Tag Archives: Jazz Improvisation

Listening Beyond Your Instrument To Open Up Your Musical Imagination

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“Some of my favorite saxophonists don’t play saxophone.” I remember saying that once, some years back, when I was being interviewed on a radio show. The host asked me a simple question, “Who are some of your favorite saxophonists?” This is a logical question to ask a saxophonist (me). But truth be told, at that point in my life, I wasn’t much influenced by other saxophonists. (My answer was quite spontaneous and sincere.)

I was more interested in listening to guitar players. I was crazy about a wide spectrum of improvisational guitar playing: Jimi Hendrix, Ralph Towner, Nels Cline, Wes Montgomery, Django Reinhardt, Jim Hall, Mike Stern, Derek Bailey, Charlie Christian, John Abercrombie, and many, many more. ( I still love this music!)

At that time I was listening to a large variety of music, and certainly a fair amount of that music involved the saxophone. But I continually gravitated toward the guitarists. You might be wondering why I just didn’t switch from playing saxophone to guitar. But truth be told, I wasn’t interested at all in playing guitar.

I was drawn to many of these guitarists because they played their instruments in such a way as to inspire me to think differently about playing the saxophone (my true love!) The first time I heard Mike Stern play, for example (with Miles Davis), I thought, “Now that’s how I want to play the saxophone!” The way Stern was thinking about his sound, organizing his melodic ideas, and using space and density was markedly different than any saxophonist I’d ever heard.

It was easy for me to imagine that coming out of a saxophone, spelling out a whole new musical language for the instrument.

Fortunately for me, I didn’t scrutinize and imitate his music. This is always a great temptation. We hear somebody who has really “solved” the musical problems we’ve been considering, with great clarity, originality and stunning self-expression. Why not just do what they did?

Well, I won’t digress here as to why that’s not a good idea. Suffice it to say that the whole point of this creative process is to solve the problems in your own way. That’s where the beautiful music comes from.

It’s not hard to understand why guitarists think differently than saxophonists: They play a different instrument. They have different challenges, limitations, possibilities, physical requirements, etc. They think and function within the world of the guitar. No matter what, part of what influences their creative thinking is the nature of their instrument.

And so it is for all instrumentalists. Because of this you have saxophonists listening to a disproportionate amount of saxophonists, as do you have guitarists listening to a disproportionate amount of guitarists, and so on with all instrumentalists.

There’s nothing wrong with that, for the most part. After all, you learn what your instrument can do. You learn about sound, articulation and other aspects of technique. You learn the history of the improvisational language as told through your instrument. All of this is good. It creates a context through which to explore and grow.

But if you really want to start thinking about your instrument in a different way, in a more expansive way, you might consider carefully listening to and studying musicians who play (or sing) an instrument other than  your own.

I remember once talking to the great tenor saxophonist, Bennie Wallace, about his influences. He was sort of amused that many critics compared his playing to Eric Dolphy’s, because Bennie’s improvisational language involved the use of “wider than usual” intervals (as did Dolphy’s).

But Bennie never really listened to Dolphy (although he greatly respected him). Instead, Bennie became highly inspired in his saxophone playing because of the way Thelonious Monk played piano. Bennie didn’t copy Monk, but he was led to think and imagine (through careful observation of Monk’s music) of an entirely different way of playing the saxophone.

Interestingly enough, Bennie was influenced by the sound that Monk could get on the piano (which was due in a large part to Monk’s more “vertical” conception of tonal organization throughout his instrument).

When I think of the greatest tenor saxophone sound I aspire towards, it’s the sound of Johnny Hartman’s singing voice. (Yes, I know he’s a baritone, not a tenor). Listening to him sing has influenced my thinking about the sound of the saxophone more than any saxophonist ever has. Again, I don’t try to imitate him. It’s just that I imagine that concept through the tenor saxophone. Flutist James Newton also has a sound that has deeply opened up my own conception of the tenor saxophone sound, as has the sound of Elvin Jones’ drumming and Bill Evan’s piano playing.

Sometimes it’s a good idea to think far outside of the world of your instrument. Let go of the “trumpet-isms”, “piano-isms”, “guitar-isms”, or whatever kind of “isms” you might hold on to.

