Category Archives: Practicing Improvisation

Lester Young: Creativity Reflected In Bodily Gesture

6 Replies

Ah, Lester Young…one of the greatest improvisers in all of jazz. He helped open the door to what we call the “modern jazz”  period by virtue of his more linear, spatially melodic approach to improvisation. Jazz saxophonists from Charlie Parker, to Stan Getz, to Lee Konitz, to Jimmy Giuffre, to Joe Henderson, to Mark Turner demonstrate a clear connection to his lineage.

When people describe Lester’s playing, they use words like “relaxed”, “floating”, “spacious”, “lyrical”, “light”. My friend, the poet and jazz writer Mark Weber, calls him “the master of time and space”. I couldn’t agree more.

He never seemed to be in a hurry whenever he played, no matter how fast the tempo. It was like we always waiting patiently for the muse to speak to him, to guide him forth.

So it should come as no surprise that all this was reflected in his physical gesture as he played. Click on this link to watch this performance from 1950:

Lester Young Quintet 1950

 

Lester is the picture of calm and dynamic stillness. His head is balanced on top of his spine, his shoulders, arms and back are wide and relaxed. He is sitting in easy, upright balance. Even his fingers seem to move ever so softly and lightly. He’s tapping his feet in  time, but doing it with no strain. Sort of like dancing with the music.

And of course his solo is lovely. Even though this is from the period in his playing career that jazz critics consider to be outside of his “best years” as a performer, he is still swinging magnificently. Still floating with the time. Still moving lightly. Still waiting for it, instead of pushing it.

I can’t help but make the connection between his aesthetic approach and his bodily gesture.

This was the first video footage of Lester Young I’d ever seen. As he plays, he looks much like I’d imagined he would. No strain.  No pulling himself out of balance. No jerky “expressive” gestures. Nothing unnecessary. He never wasted a single note when he improvised. He doesn’t seem to waste an ounce of energy as he plays. No big surprise that his time feel is always so wonderful.

Have you ever seen a performance where you get distracted (or even annoyed) by all the tense and unnecessary flailing that the performers bring to the music? So have I. It makes me wonder: Are they doing all this because they are freely expressing themselves as they play, or are they actually imprisoning themselves by their own habits of tension?

I know in my own experience that the more I “wait for it” the way Lester Young seems to, the more expansive and even surprising (to me, anyhow!) my creative expression becomes. My sense of time and rhythm deepens. My melodic instincts come to life. Stillness in gesture. Openness to the muse. No matter the tempo, dynamics, or complexity.

Much of this “waiting for it” is expressed in my own bodily gesture. I allow myself to stay free and balanced, calmly alert. I avoid tensing my neck and shoulder. I don’t push my pelvis forward. I don’t lock my knees. I don’t gasp in air loudly. Everything stays easy.

So notice yourself as you play. Do you have a completely different set of gestures as you perform compared to when you practice? Do you strain and flail as you pull yourself out of easy balance? Do you feel like you can’t find intensity without first creating tension in yourself?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, I invite you to see what it’s like when you leave yourself alone as you play. Much like Lester Young, you might find that intensity and excitement can be created and maintained with so little effort.

 

 

 

Improve The Quality Of Your Playing By Asking Yourself This Question

4 Replies

Musicians come to see me for Alexander Technique lessons for at least one the following two reasons: They are experiencing pain and excess tension and strain as they play. They simply aren’t improving in their playing , no matter how much they practice. (Many musicians come to me because of both of these issues.)

As they find, both of these issues are closely related and are caused by the same thing: unnecessary muscular tension. Misdirected effort, as it were. All of this misdirected effort is a result of habit and is interfering with their ability to play easily and confidently. Part of my job is to help them become aware of these habits, many of which are below their consciousness.

We can approach this problem from many angles: Where are you tightening and holding on? Where are you closing the space off in your body as you play? Where are you compressing yourself as you play? And so on.

But the one question that seems to get them onto the path of observation and prevention (of their harmful habits) is this: What are you adding on to the act of playing your instrument that is not necessary?

