most books on practice and learning talk about the convergent performer as musician…
… ignoring the arranger, the composer, the singer song writer, who dwells in fact in the better overview of the field.
the midfield player than the one who shoots.
carpenter, cook, language learner… nurse, surgeon… of course convergent skills are so important and beautiful. so nothing less about the violinist who tries again and again to play the centuries old music better and get the fame for it, but…
… that is just a very small part of music and musicianship…
although for some reason even very good researchers seem to just address that part when they talk about music as practice.
pattern recognition is naturally the way that a person gets better at identifying chords for melodies.
then based on those patterns one tries to see what modifications can be made.
like with chess, the pattern recognition gets better and better/
also like with learning chess, one really is trying to see, what the previous composers did and modeling to ones own composition.
so it is not just the chess model.
it is the creative arrangers and composers model too.
adam Grant in his book originals gives the example of the lion King as a movie which almost didn’t get made.
then when someone was able to show the similarity with Odhello, they got the money.
start with known patterns to practice and get better with chord melody connections, but then…
dont start with chord progression when making the new arrangement.
start with the melody and keeping patterns as a library to comply or to deviate, one makes better reharmonizations
why else do we musicians love it so much, to be an arranger, to be a composer, if not for the divergent part of it?