Becoming inspired by another instrument can help you to imagine the “impossible” on your instrument, and make it possible. (Sometimes the “impossible” is nothing more than a limited imagination and the unwillingness to carry out a new idea to fruition.)

So see if you can find an instrumentalist or singer that really inspires you. Listen…frequently, mindfully, openly, joyfully. Try to imagine their sound, their conception, coming through your instrument. At the very least, you’ll deepen your listening skills and imagination.  You might even open up your creative world in a huge and unexpected way.

Artistic Growth: Looking Inward, Looking Outward

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For serious musicians, artistic growth comes in many forms, from many sources and from a variety of motivations. As I observe and ponder some of my favorite musicians, I notice that they tend to aim their growth primarily in one direction or the other. They either expand upon what they do by looking ever outward, or expand what they do by looking ever inward. I’ll explain what I mean.

My friend, multi-woodwinds virtuoso Vinny Golia, is a classic example of a musician who is constantly motivated to grow by looking outward. Vinny already plays a vast array of woodwind instruments: all the saxophones (and I mean all the saxophones), clarinets, flutes, some double reed instruments and a ton of so called “ethnic” wind instruments from around the world, like the Bulgarian kaval (end-blown flute) for example.

Vinny can make compelling music on any of these instruments in a large variety of improvisational music settings, from modern jazz to chamber. He is also one of the most musically literate people I’ve ever met. He’s listened to (and continues to listen to) every kind of music imaginable. If you mention a seemingly obscure artist or recording to him, he’ll go on for 10 minutes with insights and knowledge (and his love) about the music as if he were getting ready to write a book about it.

Besides having the privilege of performing and recording in some of his ensembles, I also had the pleasure of spending about 4 weeks with him out on the road many years back while touring with the Michael Vlatkovich Group. We roomed together quite a bit on that tour and talked every night about  music.

At the time, I was transitioning from being somewhat of a doubler (only playing 4 or 5 different saxes and flutes) to playing the tenor sax exclusively. To Vinny, this seemed curious to say the least, almost like I was moving backward instead of forward. Not only that, I was narrowing my scope of study and even my scope of musical interest. Again, why?

We talked long about this, and about our own personal paths and musical curiosities. For me, I had lost any expressive passion or interest in my woodwind doubles. I simply wasn’t feeling or hearing it any longer.

By contrast, my interest in going deep into the sound possibilities of the tenor saxophone was nothing short of an obsession. Also, I was singularly interested in developing a specific type of tonal language based upon wider intervals that supported the kinds of tone colors I was exploring.

Because of this, I was practicing in a more narrow way than ever before. I was no longer interested in developing my harmonic capabilities, no longer interested in adding repertoire, no longer interested in exploring new styles of playing.

In essence, I was looking inward. I was looking toward ever increasing depth, exploration and expressive possibilities with fewer and fewer elements and influences.

Vinny on the other hand, was adding more instruments, listening to and studying more musical genres, studying more compositional disciplines, pushing more boundaries. He was looking outward for his musical growth and expression.

We talked further about this and came up with the terms  “macro-growth”, and “micro-growth”. Macro meaning to look outward, globally as it were, at a bigger, ever expanding  picture with increasing elements. Micro meaning to look inward at ever increasing details, possibilities and meanings from the elements already at hand (micro-growth, too, is an ever expanding picture, just expanding inward).

Vinny is a macro-growth kind of artist. At the time, I was squarely from the micro-growth school. Prior to that, I had been a macro-growth artist, too. I was listening to and studying as wide an array of jazz and other improvised music genres as I could. For a while, I was even playing around with some ethnic instruments and was studying contemporary chamber music. Then, as I mention above, it all changed.

Since that time, I’ve flowed back and forth from the micro to the macro, spending a lot of time, for example, studying Balkan folk music, and 20th century American classical music (I especially love Charles Ives!)

Now I’m again looking deeply inward, at developing a very particular type of rhythmic control and imagination that requires  a very narrow, focused discipline. I find myself practicing a lot over a handful of jazz standards applying what I’ve been studying, with no real intention of ever performing these tunes. They’re just templates for inward exploration.

The point is, you can grow either way. I think of artists like Warne Marsh and Thelonious Monk, who, toward the end of their playing careers, seemed to play fewer and fewer pieces. They just looked further into the expressive possibilities of what they had know for most of their creative lives. Deep knowledge.

