Customer Reviews

Effortless Mastery - Book & CD - (By Kenny Werner, Includes Compact Disc)

5 star:		(58)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am only about 3/4s through this book, and I couldn't be more enthusiastic. I happen to love Kenny Werner's piano playing--always heard him and thought "Well, I'll never sound like THAT!"-- only to read his book and have him address this very attitude with unbelievable accuracy. I've already changed the way that I practice my instruments, and I just put some of his approach to work in a 3 day recording session with some players that I admire very much. While I had couple of brief self-doubt meltdowns, the whole experience was so much easier than I had even hoped for, and yes, even "effortless" at times. I know that changing my perspective, and my expectations made a huge difference in my ability to enjoy the moment, and as a result, the music that came forth. I am recommending this book for anyone who has ever played a musical instrument--at ANY level--and stopped, even if it was a long time ago. This book explains what might have gotten in your way of the music-making experience. I also want to recommend it to those of us who play professionally but are either frustrated with our own progress or just not enjoying it as much as we did when we were young. There's no reason music can't be that fun again.

This is a truly a great book...it indentifies, and deconstructs fear and inadequacy in the realm of music performance...Werner explains the many reasons why musicians do not play up to their potential...he offers a direct access to applied musical experience and virtuosity by way of 1.) establishing a new rapport with the music/ instrument <THE SPACE> 2).honest self-realization (getting rid of the need to sound good, the necessity of being detached, so that "...we can be honest without becoming depressed". 3). New practice techniques <THE FIVE MINUTE TECHNIQUE> 4).Affirmations <MUSIC IS EASY/THERE ARE NO WRONG NOTES/EVERY NOTE I PLAY IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SOUND I HAVE EVER HEARD, I AM GREAT, I AM A MASTER, and a bonus CD, which is a guided meditation of all of the above. He talks about the "Monk Principle", and facilitates shifts in thinking, like, MUSIC IS NOT HARD, JUST UNFAMILIAR. He has many inciteful suggestions, "Mimic Playing", and "PLAYING FAST" to name a couple, all of which are designed to "rewire" the way we view ourselves. In short, he shows us how to give ourselves permission to be great musicians. Add this book to your regime, and I guarantee, you'll be cookin'! Thanks Kenny!

I've heard a lot about Mr. Werner's Effortless Mastery title. In fact, I know a band whose two primary musicians constantly bicker about whether this "effortless" approach is viable. After years of hearing about it, I decided to find out for myself.

The book starts out with one basic premise: you are an aspiring, practicing musician, looking to "break through" to higher grounds of playing. Many people are at this stage, but have a fear of unfamiliar musical territory. The bulk of this book is dedicated to removing this fear.

Werner's approach to doing so is by breaking down negative programming that's been beaten into aspiring musicians worldwide throughout their music careers. Some have a fear that's instilled by their teachers, who constantly tell them they're not good enough, not perfect enough, not smooth enough. Others have this fear imbued by "great" musicians - those who seem to push the boundaries and perform inhuman feats on their instrument. According to Mr. Werner, all this negative programming eventually becomes an insurmountable barrier for advancement - unless it is reversed and positive programming is imposed on the musician. Who will impose this programming? Most likely, it will be the musician himself.

Again, the basic premise comes into play: you must work on your technique, learn new music, and address your weaknesses. That is a given, and there is no way around it. However, you must also have a positive outlook while doing so - otherwise all the imperfections you've ironed out during practice will come back to haunt you in performance.

Some of the initial chapters reveal in great depth Mr. Werner's personal experience. In his younger years, he went through all the negative programming himself, and has learned (and continues learning) how to reverse it. It is from the standpoint of this experience that he approaches the subject-matter.

Through gradual guidance in the later chapters (and the three meditations on the included CD), Mr. Werner tries to help the student create a personal space, in which the student is master. By revisiting this space and learning to practice and perform from within this space, the student will become the master and reveal his inner voice. Don't expect to become an overnight master effortlessly, however: Werner suggests that learning to play from within the space will require relearning the instrument from scratch. This is a slow process at the beginning, but becomes natural as time goes by.