Such a simple question. What are you adding on?

You see, it’s mostly this adding on that is creating the problems. It’s not a matter of what you need to do to improve your playing. It’s a matter of what you need to stop doing. What you need to subtract.

Learning what to subtract begins with understanding balance and poise. How do you sit upright with the least amount of effort? How do you stand with lightness and ease? What do you do to stay in balance as your bring your hands (with or without your instrument) in front of your body. What do you do to take a breath? How do you prepare to play that first note? Etc.

My first aim is to get my students to better understand how to leave themselves alone so that they can sit, stand and move in easy upright balance. To get them to realize how easy, light and expansive their movement and posture can be. Then we use this as a standard to observe and evaluate what they do as they go to play.

Sometimes they find that they disturb this natural balance the moment they even think about playing, already stiffening up in anticipation. Or the moment they bring their hands to the instrument. Or the moment they begin to blow, pluck, hammer or bow.

And this is all good news, because they can then use their new found awareness to prevent these habits. And that’s when things just get better and better.

So ask yourself what you are adding on as you play that is not necessary. If you sit when you play, notice your balance and ease. Let your head balance on top of your spine, and let that balanced head be poised directly above your sitting bones. Don’t collapse. Don’t try to sit up straight. Just let yourself sit in easy, upright balance, the way a small child would.

If you stand when you play, let your head balance on top of your spine as you let the weight of your body travel through your legs into your feet (think ankle and heels). Let your shoulders soften and widen apart. Let your knees be soft (no locked knees).  See how lightly you can stand. How little effort can you create to keep nicely upright. Naturally. Again, just like a small child.

Then take your instrument and see how your balance changes. Are these changes a necessary result of of holding your instrument in a natural manner? Or are they simply pre-anticipatory tension? Here are some things to check:

  • Am I pulling my head down into my neck? If you find yourself making rather noticeable changes in your neck tension as you go to play, and/or otherwise significantly altering the relationship of your head to your neck, ask yourself: Is this necessary?
  • Am I stiffening my shoulder? Again, ask yourself.
  • Am I breathing in a strained, noisy manner? Even if you play (especially if you play) a wind instrument, this is never necessary. It’s just more habitual, misdirected effort.
  • Am I bracing in my pelvis and legs? Not at all necessary to play your instrument.
  • Am I pulling myself out of balance as I play? Check some of the above questions to answer this question. Where is your head in relation to your neck? Where is the weight of your body going? (If it’s going primarily into the balls of your feet, you’re bringing yourself out of balance.) How much is your lower back working to maintain this posture? Where is the strain?
  • What am I doing with my hands and arms? Stiffening fingers, tightly flexed or extended wrists, arms pulled tightly against the ribs. These are but a few of the things that are never necessary to play your instrument.
  • Am I tightening up my face? This is more anticipatory tension that is not only unnecessary, but also, clearly interferes with the balance of the head on the spine. Interfere with that and you’ve opened up a Pandora’s box of other tension issues.

You can ask even more questions if you like. But always remember the most important: What am I adding on that is not necessary. Stop these unnecessary habits and (as F.M. Alexander would say) “you’re half way home”. In my own daily practice sessions this is always the question I’m asking myself. Answering it brings me consistent improvement. Give it a try!

Want To Really Hear Your Sound? Include Your Other Senses

Leave a reply

It’s an oversimplification to say that we hear with our ears. Sure, the ears are a big part of it. They receive the incoming vibrations from the world and send them to the brain for processing. But it’s really the brain that hears. It’s the brain that interprets those vibrations as sound.

Timbre, pitch, dynamics, color, stridency, beauty, depth…these are all things manufactured in our brains. When we say that we are improving our ears as musicians, what we’re really doing is improving our brain’s ability to discern and judge sound. It’s a matter of broadening our perception.

Often when I teach the Alexander Technique to musicians, there is a magical moment when my students really hear their sound in a profound way. It’s almost as if they are hearing their authentic musical voice for the first time. It’s a powerful experience.