In one of my earlier blog posts, I mention a story about Monk playing one tune (Rhythm-n-ing) four times in a single performance. Each version of the piece more amazing than the previous. This can only happen through that kind of inward exploration, finding more and more possibilities. In one song exists an entire universe, if you’re open to seeing and hearing it.

I listened to a recent live concert recording of Lee Konitz playing Too Marvelous For Words, a song he’s been playing for probably 60 years or more. I was astounded at his brilliance and endlessly playful imagination. Each chorus was a matter of him looking more and more inward to discover yet un-played musical treasures.

So how do you grow as an artist? Are you adding more elements, or eliminating elements and looking at the possibility of doing more with less? Maybe you’re doing a little of both. Either direction is a valid path toward growth.

 

 

 

 

Ten Things You Can Do To Improvise Over Familiar Material In New Ways

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In just about any improvisational music discipline, there is a recognized repertoire of pieces that musicians are expected to be familiar with. These are pieces that are used as an easy and convenient means for musicians to play together with little to no rehearsal.  A template for immediate communication, as it were.

In the world of jazz we refer the these pieces as standards. Some of these are songs from the Great American Songbook, such as All The Things You Are, Night And Day, etc. Others are compositions penned by well-known jazz musicians, such as Confirmation, Joy Spring, etc.

It’s easy to become somewhat jaded when playing these pieces, being seemingly unable to find anything new to say when improvising over them. This shouldn’t be the case, as there are always new ways to play on familiar material, if you maintain an attitude of exploration.

Here are 10 things you can do (things that I do myself) to help you immediately find new ways to play over familiar tunes:

1.Change the key-As obvious as it sounds, you’d be surprised at the amount of jazz musicians who have never explored a standard in an unfamiliar key. Besides giving your thinking a good workout (by mentally transposing the melody and harmony) you’ll find that you come up with new ways to phrase and otherwise think about the tune. Take a tune that you know and spend a few days improvising over it in all 12 keys. (If you aren’t already doing this on a regular basis, you should seriously consider making this a part of your daily practice plan.

2. Improvise slowly-Set your metronome from anywhere between quarter note equals 60 to 80. Don’t launch right into double-time playing. Instead, really let yourself experience and embrace the slow single-time feel. Make your time feel beautiful and clear. You’ll find all kinds of new ways to combine notes and create melodies that you’ve never thought of or heard before, many of them surprising and delighting you.

3. Improvise out of time-I call this “unaccompanied playing”. Improvise off of the entire piece by embellishing the melody with the harmony in a manner that resembles an unaccompanied cadenza. Take the time way out, rubato style. Stay strongly connected to the melody in your aural imagination. Take liberties with the harmonic structure, completely ignoring or redefining the harmony if you wish.

4. Improvise off the melody only-Playing in real time (either with a metronome or play along track) ignore the harmony (as much as you can) and build your linear improvisations from the melody itself. One of the methods for this that Lee Konitz said he learned from Lennie Tristano was to play ten choruses in a row improvising over the melody: the first chorus is the melody unembellished; the second chorus is the melody with slight embellishment. From the third through the tenth chorus, you gradually embellish the melody to the point where the melody seems to disappear completely. The key point here is to stay close to the melody in your aural imagination, no matter what you play.

5. Change the time signature-By simply changing the time signature, you force your imagination to conceive of form and harmonic connections in an entirely different way. Putting a piece in originally written in 4/4 into 3/4 is a simple way to notice how immediately differently you’ll improvise. Putting a piece written in 4/4 into 7/8 (this is what I like to do) will radically change how you organize your musical thinking and melodic organization. It will broadly expand your possibilities when you go back to playing the piece in 4/4.

6. Change the time feel (and articulation)-If it’s piece that  you normally play with a swing feel, don’t swing it. If it’s a Bossa Nova, Afro-Cuban, or other type of latin feel, improvise with a swing feel. It’s also a great idea to improvise a swing feel piece with a completely legato articulation. You can do this both with a “swing” eighth note feel and a straight and even eighth note feel. It might surprise you to find how much of your improvisational imagination is defined by your pre-conceived notion of articulation.

