The Perfect Wrong Note: Learning to Trust Your Musical Self

Description

In this groundbreaking book, prize-winning pianist and noted educator William Westney helps readers discover their own path to the natural, transcendent fulfillment of making music. Drawing on experience, psychological insight, and wisdom ancient and modern, Westney shows how to trust yourself and set your own musicality free. He offers healthy alternatives for lifelong learning and suggests significant change in the way music is taught. For example, playing a wrong note can be constructive, useful, even enlightening. The creator of the acclaimed Un-Master Class workshop also explores the special potential of group work, outlining the basics of his revelatory workshop that has transformed the music experience for participants the world over. Practicing, in Westney's view, is a lively, honest, adventurous, and spiritually rewarding enterprise, and it can (and should) meet with daily success, which empowers us to grow even more. Teachers, professionals, and students of any instrument will benefit from this unique guide, which brings artistic vitality, freedom, and confidence within everyone's reach.;Music, magic, and childhood -- Vitality -- Juicy mistakes -- Step by step : a guide to healthy practicing -- Breakthroughs -- Is it good to be a good student? -- Out of control : the drama of performing -- Lessons and un-lessons -- The un-master class : rethinking a tradition -- Adventurous amateurs -- Beyond the music room.