lose the beat.

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Ten Music Practice Ideas

The mood struck me today to see if I could jot down ten music practice ideas in under five minutes. Many of these come from books, podcasts, or videos I've consumed lately, but these are in my own words. Here's what I came up with:

-Play something you know in a different key than you know it in. If you know Lilting Banshee in A-Dorian, play it in G-Dorian. Or if you know Calliope house in D, try it in E. Or if you know Kilnamona Barndance in D or G, then play it in F like Martin Hayes does.

-"Sing" a measure or phrase, then play the next phrase. Alternate this all the way through the tune. Sing, lilt, hum, or sound out. You can even silently imagine the sound of the phrase in your head, then play the next phrase on your instrument. Then do the reverse. The next time through play the parts you sang or imagined the previous time, and sing or imagine the parts that you played.

-Do the opposite. If the tune is normally fast, then play it very slow. If a tune is normally slow, then play it super fast. Play a reel with a very swung, bouncy, dotted feel, and play a hornpipe as ramrod straight as possible.

-Quiet/Loud. Play measures 1 through 4 as quietly as possible, then measures 5 through 8 as loudly as possible. Then play measures 1 through 4 loudly and measures 5 through 8 quietly. Then play from quiet to loud, gradually building to a crescendo. Then play from loud to quiet gradually back down from the crescendo.

-Try playing a tune with the em-PHAH-sis in a different place than you normally play it. If you normally emphasize beats 1 and 3, then emphasize beats 2 and 4. Something like that.

-Simplify/Complicate. Try to simplify a tune as much as possible by removing notes. What is the least amount of notes you can play and have it still sound like St. Anne's Reel or Temperance Reel? Then go back to the original arrangement of the tune and add more notes, like everywhere there's a quarter note insert a triplet. 

-Deconstruct and rebuild a tune. Similar to the exercise above, but in this case you remove every up stroke in the tune and just leave the quarter note down strokes. Then replace the notes you removed with different notes to come up with an alternate version of the tune.

-Approximate a tune on the spot. Find a tune on Jonathan Lay's Trailjams.org site that you don't know that well or at all and listen to it three times through. As soon as the music stops playing, start playing your own improvised version of the tune by making it up on the spot. Try and play it at the same speed with the same number of measures, same number of parts, and so on. 

-Play a tune increasingly fast until it becomes way too fast, then keep going. Use a metronome that can gradually speed up, like the one on Strum Machine, and set it to increase by 5 BPM each time you repeat the tune. Where will you top out at? 120BPM?!!!

-Economy of motion, micro movements, as light as possible. Try and play the tune with as little movement as possible. Keep your fingers as close to the frets as possible, keep your picking hand moving as little as possible, hold the pick as lightly as possible, get all tension out of your body. Just try and play with the absolute best economy of motion you can possibly do.

-Smile, facial expression. Take a video of yourself playing. Are you smiling and engaging with an imaginary group of fellow musicians in a light-hearted and friendly manner, or are you making a frowning and/or "I'm trying too hard/concentrating too hard" type of face? Relax your facial muscles and intentionally smile while you play.

-Play the melodic rhythm of a tune by clapping it out with your hands. Or get some drum sticks and a drum pad and play it that way. What I mean is play the sound of the melody with rhythm only. This will help you get the feel of the rhythm into your body.

-Play a tune you know on a different instrument. If you know it on mandolin, try hammering out the melody on piano. This will get your ear working.

-Play ornaments and embellishments EVERYWHERE. Whatever type of ornament or grace note you might be working on...take a tune you like and try and put this embellishment into the tune in as many places as you possibly can. Way more than you would ever actually do when playing the tune normally. This will help you pick and choose when the time comes.

-25 minute transcription exercise. Set a timer on your phone for 25 minutes. Grab your instrument plus a pencil and paper and find a tune on Jonathan Lay's Trailjams.org site that you aren't that familiar with. Don't look at the notation until the timer goes off. For the first twenty-five minutes just listen and try to play along. Write down the names of the notes you are playing in whatever means you know how to transcribe or write out music. At the end of the 25 minutes check your work. The notation on trailjams.org exactly matches the audio so it's a great way to compare your aural skills to the written notes. This will really help your ear!

-One last one. If you had to play through a piece of music with your music teacher right now, which sections would you be most concerned about screwing up? That's what you need to work on. Identify those problem spots and come up with your own solutions for how to fix them!

That might be more than ten! Sorry.

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What is Irish Tenor Banjo (new version)

In celebration of 20 years playing music and 15 years writing articles on this blog, I am revisiting some old posts and trying to reevaluate them based on how I look at music now while also jogging that beginner's mind.

In 2015 I wrote a post called What is Irish Tenor Banjo. You can read that here. Nowadays I would be a lot more succinct and loose in my definition of this.

I would say that "Irish tenor banjo" is the process of using a banjo (usually a tenor banjo) to interpret the traditional jigs, reels, hornpipes, slides, slip-jigs, and polkas that are commonly played in Irish sessions. It's also a playing style that has some mechanical similarities to the melodic side of bluegrass guitar flatpicking. Norman Blake, for example, would have been a great Irish tenor banjo player. Due to the staccato nature of their chosen instrument, Irish tenor banjo players make liberal use of an embellishment known as the triplet. 

That's really all that needs to be said about it. It doesn't really need to be defined any more than that. 

