Mel Biggs: Carving the Air

In this 55-minute interview, English #accordion player and teacher Mel Biggs talks with author Judy Minot about making music and practicing. As a teacher she has plenty of tips for amateur musicians, and anyone who wants to learn music. She offers #practicetips on learning by ear, finding your way in sessions, playing in rhythm with dancers, finding the similarities in tunes to boost your repertoire, calming the inner critic, working with a metronome, and the benefits of super slow practice, and listening "beyond the tuned sound." She and Judy discuss their plans for their upcoming workshop at Halsway Manor in England, titled "Practice Smarter, Play Happier."   Links/Resources   https://www.patreon.com/cw/melbiggsmusic www.melbiggsmusic.co.uk www.folkunbound.co.uk   Judy Minot Website https://www.judyminot.com/bestpractice/ Patreon https://www.patreon.com/c/BestPracticeforMusicians     **Memorable Quotes from This Episode** "We learn to take the air knife and we go into the tune like it's a block of marble. And we've spent ages hewing this block of marble, and we've got the tune. It's right there in front of us, but now we can go in with our air knife, and we can carve bits out of it and soften certain bits and smooth them over.”   "I had lots of quick chord changes on at the time, unfamiliar chords, because on the melodeon there's kind of like three positions you can have your chord inversions in... they're all slightly different shapes for the same chord. And I would give them names like Dagger and Sword because a dagger’s a short blade and a sword is a long blade. And it was just like, you know, just telling my fingers how far to stretch."    "if you \[practice] really slowly, this magical thing happens at speed, where you've got the muscle memory and you've got the strength in your fingers because you've done the weights at the gym really slowly,"   **Guest Mel Biggs** is well-known on the UK folk scene as a musician, melodeon teacher and Morris dancer. Mel has a strong reputation as a thoughtful, perceptive and mindful teacher, with an ever-expanding library of videos on practice and playing. As a performer she performs with the Anglo-European trio Moirai, and plays for the vibrant Harlequin Morris. Mel has also made a name as a podcaster, with her series of interviews with great melodeon players.   **Podcast host Judy Minot** is a music educator, musician, and author of the award-winning book Best Practice, Inspiration and Ideas for Traditional Musicians. Judy is an evangelist for the power of trad/folk/roots music to bring richness to our adult lives. A lifelong musician but never professionally, she enjoyed a long and successful career in broadcast television and in digital marketing, picking up two platinum records and a platinum video, multiple awards. She holds a 4th degree black belt in the martial art of aikido, is a certified yoga teacher, a regular contributor to Acoustic Guitar Magazine, and has sung on the stage of Carnegie Hall. She teaches Best Practice concepts online and in person around the world.   If you enjoy Best Practice for Musicians, subscribe now so you don't miss an episode. Start transforming the way you practice - and play. **Rate, like, comment, and share.**