7. Use negative space-Explore the power and possibility of silence in your improvisations. Here’s a method I use sometimes to help with this: I play only one phrase (it doesn’t matter how long or short) over an entire chorus of a tune. The rest of the chorus is silence. Next, I play two phrases over the entire chorus, letting the rest of the chorus be silence. I go on to playing three phrases, etc., all the way until it feels as if I’m not consciously “using silence” in my improvisations. I’m always surprised with how much more sparse, but more meaningful my improvising becomes when I do this.

8. Improvise thematically-I’m talking about using one of your own themes. Improvise a first phrase over a tune. Stop and play your phrase over and over until you internalize it. Then go back and see if you can play two phrases, the first being what you originally played, and your second being a variation off the first. Then play three phrases following the same procedure, and so on until you feel that you can improvise endlessly off of your own thematic idea.

9. Write an etude-Sitting down to really use your intellect and imagination by composing an etude over a standard is a great way to clarify your musical imagination. It’s also a good way to codify and apply any new harmonic, rhythmic and/or melodic material you might be practicing.

10. Displace the rhythm-Chose a simple rhythmic pattern (such as 4 eighth notes followed by 2 quarter notes) and use it to improvise over an entire chorus of a tune. Then, go back and improvise a chorus displacing the pattern by one eighth note (e.g., starting on the upbeat of one). Then displace the pattern by one beat for a chorus (starting on the downbeat of two). Continue to do so, chorus by chorus, until you’ve played the pattern from every part of the up and down beat of the measure. This will greatly improve your rhythmic and phrasing imagination.

By approaching familiar things in novel ways, you’ll give yourself the chance to always stay fresh and growing, now matter how many times you’ve played a piece. There are no stale tunes, only stale imaginations.

A Hobby That Will Make You A Better Musician

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Many years ago when I first met the great flutist and composer, James Newton, he impressed upon me the importance of a musician having a hobby. He felt that many musicians spend so much of their time and passion on music, that having a hobby was a great way to maintain balance and perspective as a human being.

His hobby at the time was studying visual art, painting in particular. He told me that besides giving him an enjoyable diversion from working in music, that ironically enough, it actually ended up expanding his conception of music. He learned this specifically through deepening his understanding of color and emotion, and brought that understanding to view his musical composition process in a new light.

I had no hobbies whatsoever at the time of meeting James, as I was so utterly consumed with playing, composing and studying music. But as a few years passed I did stumble upon a hobby that has not only helped me find balance as a human being, but also, has helped me tremendously as a musician: The study of foreign language.

Though I studied Spanish for a year in 9th grade, I really didn’t catch the foreign language bug until I was nearly 40 years old. At that time I was very interested in Bulgarian folk music, so I took a trip over there to hear this beautiful music first hand. What ended up happening was that I fell in love with the sound of the Bulgarian language. It seemed to so much reflect the sounds of the music I loved so much.

So when I returned home, I began to teach myself Bulgarian. I was totally shooting in the dark with my study, as I had no idea how to learn another language. But eventually I became conversant, and at one point, after much study and travel to Bulgaria, virtually fluent.

The benefits I gained as a musician from the process of studying another language became immediately discernible (I’ll talk more specifically about this below). I decided to tackle another language. I chose Russian, as it is in the same language family as Bulgarian (Slavic) and it uses the same alphabet (Cyrillic).

Russian was an even more challenging language for me to learn than Bulgarian, but it opened up my ears, mind and musicality even more. I was hooked.

To make a long story short, I ended up studying Spanish fairly extensively, and am currently working on improving my fluency in Brazilian Portuguese (my wife is Brazilian). Bulgarian, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese are languages that I’ve spent enough time with to become conversant to fluent in (as long as I stay in practice).

But I’ve also “visited” other languages just for fun: Estonian, Romanian, Eastern Armenian, to name but a few. I never had any intention of becoming conversant or fluent in these languages. I studied them purely out of curiosity, often rising from how pleasing the language was to my ear, or how interesting the grammar was. More like a taste test than a complete meal.