There's no reason that the variety of approaches to Irish tenor banjo playing can't be as wide as the gap between say Jerry Garcia and Steve Vai. I just hope you would have the good sense to come over to the rootsy, playful, relaxed, swinging, spontaneous, and interactive side of things and favor that over technical skills, flashy technique, and overly precise arrangements.

Playing beautiful melodies is just as important as playing at blazing fast speeds.

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My Three Favorite Music Books

Forgive me if I've already posted this before as I find myself repeating the same things over and over these days. Here are my three favorite music books:

• Learn Faster, Perform Better by Molly Gebrian
• Anyone Can Play Music by Josh Turknett
• Improvise for Real by David Reed

If you have thirty minutes to practice today but don't know how to fill that time, or how to get the most out of that time, Molly Gebrian's Learn Faster, Perform Better will definitely help you with this. Her book is about the neuroscience behind practicing - how to do it in the most effective and efficient way.

If you've ever wondered how a fiddler can remember hundreds of tunes, or if you've ever wanted to play folk music the same way it's been done by traditional musicians for centuries  - by ear - then Josh Turknett's book Anyone Can Play Music will be right up your alley. As both a neurologist and a traditional musician (clawhammer banjo), Turknett's methods apply modern day science and research to old-fashioned methods of learning music that has the potential to free you from being tab dependent.

Lastly, if you are curious about chords, scales, or music theory and would like it explained in a fun, interactive, and non-academic way, then Improvise for Real may be what you need. This book by David Reed changed the way I look at the major scale and modes and freed up my musical creativity in ways that I didn't anticipate.

Those are my three favorite music books!

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Portland Collection Jam Culture

Years ago when I first discovered the Portland Collection books and recordings I never dreamed of playing in tune jams with the people involved in that project. But now that I live near Portland I get to sometimes play in jams with Sue Songer, George Penk, and Betsy Branch. I didn't get to meet Clyde Curley since he doesn't live in Portland anymore. 

The Portland contra jam culture is open and friendly. Each participant gets a chance to pick a tune. You can lead it yourself or have someone else lead it at a tempo comfortable for you. Occasionally there are medleys, but most of the time it's just one tune played many times through. The general rule of thumb is when you think it's been enough times, play it one or two more times! Kind of like how it's done in old-time music.

These are play by ear sessions. They don't actually use the books and instead trust in the folk process to bring the tunes to life as best as can be remembered or interpreted in the moment. The tunes are a mixture of the ones that have been taught over the years at tune teaching sessions and consist of Irish, New England, old-time, Québécois and more, including newer tunes that would have likely made it into Volume 4 if Volume 3 weren't the last book in the series.

I like the variety and it's exposing me to tunes I had either never heard before or forgot that I knew, including Fair Jenny's Jig, William Blake's Dead, All the Way to Galway, Road to Boston, Da Lounge Bar, The Flowers of Autumn, Hut on Staffin Island, Scotty O'Neil's, Shoes and Stockings, McLenon's Reel, and Wilbur's March, to name a few. 

If I may toot my own horn, the format is similar to the fiddle tunes jam I used to host on Saturday mornings in Ashland, VA. Back then I suffered from beginner's naivete which caused me to doubt whether trying to mix the Irish session and old-time jam repertoire was a good idea. You'd have people used to playing Irish music, sometimes on diatonic "D" instruments, interacting with old-time fiddlers and clawhammer banjo players who are used to tuning to a certain key. Going from a E-Dorian jig to a C-tune was tough. But we made it work and always had a good turnout.

We didn't have a piano player comping out chords on the beat like Sue Songer does, though. That piano sound is integral to the contra style and it's wonderful to be able to hear it in person. After two years in Oregon, I'm ready to add more of these Portland Collection type tunes to my repertoire!

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Bradley Overton Music Coaching for Guitar and Irish Tenor Banjo

Bradley Overton

I've been playing tenor banjo for 20 years now and for a lot of that time I've been without a dedicated music teacher. Recently I started looking for a music coach who could help me sound better, whatever that might mean. This search led me to Bradley Overton, who offers personalized 1-2-1 music coaching on guitar and Irish tenor banjo, in-person or online. Since he is in the UK and I am on the west coast of the USA it has to be online, with an 8 hour time difference!

In-person would of course have been ideal, but Bradley is the first online music teacher that I've encountered who really utilizes that platform to its full extent. During my first lesson we jumped right in and wasted no time. Brad shared his screen and ran me through a number of drills to assess where I'm at and where I could improve, utilizing Guitar Pro software to create specific exercises on the spot. This "hit the ground running" teaching style really works well for my ISTJ personality type. I was given clear feedback and assigned homework. The next lesson built upon what we have covered in the previous lesson. 

I like to play Irish tunes and other types of fiddle tunes on a tenor banjo tuned GDAEB (mine has one extra string!) and I play in intermediate to advanced sessions a couple times a week, surrounded by musicians who are often much better than I am. I didn't know what "sounding better" might mean but fortunately Brad could take a listen and know exactly what to address without any hemming and hawing or wasted time.

Brad has me thinking about all kinds of musical things I have never thought of before, which is what a great teacher should do. Since I am actively playing in sessions I can take the things I am working on and try them out in real-life situations. If you are looking for not just a music teacher, but a music coach who is an excellent communicator able to custom tailor their instruction just for you, then I strongly recommend that you check out Bradley Overton!