Practicing Your Craft
April 30, 2024
Justin Malone | Writing Center Tutor
As an avid listener of classic rock, jazz, and blues music, I enjoy hearing (and, admittedly, banging my head to) songs from musicians who are known for their captivating melodies, groovy lyrics, and compelling storytelling. My fascination with the ways that artists express their creativity and emotions through music inspired me enough to begin playing guitar.
I was recently entranced by the elegant phrasing, rich harmonies, and subtle changes in tone of the guitar in T-Bone Walker’s “Stormy Monday” for the first time a few weeks ago. I immediately grabbed my trusty mahogany Washburn acoustic and attempted to learn it for myself. I plugged in my acoustic amp, found the right chord charts and tab sheets, and pulled up an online tutorial.
Everything was going smoothly; I was moving from chord to chord and learning the main riff. I then came across the dreaded E augmented. The awkward finger placements and timing of playing the chord in the song made it greatly difficult for me to grasp, especially since I never encountered it before in my eight years of playing the instrument. Although I wasn’t feeling confident or creative in my expression (and was definitely overthinking about plateauing in my abilities), remembering the musical techniques that I had learned diligently in my practice allowed me to understand how the chord fit within the context of the song and become familiar with how to play it.
As a Writing Center tutor, I have seen a similar process occur frequently among writers, myself included: We know what we want to write about and the ways we write, but we feel stuck in conveying these insights or improving our writing process. And that’s totally normal! Seeking out ways to improve our writing is especially important in expressing who we are and what we’re interested in, just like musicians reveal themselves and their interests through songwriting. With this in mind, here are some takeaways from my experiences in music that apply to the writing process:
Start with the basics:
Just like many musicians, I began my journey learning the important elements of reading music and my instrument by learning the simplest parts. That meant practicing naming the lines on the staff, identifying what note each string was associated with, and how to tune the guitar. Once I understood how my instrument worked and related to musical notation, I learned easier open chords—G, C, and D—and songs that only contained these chords. Once I mastered these three chords, I transitioned to learning other open chords, standard scales, riffs, simple solos, barre chords, and so on.
In this way, writers can begin their own writing process by determining the simplest elements of developing their voice. We could ask ourselves questions like: What arguments do I want to make? What ideas do I want to contribute? Should this idea go in this paragraph? Are my word choices clear and accurate? Am I following proper grammar and spelling rules? Then, once these simpler questions are answered, we can consider more detailed aspects of the writing process, like including transitional words to move between complicated ideas, or integrating quotations into sentences. Developing a solid foundation to begin our writing process is especially important in creating habits to confidently use our writing skills.
Have good tools in your arsenal:
As a guitar player, I have invested a significant amount of time in developing different techniques and acquiring pieces of gear that I can use to help me play better. In improvising solos on jazz songs, I rely on my knowledge of the pentatonic and blues scales to understand how different notes work within musical keys and transition between different musical phrases. I also have external devices, such as a capo, picks, glass slide, and an overdrive pedal, which unlock new playing possibilities on the guitar and help me adapt to the tonal or genre requirements of the songs I play.
In the writing process, writers also have access to techniques that can help them brainstorm creating pieces of writing, even outside of academic contexts. We might find that developing outlines that include our arguments, pieces of evidence, or planned structure of what we want to write can best help us understand our ideas. Or we might find that jumping into writing our drafts right away and writing as we go could serve us the best. Knowing which writing method works best is especially significant in understanding how we can jumpstart our writing, and then expand upon it.
Practice makes perfect:
In my musicianship, I recognize that I can only get better at guitar by practicing the instrument as often as I can, and this same principle applies to writing. To unlock greater possibilities, vocabulary, and expression of language in our writing, we have to, well... write.
Even if we’re not particularly fond of writing outside of the classroom, we can develop our voices and style as a writer by writing about anything—whether we talk about the latest victory from our favorite sports teams or the weather in Cincinnati. By practicing our writing habits within the purposes and audiences of different situations, we can work towards developing our voice and expressing our ideas through the wonders of writing.