Unfortunately for many, a lot of the points made in this book are self-evident, or at least should be. Nonetheless, his encouraging tone instills the belief that mastery is possible. In the end, the student will hopefully realize that mastery is, by definition, effortless.

Some sections of this book are specific to particular instruments. Werner is a pianist, so quite a few examples are piano-related; he also talks about some other common jazz instruments, notably wind and brass. To my dismay, the guitar isn't mentioned, but the general pointers in the book allow this approach to be taylored to any instrument, and even to activities beyond music and arts in general.

This book could be described as an attempt to apply pseudo-Zen teachings to music practice and performance. While it contains some valuable thoughts, much of it is totally impracticle, idealistic, and in conflict with how musical development actually works.
At the beginning, Werner claims "Innovation IS Jazz!" and he fills half a page with "proof" of this assertion. First, I do not see the relevance of this page to the rest of the book. Second, Werner is not an jazz innovator; if he knows the secret of jazz innovation, why hasn't he produced any innovations?
There is some valuable advice in the "fear" chapters. Werner describes some harmful mindsets many students get into when they are practicing, listening, teaching, and composing.
The affirmations Werner recommends are useful if you do not really enjoy playing or if you are not satisfied with your current ability. While they won't actually make you play better (at least not much better), they may be able to help you overcome mental blocks that are preventing you from enjoying the experience of playing music. (It is supposed to be enjoyable, as many musicians seem to have forgotten these days!)
There are far too many specific points to go into in this review, but I will highlight a couple.
First, Werner thinks interference from the "mind" while practicing is destructive. I disagree. When practicing, the execution of a passage should never be repeated thoughtlessly. After each repetition, you should use your "mind" to decide what was correct about that execution and what needs to be changed. Through this constant process of self-correction, your playing becomes more and more refined. If you merely play things over and over again without thinking, this will occur much more hap-hazardly, if at all.
Second, Werner believes that things need to be practiced to TOTAL mastery before you move on to something else. This is both silly and dangerous. First, you will never achieve TOTAL mastery over something in the way Werner sees it. There is always room for human error; it is always possible to botch something no matter how thoroughly you have mastered it. Second, it takes far too long to reach the point of mastery Werner is talking about for it to have any practicle value. It would take years to accomplish much of anything by this method. There are far more efficient practice methods that allow you to improve much more quickly. It is simply not necessary to achieve total mastery over every single little thing you practice.
I could go on at length, but those are some of the more important criticisms I have of the book. I recommend it for some of the valuable insights and advice it contains, but the reader needs to think critically about what he actually adopts into his practice routine.

I read Kenny's book while I was at sea for 3 months, and listened to the CD many times. My playing has really opened up, and I think he's right about all of it. When asked about effortless mastery, Bird said,(paraphrased) "Learn all the technical stuff and then forget it,just play!" That is strictly analogous to practicing correctly, and entering the space. Werner's remarks about the importance of learning the melody, how our minds ruin it for us because we continually rush through the music thereby missing what in fact we are after, practicing up-tempos by just "wiggling your fingers", his observations RE: Bill Evans and Horowitz videos, his "get real time" approach to self-assessment about how to really improve, how to practice, the distinction familiar and unfamiliar as opposed to easy and difficult, and his concept of the Learning Diamond...it is lovingly written... it encourages and shows how to give ourselves permission to really play from our hearts...and effortless mastery emerges from that...boldly insightful and generous.

Outstanding. As a musician and teacher (of band and orchestra), I can barely express my gratitude to the author. My outlook on teaching and musicianship has changed drastically for the better since reading this book. After reading it through once and practicing a few of the "steps," I am now re-reading more thoroughly. The students I teach are already benefiting from my more realistic and relaxed approach to their music education. Every music teacher and musician should read this!!!

Many people love this book, and I do, too.

Warner's idea of *effortless* mastery and his practical approach are very helpful. Specifically, I like his recommendation to practice without strain and sometimes without concern for the correct notes in order to remain in a effortless flowing state while playing. I also like the related speed drills of not worrying about the notes and just letting go (and his point that research demonstrated that the average person on the street has equal finger speed to intensely-practicing classical pianists, thus showing it isn't more physical practice that makes us faster but releasing the mental-locks we put on ourselves).

