Incorporating Mistakes Into Your Work

What? Why would you actually WANT mistakes in your work? Isn't the whole point of being a musician to strive for performance perfection? Who wants errors in their music?

Of course, no one wants bad sounds in their music. But who says mistakes have to sound bad? This past weekend, I was recording a new acoustic guitar tune that I had recently written. As I was rehearsing my parts prior to beginning the recording, I was paying close attention to every aspect of the sounds I was producing. Was I muting the strings too much? Or too little? How clean were my transitions between various parts? How was my phrasing? The dynamics? I was heavily into listening analytically to my playing, as most musicians are prior to recording. In this state of mind, or state of ear, if you will, I heard something unexpected but beautiful! Then I realized it was a "mistake" or rather my fingers hadn't done exactly what my brain was telling them. I looked down to see exactly what my fingers had done. And I played it like that again, and again. It was clear that my "mistake" actually sounded better than what I had intended to play. As the song writer, I decided to change the song, right there on the spot. I added this "mistake" into the arrangement. It was now a permanent part of the song. And a few minutes later, I recorded the song with that "mistake" a regularly appearing part within my new song.

But these kinds of "mistakes" have actually happened to me WHILE I was recording! A few years ago, I was recording a CD in the studio with a Denver-area rock band. And as I played the lead guitar intro to the song, I played it flawlessly, except for the last note. Somehow, my finger ended up two frets below where I had intended it to be. "Oh well,” I thought to myself. "I'll just have to do this take over again." But when I looked up, the producer was looking back at me with two thumbs up. "That's a keeper!" I heard him say through my headphones. Before I agreed it was a keeper, I wanted to hear it. And during the playback, I realized that it indeed was a keeper. What my fingers had played actually sounded better than what my brain had intended. This particular song ended up on the radio, with this intro guitar part, and my "mistake" being the very first thing listeners hear in this tune. It was one of that band's most popular tunes.

I think you probably get my point by now. Sometimes the unintended notes you sing or play can actually turn out better than what was intended. I think this surprises some folks at first, but it also makes some sense, too. So it's not that difficult of a concept to grasp. But the difficulty is in the ear, in being able to listen with an objective ear at your mistakes. The problem is the fact that while rehearsing, we train our ears to listen for "mistakes." And anything that doesn't sound as intended immediately gets labeled as a BAD mistake by your subconscious. Your ear detects that it wasn't what you intended to play, so it immediately gets labeled as "bad." And this is the most difficult part of trying to have an open mind about mistakes, and trying to listen for mistakes that actually sound good. It's because you have been through years of conditioning that "mistake=bad." And all this conditioning is not easily overcome.

But don't you listen every time you rehearse? Isn't every musician listening all the time? They may be listening, but that is not the focus of their attention. When I was playing that guitar intro in the studio and played the wrong note, my producer and I were listening to the same mix in our headphones. After I finished playing that intro I thought I was going to have to do it over. But the producer immediately knew we had a "keeper." How could two musical ears hear the same thing, but come to different conclusions? The producer was not focused on playing. 100% of his focus was on how it sounded. I, on the other hand, was primarily focused on making my hands play the part. Although I was listening, I was only listening for mistakes, those mental cues that would tell my brain that my hands were not doing as they were told! The producer was listening for the quality of sound, but I was listening primarily as a feedback mechanism to see if my hands were doing what I wanted them to.

The point here is not to pursue mistakes, but rather to pursue a different level of listening. Go beyond the kind of listening that only tells you if you played as intended or not. Truly listen to the quality of the notes, not just if they were the intended ones or not. And if you listen with this degree of attention, you will be pleasantly surprised at how many song improvements you stumble upon that were not quite what you had intended to play. But the key, to improving your song writing in this way, is all in the attention you give to your ear, and truly listening to your own playing.

Copyright ©2009 W.A. Blevins