But it might surprise you to know what they are doing differently to hear their sound this way. I’ll give you a hint: they aren’t trying to listen more carefully. In fact, they usually have stopped trying to hear their sound at all. Let me illustrate with a recent experience I had teaching a small group of instrumentalists at California Institute of the Arts.

These student were part of a two-week intensive program in the Alexander Technique offered at CalArts, wonderfully organized and directed by my dear friend and colleague, Babette Markus.

After spending the first few days working with these musicians on their general coordination (sitting, standing, bending, reaching, walking, breathing), it was time to begin to apply the Alexander principles of awareness, inhibition and direction to the act of playing music.

One of the students in my working group, a young guitarist, had a particularly tense habitual use of himself, whether sitting, standing, walking, or playing music. Though we had addressed many of these habits of his “non-musical” activities with some success, we seemed to be back at square one when it came to making music.

When he played guitar, you could see him carrying out the same postural and movement habits that he was bringing to all his other activities: jutting his head forward as he stiffened his neck, pulling his shoulders forward and downward, thrusting his pelvis forward while locking his knees, ankles and toes (and holding his breath from time to time).

But one of the things that stood out most to me was how intense and inward looking his eyes were as he stared at his left hand as it moved up and down the neck of his guitar. It was clear to me that his attention was divided, and not well integrated.

I asked him what he was thinking as he played. He told me that he was concentrating on his left hand, mostly. When I asked why, he said that there really wasn’t a good reason. It was mostly for giving him a sense of security about his sound, allowing him to see his fingers land in the middle of the frets.

I then asked him about what else he noticed as he played. Did he notice what was going on in his body? Did he notice how he was balancing himself in relation to his instrument? Did he notice the size, shape and sound of the room that he was playing in? Did he notice his breathing?

He answered “no” to those questions. So I began to work with him as he played, helping him to notice some of these other things.

I asked him to shift his attention (and primary intention) from playing music to noticing himself, as I used my hands and verbal directions to help him. He was a quick study, and it wasn’t difficult for him to let go of many of his habitual tension responses. The moment he brought too much of his attention to the guitar, I would gently guide him back into noticing himself instead.

Then I got him to think more outward, more spatially. I had him play notes slowly as he listened, not to his guitar, but to the sound of the room as he played these notes. I also had him use his eyes differently, again, more outward. I instructed him let his eyes soften to take a visual tour of the room as he played.

Within minutes he had changed rather dramatically. He went from a very inward, downward and rigid direction to a soft, expansive and outwardly expansive direction. He looked completely different, changing from looking “focused” to looking easily aware of himself, his instrument and his environment.

But the most remarkable change was something we both perceived: his sound. The clarity and gentle precision of his attack in his right hand, and his easily responsive and supple left hand worked together to form a gorgeous sound.

Then he said the thing I often hear my students say when this happens: “It’s so easy to hear my sound.” So easy to hear. Easy. That’s always the adjective my students use to describe this phenomenon.

In this particular case it became easy because my student integrated his sense of hearing into the most important of all his senses: his kinesthetic sense. Specifically, his sense of his body physically, and the space around it. His awareness of himself in relation to the world.

Before, he was dividing his attention, focusing on his left hand at the expense of excluding the rest of himself and his environment. Now he was integrating and expanding his attention. He went from trying to hear his sound, to actually hearing it.

When you organize yourself this way, it becomes easier to see, easier to hear, easier to play music, easier to notice…easier to be.

So start observing your habits of attention as you play. Where do you place most of your attention? Where is your body in this equation? Where is your external environment? Is your attention balanced and expansive, or overly focused and narrow?

Start by noticing how free and easy you can be in your body as you play, and take that possibility outward toward your environment. You might be surprised by what you hear.

Advice For Improvisers: Stop Approximating

2 Replies

One of the ways I seem to be able to help myself as a musician  (as well as my students!) is to take time to clarify  the details involved in playing music. Sometimes a problem remains unsolved simply because the musician in question hasn’t addressed one small element sufficiently.

