Good Questions to Ask a Musician
Questions for a musician about the craft: how they started, how a song gets from an idea to something playable, what they practise and how, stage nerves and mistakes mid-song, working with other players, and what beginners waste time on.
The questions
Open any question for the note
What was the first instrument you got your hands on, and how old were you?
Why ask it
A concrete opener that usually comes with a story about a relative, a school scheme, or a borrowed instrument. It also tells you whether they came up through lessons or through figuring things out, which shapes everything they say later.
Did someone teach you, or did you work it out yourself?
Why ask it
Self-taught and conservatory-trained players describe the same music in different vocabularies. Knowing which you are talking to tells you how technical you can get before the conversation stops being useful to either of you.
What are you working on at the moment?
Why ask it
Asking about current work rather than past achievement gets you a live answer instead of a rehearsed one. It also gives them the option to talk about something unfinished, which is where the interesting detail usually is.
How does a song start for you: words, a riff, or something you hear in your head?
Why ask it
Writers tend to have one reliable entry point and know it. If the answer is that it varies every time, ask about the most recent one specifically, since a single example beats a general description of a process.
What do you do with an idea that is good but will not become a whole song?
Why ask it
The answer reveals the actual working method: a voice memo folder, a notebook, or nothing at all. Many players have hundreds of fragments and a system for revisiting them, and that system is more instructive than any advice about inspiration.
How long does something take to go from an idea to a version you would play for people?
Why ask it
Ask for a real number on a real song. The gap between writing and being willing to perform it is where arrangement, self-editing, and nerves all sit.
What is the hardest thing you have learned to play, and how long did it take?
Why ask it
This gets a measurable answer and usually a demonstration. The timescale tends to surprise listeners, which is exactly why it is worth asking in front of anyone who thinks progress should be fast.
What does your practice actually look like on an ordinary day?
Why ask it
Real practice is duller and more structured than people expect: scales, one difficult bar repeated, a metronome. If the answer is that they just play, ask how they got past the hardest passage, because something more deliberate happened.
How do you practise something you keep getting wrong?
Why ask it
This is the most transferable thing a musician knows. Expect slowing it down, isolating two notes, changing rhythm, or practising the transition rather than the phrase, and expect it to apply well beyond music.
What happens to you in the minutes before you go on, and what do you do about it?
Why ask it
Physical specifics, such as hands, breath, or stomach, land better than a general answer about nerves. The routine they describe is usable by anyone who has to perform, present, or speak.
What do you do when you make a mistake in the middle of a song?
Why ask it
Professionals almost universally say to keep going and that audiences rarely notice. Ask for a time it happened and what actually gave them away, which is usually the face rather than the note.
What is the best room or crowd you have played to, and what made it work?
Why ask it
The answer is often not the biggest show. Listen for what they credit: the sound in the room, an attentive audience, a band that was locked in. It tells you what they are actually chasing.
What is the worst gig you have played, and what did you take from it?
Why ask it
The disaster stories are both entertaining and instructive, and they usually contain the practical lesson: bring spare strings, check the power, do not trust the house monitor.
When you play with other people, how do you decide who plays what?
Why ask it
Arrangement decisions in a small group are made partly by ear and partly by hierarchy. Asking how it gets settled reveals how the band actually functions when nobody is watching.
What happens when someone in the band wants to take a song somewhere you do not?
Why ask it
Creative disagreement is the main reason bands end. A specific example, and who gave way, tells you more about collaboration than any answer about communication.
What does recording do to a song that playing it live does not?
Why ask it
The two forms pull in different directions: a recording is fixed and heard closely, a live version breathes and can be repaired in the moment. Musicians usually have strong views on which one a given song belongs to.
How do you tell whether a criticism of your playing is worth listening to?
Why ask it
Look for a filter rather than a feeling: whether the person can play, whether two people said the same thing, whether it points at something specific and fixable. Anyone who takes all criticism equally is either lying or miserable.
How does the money side work, if you do not mind saying?
Why ask it
Ask it late and give them an easy exit. Most working musicians assemble income from performing, teaching, sessions, and something unrelated, and hearing the mix is more useful than hearing an amount.
What do beginners spend time on that you would tell them to skip?
Why ask it
Answers tend to be pointed: buying gear instead of practising, learning fragments of many songs, avoiding the metronome, never playing with other people. This is the single most useful question for anyone starting an instrument.
What would you still like to be able to play?
Why ask it
Even players with decades behind them have a piece or a style they have not cracked. It is a good closing question because it shows that skill has no ceiling, which is worth hearing from someone who is already good.
Talking to a Musician About Their Work
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Ask about the work, not the talent
How long did that take is the best question you have
Telling a musician they are talented ends the conversation, because there is nothing to answer. Asking how long a piece took, or what part of it is still hard, opens the whole process of practice and revision that the performance hides.
If the instrument is in the room, ask them to show you
Thirty seconds of demonstration explains more than a paragraph of description, especially about technique. Ask before assuming they are willing, and do not turn a conversation into an unpaid performance.
Match your vocabulary to theirs
If they use theory terms, use them back. If they do not, avoid them, since a self-taught player who is asked about modal interchange will usually just agree politely and the exchange stops being real.
Where it goes wrong
- Asking whether they make a living from music too early lands as a judgement on whether their work is real. Ask about the mix of income later, and let them decline.
- Asking them to rank famous players or comment on a genre they do not like produces a polite non-answer.
- Requesting songs during a conversation puts them on the spot. Wait for them to offer.
- Comparing them to a better-known musician reads as a compliment and rarely is.
- Asking what their music sounds like is unanswerable. Ask what they would want someone to listen to first instead.
If you are learning an instrument yourself
- 1Ask what they practised in their first year, and in what order.
- 2Ask them to watch you play one short thing and name the single change that would help most.
- 3Ask how they would spend twenty minutes a day, which is closer to your real budget than an hour.
- 4Ask who they would send you to for lessons, and what a good teacher does differently.
- 5Write down the one exercise they mention and do it before you ask them anything else.
If you are writing this up
- Get instrument, band, and song names spelled the way they spell them. Musicians notice.
- Ask which recording or performance they would want a reader to hear first, and link that rather than the most popular one.
- Check any technical claim before publishing, since a wrong tuning or key in print is the detail other players will pick up on.
- Ask before recording audio, and ask separately before using any of it publicly.