The book's overall music-specific idea is that intellectualizing without true mastery burdens our playing, slowing us and making us tense, and this weight makes music laborious and stressful instead of effortless and inspiring. The book, however, at least equally emphasizes freeing ourselves from fear, which also dampens our playing (and everything else).

The reason I don't give the book 5 stars is that I don't feel comfortable with a couple of the book's psychological drills.

Specifically, I'm not comfortable with some of Warner's self-esteem-related drills, such as the one where we're supposed to think along the lines of "I am god" and "everything I play is great." I understand the idea is to free ourselves from fear so we can play effortlessly, but trying to counteract fear and mental demons by going so extreme in the other direction doesn't taste right to me and actually seems wrong psychologically, as if unhealthy narcissism is a dear ally.

Instead of leaning on an unhealthy narcissistic crutch, I prefer trying to grow out of my unhealthy narcissism, and I continue to find non-music books such as "Search for the Real Self" by Masterson and "Why Is It Always About You" by Sandy Hotchkiss extremely helpful for this.

Effortless Mastery's main points come across, though: fear of playing poorly or of even making a single mistake, coupled with intellectualizing without true mastery greatly hinders our performance and enjoyment of music. The book's many practice ideas continue to help me immensely. I love this book and highly recommend it.

!!!!!!!!WERNER'S IDEAS WILL NOT MAKE TRUE SENSE UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO GIVE THE EXERCISES A TRY AND NOT GIVE UP ON THEM!!!!!
I couldn't begin to tell you how important this book has become to me. i am 18 years old and played guitar 5 years during middle and high school. i was frustrated in the guitar and never felt like i was as good as other people, or i didn't have what it takes to be good. so i basically quit playing. so after two years of not playing anything,i picked up the piano, which was sixth months ago. and this is what led me to Effortless Mastery. i got the book and read it and it made more sense than i could tell you. i got serious with trying to use his techniques and i felt myself improving unusually well. music had a whole new feel to it, almost like the more i let myself go into "the space" the more music i realized was out there to be played.('Werner talks about the body as a vessel for music located in the soul). Anyway here is my point, i randomly one night picked up my guitar and started playing it. It was no ordinary feeling. The guitar was my "new" instrument to play. In only TWO months i have improved more than ten times the amount i improved earler in the 5 years of frustrating playing (trying to force the music out, instead of letting it come out by "ITSELF") And I love playing again! even listening to music is better, and the most exciting thing is that music only gets better from here on! I hope to meet kenny werner someday, i could not thank you enough!

Anyone who plays, or has ever played, an instrument should read this book. About once a page, sometimes for the entire page, Kenny Werner addresses issues that seem to come right out of your own music-mind, not the least of which is the fact that so many of us suffer from frustration and depression in the attempt at learning something that is so inherently joyful. It is one of the many paradoxes which Kenny addresses so insightfully, humorously, and most importantly, compassionately. If you are having trouble learning music, check out this book. As Kenny points out, there is no immediate solution (other than acknowledging the problem and starting a new consciousness today) but you will be amazed at how well he knows the musical mind. Bill Evans once said that "knowing the problem is 90% of solving it", and with this book the problems are made known. Thanks Ken.

A friend of mine had this book. We were recording together in the studio and during my down time, I would leaf through the pages of Effortless Mastery. I found I couldn't put it down, and eventually my friend just loaned me the book. Kenny has an amazing gift to convey how to get out of your own way and call upon your higher self and really relax when performing. I am a singer and songwriter but I quickly realized that this information was valuable to anyone with a creative spirit. I bought several copies of this book for fellow musician friends and singers. It's just outstanding! I love his spiritual insights and how that connects to your creativity. Relax, don't try to sound great. Helped me tremendously during my performances to this day. Excellent contribution Mr. Werner! Thank you and I highly reccomend this book to anyone who struggles with "fear" when expressing themselves creatively.