Every time I approach a new language, my musical skills are enhanced and broadened once again. Here are some of the benefits of studying a foreign language for musicians:

  • You greatly improve your ear-Language is sound turned into meaning. When studying another language, you learn to hear high degrees of subtly in sound. In short, your ability to hear and process sound becomes more sophisticated, richer. Everything from intonation, color and shape become clearer to you. This translates right into your musical activity.
  • You learn to create the physical gestures to produce new sounds-If you are to be understood in any language, you must learn to manipulate your vocal mechanisms (including, mouth, tongue, throat, jaw) to produce sounds in a different way. If you play a wind instrument or sing, this helps you tremendously to gain even greater control and insight into producing sound on your instrument. (It helps with your sound conception even if you don’t play a wind instrument.)
  • You broaden your rhythmic conception-Every language has it’s rhythm. And even within every language there are many different rhythmic pattern, depending on region (accent, etc.) By letting yourself find the rhythm of speaking a new language, you expand your own ability to imagine and control rhythm and time.
  • You deepen your understanding between sound and meaning-As you gain familiarity with a new language, you dramatically increase your capacity to turn sound into meaning. That’s the same skill you need to play well, whether as an improviser or as an interpretive musician.
  • You learn to think way outside the box about structure and meaning-One of the first things you come face to face with when you start learning another language is how different the structures of the language are than your native language: Grammar, syntax, idiomatic expressions are but a few of the ways your sense of logic is challenged. Again, this opens your thinking up even more as a musician.
  • You become better at improvising with new material-When you converse, you’re improvising. Learning to converse in a new language means learning to be able to take still unfamiliar material and express ideas, to communicate. This helps your brain immensely when it comes to improvising music with new ideas and material. In essence, you learn how to absorb and use new material faster, in more meaningful ways.
  • You get more comfortable being wrong-If you converse in the language you are learning, you’re going to make mistakes. Lots of them. You simply stop flinching or feeling bad when this happens. If you take that attitude and skill into your music making, you open yourself up to great possibilities.
  • You improve your overall brain fitness-All of the above keep your brain working in novel ways, which helps you to stay sharp for the rest of your life. Working memory (the capacity to hold and work with various pieces of information at one time) is crucial for language learning. (It also comes in pretty handy in making music.) My working memory  improved remarkably when I started studying languages.
So if you think you’d might like to try a new language (and have no previous experience), here are some guidelines to help you get the most out of your endeavor:
  • Pick a language that really appeals to you-This can either be because of the sound of the language, love and interest in the culture, and more. If you have genuine interest in the language you’ll always enjoy learning more. And don’t think you need to become conversant or fluent to gain some of the great benefits I’ve listed above. Don’t worry about how “useful” the language is. Let your interest be your guide.
  • Start with an “all audio” language course-Don’t start reading in the new language at the start. All you’ll do is bring your english speaking sound limitations to the language. Instead, learn to really hear and reproduce the sounds of the language. Pimsleur self-study language courses are an excellent option for this.
  • Sing, sing, sing-Learn songs as soon as you can in the new language. This will help you produce the sounds, as well as deepen your sense of meaning with the words.
  • Study grammar and structure-After you’ve spent some time just playing the new language by ear, invest some time in learning grammar and writing. You can either take a course in the community, or find a self-study course well suited for this purpose.
  • Watch films-Watching a film in the new language (with subtitles, of course) will significantly increase your understanding of all aspects of the new language.
  • Speak-If you can find a friend who speaks your new language, practice as much as you can with him or her. If not, consider finding an online community of other speakers and learners of the language to practice with. Remember, don’t be afraid of making mistakes. If you have a chance to travel to the country where your chosen language is spoken, you’ll find that the locals are gracious, helpful and flattered that you are making an attempt at learning their language.
So there you have it. I hope this post doesn’t seem somewhat off topic, but lately I’ve come to realize even more how my language study has deepened my musical experience. I think it can deepen yours as well.

 

Two Habits Of Thinking That Will Limit Your Growth As A Musician

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If you ask an accomplished musician about what is necessary for continuous growth and improvement, you might well be met with a “to do” list: Always work on improving your sound. Find new ways to challenge your reading and technical skills. Keep expanding your repertoire with pieces that broaden your expressive capacities. Listen deeply to, and analyze great musical performances. And so on.

And for sure, all these are things you need to strive toward in order to grow. But what about the things you need to avoid in order to grow as a musical artist?

If you were to ask an accomplished musician this question, you’d most likely get a fairly extensive list of things to steer clear from, as well. (It’s even possible that this list would be longer than the “to do” list.) In essence, for you to grow, you must do certain things, and must consciously avoid doing certain other things.