Though of course this is an issue that can hold back musicians in any genre, I’m thinking here specifically about how this affects the improvising musician.

In the last couple of years I find myself going back to deeply examine and practice what might seem to be very basic musical material.

For example, I’m getting an even deeper intimacy with my diatonic scales, practicing all kinds of different melodic patterns and their variations. No passing tones, no chromatic outlining, just simple diatonic music in major and minor.

It’s been wonderful for me to discover how much music can be made from just using these materials.

In turn, when I improvise on any type of music, whether harmonically based (chord changes), thematic, modal or even completely open-ended and free music, I have found a wealth of beauty and surprise.

Just to be clear, I did spend a good amount of time in the past “mastering” my scales and arpeggios (the diatonic material), but I never went as deep as I could have.

And as the years progressed I worked less on these diatonic materials and more upon chromaticism, symmetrical tonalities, intervalic based (non-diatonic) melodies, and so forth.

And that was great! It opened up my thinking and playing to help me find my voice as an improviser (After all, these, too, are essential musical materials).

But as time passed I began to experience some dissatisfaction in my improvising.

Through reflection and careful observation, I came to realize that my melodic language was lacking in a certain kind of possibility of colors and melodic shape. For me to address this, I realized I had to go deep into the diatonic language again.

As I began to explore this, I realized that I didn’t have the conception/ear/execution mastery of this material that I really needed. So I started to listen to (and study) great diatonic melodies (lots of Bach, lots of beautiful folk melodies from around the world!)  and worked on getting some of this material inside of me.

I would find a particular melodic passage that really moved me, then put that passage into all twelve keys. I would also make variations on these melodic ideas, and spend a good amount of time improvising slowly in order to crystalize these new ideas.

I also took time to work on singing and playing ideas that I imagined myself, in order to connect my muse to my instrument. I’m still working on this diatonic material nowadays, but with more complexity (e.g., rhythmic displacement and variation, complex meter, etc.)

The long and short of it is that I’ve gained a certain kind of precision and clarity with this material that I just didn’t have before.

In essence, I stopped approximating. Because of this my entire improvisational language has been significantly expanded and enriched.

So, this post isn’t really about the value of doing all this diatonic work. It’s about going deeply into the musical material to gain control over your medium. For me that meant revisiting and deepening my control over diatonic material. I had to stop approximating.

Where do you approximate when you improvise?

Is your control of time strong and clear? How about your articulation?

Is your sound meaningful and beautiful on each note that you play?

Is your rhythmic imagination rich, or is it still mostly the language of endless eight notes?

Is your phrasing free and spontaneous, or are you stuck in two-bar symmetry as you improvise?

Do you take full advantage of the range and color palette of your instrument? How broad is your harmonic knowledge?

To go deeper into the music, you must gain precision. This means really being able to control the materials of music. Ask yourself where you are approximating when you improvise, then make a practice plan to bring you into the rich and beautiful world of precision and clarity.

I actually borrowed this “stop approximating” slogan from the great pianist, Bill Evans. Mr. Evans had a remarkable tone, clarity and conception in his playing that always sounded immediate, spontaneous, beautiful, thoughtful and passionate. This was reflected in his approach to practice.

Here’s the video below of him elaborating on this topic. Enjoy:

Maintaining The Conditions In Yourself To Play Your Best

5 Replies

Do you ever wonder why things that you practice sometimes get worse, rather than better, as you practice them? The answer is simple: You gradually worsen the conditions in yourself to play your best.

Simply stated, when you’re playing your best it is largely because you’ve been able to maintain the best conditions in yourself to play your instrument.

One of my Alexander Technique students, himself a highly accomplished saxophonist, related to me a story about working with the metronome to increase his velocity on a particular piece he was practicing:

“I was gradually increasing the tempo each time I played through the piece in my practice session. Each time with great results. I was playing freely, easily and accurately. I had worked it up to quarter note = 140. But then, feeling like I wanted to test the waters, I jumped up to quarter note = 160 (the target tempo) and it all fell apart. Not only was I making lots of errors, but also, I was playing with great effort, my breath was no longer moving freely and I felt like I could no longer really hear my sound.”

