Musicality

Jonathan West has put up a post on musicality. It's a subject not much written about, largely, I suspect, because most music educators and their students are to some degree "natural" players. Everyone else has usually been triaged out of the system somewhere along the way.

In Tibetan Buddhist teachings, one will hear from time to time that a bird must have two wings to fly, which leads to talking about wisdom and compassion, both of which are necessary on the path to enlightenment.

To get your music making to take flight, both technique and musicality are necessary. One of the great joys of music therapy is helping people realize that practicing and playing with musicality can make the development of technique a lot more fun. 

If your motivation in making music is personal enjoyment and self-expression, exploring the many aspects of musicality in the comfort zone of entry level technique can be more beneficial than worrying about the rapid development of technique. Worrying about technique can cause burnout; while developing musicality is refreshing, and over time can motivate you to improve your technique to better express your growing musicality.

I'm going to return to Jonathan's post and comment on specific things he's said. Just wanted to make this overall point first.