 Hey guys, it's John Brandingham with another Art of Composing daily vlog. In today's episode I thought I would talk about the importance of being able to play an instrument. So I am a multi-instrumentalist. I can play trumpet, I can play saxophone, guitar, mostly classical guitar, and I can play piano, and there's a couple other instruments that I've dabbled in that I'm not really that great at. However, I find that as a composer probably the thing I use the most and is the most critical to my workflow is being able to play the piano. Now, I don't consider myself a great pianist. I've got a couple pieces I've worked at, you know, Beethoven, that kind of stuff. However, it's not my main instrument. My main instrument is trumpet. I grew up playing that since fourth grade. So, you know, 93 or 94, however many years ago that was. However, I do have enough skill on piano to be able to figure out what I need to figure out. So there's a couple things that I would say are critical for you as a composer to be able to do playing the piano, and I figured we'd just go over them right now. First is that you should be able to play all your block chords, right, in their inversions. So if you're, you know, and it should be pretty rote, you can do just about any chord. And it should be major or minor, as well as, you know, augmented, quite as fast on that one. Just your standard stuff, dominant. I find that it's useful to be able to play. You don't have to be amazing at it, but to be able to play some Bach two-part inventions. And I, it's been a while since I've worked on these. You get the point. You have to be able to keep your hands independent and play a little bit. Now, like I said, I'm not a great pianist. I make a lot of mistakes. However, I do have the ability, and when I'm working on those pieces, I can knock them out pretty well. What it does for you is it allows you to figure out ideas quickly. And I think that's really what the heart of it is, is that if you have to get into your DAW, or you have to get into Sibelius, or Dorico, or whatever your notation software is, in order to hear an idea, you're going to lose a lot of what the initial impulse was and the motivation for that idea. So if you're playing something simple like that, I don't need to go to a DAW for that. But even something more complex, you know? Being able to play all my block chords and all the inversions, and being able to have a right hand that works separate from your left hand, those are critical skills for any composer. Now, you don't have to play the piano, but I would say you're going to be at a major disadvantage as a composer. So take the time, learn to play the piano. Now, I would say on top of also just those basics, if you can learn a little bit about jazz, that serves you really well as a composer because jazz is about improvising and being in the moment. Composing is not the same as improvising. For me, composing tends to be much more methodical, much more logical. However, they do cross in terms of the skills. And being able to play some nice jazz chords, doing just little things like that, it allows me to play around with ideas and it gives me kind of the mental freedom and permission to just improvise sometimes. You know, I like to tell people that there's danger in noodling when you're composing. I call it the problem of noodling. And the problem is that you end up getting sucked into what you're noodling around with and you don't end up writing anything down. However, there are times when you really just need to sit down and play at the piano or on guitar or trumpet or whatever your main instrument is. Like I said, I prefer piano for a lot of this kind of stuff. But it's like you've got to let your creative instinct breathe a little bit without the pressure of having to record it or write it down or for a project or anything like that. So I hope you enjoyed today's vlog. Be sure to check out my website www.artofcomposing.com. I've got courses. I've got more videos, articles on a ton of subjects. I've got a podcast that you can listen to. And be sure to subscribe in YouTube. And I look forward to doing the next one tomorrow. Talk to you later.