But here’s where it gets interesting. He continues: “But then when I returned to quarter note = 140, I played just as badly: tense, rushed, unclear tone, lots of mistakes and so forth. It’s as if I had wasted all that practice. Why couldn’t I play at 140, when just moments earlier I could?”

I answered him, “Because you had drastically changed all the conditions necessary in yourself for playing well that you had gradually been working toward. You did this by jumping far ahead of yourself and falling back into your old habits of tension. Then you took those habits and the frustration that comes with them back into your playing at the slower tempo.”

By “jumping ahead” the way he did with the tempo he indulged in something we in the Alexander world call “end-gaining”. (Specifically, placing 100% of your attention and effort on trying for a specific result, as opposed to paying attention to how best to obtain that result.) Because of this he had a difficult time returning to the ideal conditions he had created in himself earlier.

You see, my student started out paying attention to process (in the Alexander Technique we call this paying attention to the “means-whereby”) as he gradually increased his tempo challenges with the piece. Each time he played he was able to use his thinking, to use his conscious attention, to maintain the conditions in himself to play his best at any tempo.

This is what the “means-whereby” is all about. It’s about using your thinking to maintain the best conditions in yourself. The conditions that give you the greatest chance at achieving your desired end.

So what are the “best conditions”? Here are a few of the most essential, from an Alexander point of view:

  • Your neck is free-This means that you’re not compressing your head down and back into your spine, nor jutting your head forward. Your simply leaving your neck alone so that it can release your head upward off  the top of a lengthening spine. This also means that your jaw is not tense, you are not tightening your face unnecessarily, and that your tongue is free to move.
  • Your shoulders (and arms) are free-Your shoulders can release and widen in gentle opposition to your spine lengthening. This will create the best conditions in your arms, and in your hands as well.
  • Your back is free and integrated-You are neither arching your lower back (tilting your pelvis forward) nor collapsing and rounding your back. Just let your back stay in neutral as you let your head balance on top of your spine.
  • Your knees aren’t locked-No hyper-extended knees (locking your knees backwards). This is something that also interferes with the good integration of your back.
  • You are breathing easily and naturally-No noisy and effortful inhalation. Your torso is free to expand in all dimensions to allow your breath to work its best.
  • You are not in a hurry– This is perhaps somewhat less tangible, but crucially important. As soon as you get into the “in a hurry mode” you are taking yourself out of the present moment and are dividing your attention, cutting yourself and your good use out of the picture.

When you maintain these conditions, you just plain play better. When these conditions are not present, you not only run the risk of not playing at your immediate potential, but also, of steering yourself toward fatigue and injury.

So what can you do to help find and maintain the best conditions for yourself as you play your instrument?

  • Start with your thinking-Every bit of muscular effort you make (whether necessary or not) is conditioned by your thinking. It’s not about your body. It’s about how your thinking is inextricably linked to your body. Always keep this in mind and you’ll avoid the frustration of “my hands just aren’t working today”.
  • Learn about your body-Try to gain an accurate understanding of your joints, how your body functions best with respect to playing your instrument.
  • Keep the importance of a free and easy use of yourself absolutely primary-It’s not about playing faster, higher, louder, etc. It’s about staying easy in yourself and developing the kind of playing habits that make playing more challenging material easier.
  • Be patient-Don’t always try to reproduce what you did on another day. If you could play this piece at quarter note = 160 yesterday, don’t expect to go that fast today when you practice. Expect nothing. Instead, cultivate a “wait and see” attitude. If you always stay with maintaining your good use (the good conditions) your ability to play at more challenging tempos will come as a result. Let there be fluctuations. Accept the present situation.
  • Seek help-Because of your habits it can be difficult to get a true sense of what it’s like to create these ideal conditions in yourself. A skilled Alexander Technique teacher can work wonders here in helping you with all the above.

By learning to shift the emphasis from what you do to how you do it, you insure yourself a chance for consistent improvement.