It’s important to keep in mind that if you wish to change what you do, you must change how you think. In my experience both as performer and teacher, I find that the vast array of ways musicians interfere with their progress is often a result of two habits of thinking (attitude):

“I won’t let myself sound bad.”

“I’m doing well so far.”

Let’s look at these habits in detail:

I won’t let myself sound bad 

This is of course a habit based in fear. It limits your growth by not allowing you to try new things with an open mind. It radically shifts your emphasis from process to result as you explore musical growth.

For sure you’d like to sound immediately better when you try something new ( a good result). Who wouldn’t? But often enough, changing something to sound better starts with you sounding somewhat worse ( “worse”, at least,  in your current perception).

You’ll never improve by doing something the same way you’ve always done it (whether you think so or not). If you examine any musician’s improvement, it comes down to a continuous evolution of edification. What seemed like the “right” thing at one point turns out to be the wrong thing. You acknowledge this, then you move on, proceeding in a different way.

I’ve taught the Alexander Technique to musicians who were so afraid of sounding bad that they could not (at the start) allow themselves to play their instrument (even for an instant) without indulging in the particular habits of tension that were causing the very problems that brought them to see me in the first place. They simply believed that if they didn’t do what they thought they needed to do,  they would sound bad. Their fear of sounding bad was trumping their desire to improve.

One of the milestones of growth for my students is their gradual acceptance of allowing themselves to sound bad in order to allow for change. There occurs a  shift in thinking, and then the desire to change trumps the fear of sounding bad. When this happens, it opens up a huge, beautiful path toward expansion and upward development.

So when you change something as you play, don’t immediately jump to judging the quality of your result as sounding good or bad . Shift your judgement to, “Is this different than what I’d normally do?”

Then shift from judgement to discernment: “What am I not doing that I would normally do?” (Your growth will often involve you playing your instrument without indulging in your habits of tension and over-doing. Non-doing instead of doing.)

When this happens you put yourself in the frame of mind to make logical, objective decisions about your playing. If you can suspend judgement and stay with discernment long enough, you can choose most clearly that which serves you the best.

Some of the other manifestations of this habit are: a rigid practice ritual that aims toward maintenance instead of growth; avoidance of playing with better musicians; avoidance of challenging musical situations; a limited palate of musical self-expression . As you can see, if you’re afraid of sounding bad, you can’t really risk stepping into the unknown.  You can’t ever find something new to play. You can’t ever surprise yourself.

I’m doing well so far

This habit, in many ways, can be more insidious than the fear of sounding bad. Insidious, because what appears as self confidence (a good thing) can easily morph into self-deluded dogmatism (not such a good thing).

It limits your growth in a similar way, in that it robs you of your impetus to explore the possibility of doing something differently. I call it the curse of expertise. When you are absolutely sure that you are right in what you do, you can’t possibly change. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, the saying goes.

In my teaching experience, the most common manifestation of this habit is the belief that excess tension and strain don’t significantly impact musical success. Talent and practice does. “So what if I’m tightening my shoulders and neck as I play? I’ve seen Sonny Rollins doing the exact same thing and it doesn’t seem to make any difference in his playing. He still sounds great.” (I had a young saxophonist with a rather brittle sound tell me this as I tried to explain to him that his sound was colored by his excessive neck and shoulder tension.)

First of all, you’re not Sonny Rollins. Second (and more important), you have no way of knowing how Mr. Rollin’s habits of misdirected tension impact his playing. He obviously plays quite well despite his habits. But it’s possible that he could play even better than he does without them.

One of the things that virtually all truly masterful musicians have in common is that they believe that they can always do what they do in a better way. The great cellist and teacher Janos Starker talks about the importance of this idea, and the process by which the musician’s thinking is edified on the path toward improvement.

Other manifestations of the “I’m doing well so far” attitude are: lack of discipline where practice is concerned; an unwillingness to deepen self-awareness; a superstitious adherence to well-meant, but ultimately useless or counter-productive advice given them by other musicians; an inability to understand cause and effect with respect to their own bodies and the music making process; a perceived (by others) sense of self-satisfaction bordering on arrogance.

You may have noticed that these two habits of thought are closely related, and indeed they are. One often supports and blends in with the other, and both are based to some degree on fear of change.

So always keep in mind that what you do (and what you don’t do) for better or for worse, is conditioned by what you think. Aim at keeping your thinking clear and helpful by avoiding these two habits.