Category Archives: Practicing Improvisation

Think More And Play Less To Optimize Your Practice Time

I’ve been reflecting lately on how the structure and quality of my saxophone practice has evolved over the years since discovering the Alexander Technique. I think every serious musician can look back and notice the change in process and approach to their practice routine. Much of this evolution takes place because of edification (refining or eliminating ineffective efforts) , some of it because of change in perceived need (taking on new musical challenges, styles, interests, etc.)

Though the particulars of my practice continue to change to serve my ever emerging aesthetic impulses, the biggest change in my practice has been in approach. In any given amount of practice time, I’m simply playing less than I used to. Way less.

So what am I doing (if not playing) when I practice? I’m taking time to really think about what I’m doing.

This manifests itself in the following ways:

I stop much more frequently than I used to. This is key to all my improvement. I do this to give myself a chance to process what I’m doing, and to make sure that I am doing what I think I’m doing. By always allowing myself to stop at any point in my practice (mid-note, mid-phrase, mid-exercise, or?) I keep myself in a constant state of receptive fluidity and flexibility. It gives me a sense that I am always in control of what I’m doing. That I’m acting out of choice, and not simply habit.

I listen carefully to what I’m hearing in relation to what I’m thinking. It’s easy to get stuck into either hearing yourself at the expense of not noticing what’s going on in your body, or paying too much attention to what’s going on in (usually) one part of your body at the expense of not really hearing yourself. The idea is to integrate what you hear with what you sense in your body as a whole, integrated process. For me this means to always “observe my thinking” as I listen to the music I’m making. What am I thinking when I play well? When I’m not playing so well? Am I doing what I think I’m doing?

I rehearse things mentally before I play them. There are huge gains to be made by just taking a moment to mentally rehearse something before playing it. It gives me a chance to experience the thought process necessary to best produce the music. I can pre-bulid the neuromuscular pattern without any habits of tension that I might bring into the actual execution of the music. This becomes a natural process in thinking that I bring into all my performance and practice.

I rest much more. In a one-hour time period, I will probably take 3 or 4 mini-breaks (1 to 4 minutes) completely away from my instrument. I seem to do this every 10 to 15 minutes. If I’m practicing multiple hours in a row, I’ll also take a 5 to 10 minute break every hour to lie down in constructive rest. Besides helping my avoid injury and strain, it keeps me feeling receptive and present (fresh!) for the entire practice period. I’m able to really absorb things much more effectively this way.

Some of the smaller details of my approach show up as things like: really listening to the metronome to internalize the tempo before I start playing; pausing between key changes when I’m working out a particular scale or arpeggio pattern; taking time to imagine my pitch before I play my long tones or overtones; stopping completely between one exercise and the next to check in with myself and redirect my efforts and intentions.

Less playing, more thinking. Time well spent.

When a musician comes to me for Alexander lessons, I always want to observe his or her practice process. So during one lesson I’ll ask them to just practice they way they normally would for about 15 or 20 minutes as I observe without interrupting them.

What I usually see is nonstop playing, divided thinking, and escalating effort. If it’s a string player there usually isn’t even a pause. If it’s a wind instrumentalist there is usually lots of gasping going on as they jump right back into the fray over and over again, each time with ever increasing tension. (Keep in mind that many of these students have come to me because of chronic pain from playing their instruments.)

So one of the first things I get them to do is to learn how to stop (not always an easy thing for some). Once they’ve learned how to stop, they can learn when to stop. And this starts the process of positive, lasting change. Not just in the area of pain and tension management, but aesthetically as well. They learn to really hear themselves deeply as they play, and connect what they hear with their entire selves, body, mind and spirit. They replace habit with choice.

So how do you practice? How much do you pause to think, to really listen, to really understand what you are doing with yourself as you play your instrument? Do you feel exhausted, or exhilarated after a typical practice session? How much silence is there during a one-hour practice period?

I know that it might seem counterintuitive to stop so much during your practice, but that’s the beauty of it. It takes you out of the real time demands of performance to give a chance to think, to notice, to assess, to, well…practice.

Research has shown that to learn something, it is not simply a matter of how many times the thing is repeated so much as the quality of attention used to practice the thing. Perhaps this is why many of the great virtuosi practice less than many of us might think.

I remember reading about the great trumpet virtuoso, Rafael Mendez. In an interview, towards the end of his still brilliant playing career, the interviewer asked, “Do you still practice 5 to 6 hour a day?” He answered, “No, I only practice half that amount these days, but I really listen to myself.” Playing less, thinking more.

Want To Improve Your Jazz Playing? Take A Style Vacation

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The language of music. The language of improvisation. The language of Jazz. The language of Bach. The language of Lester Young….What does it mean exactly when we refer to something in music as a language? It certainly means different things to different people.

To some it implies something immediately distinguishable, yet flexible and changing. To others it might mean an exact codification of patterns, harmonic ideas and melodies…”licks”, as it were. I think we use the language metaphor because in music, as in speech, we are hoping to express ourselves, and be understood by others in a clear manner.

It seems natural for anybody studying a particular genre or style of music to spend an extraordinary amount of time studying, listening to, transcribing and analyzing music particular to that genre or style. And for sure, this is a reasonable place to start in order to absorb the so-called “language” and “logic” of the music.

But one of the wonderful things about the modern, living, continuing-to-unfold jazz tradition, is that there is so much room to absorb new languages. Jazz has a rich tradition of this.

Think back to the many different stylistic elements jazz has absorbed: gospel music, field hollers, rural blues, broadway show tunes, modern classical composition, Latin music (everything from Afro-Carribean to South American and beyond), Rock and Roll, Gypsy music (and other ethnic folk musics), just to name a few.

Something that the vast majority of modern jazz innovators have in common was (is) their deep and active interest in music outside of the jazz idiom. Artists such as Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Lennie Tristano and Ornette Coleman listened to and studied a vast array of music outside of anything that could be called jazz: from Bach, to Bartok, to West African folk music, to Chinese opera, to Indian classical music, to…

And all of this study and listening added to the uniqueness and expansiveness of their artistic output. It is partly why we find them so unique, so compelling.

So If you have a fairly good handle on the basic elements of jazz improvisation, such as rhythmic control, playing comfortably over chord changes, knowing some standard repertoire, etc., here’s something to consider to make your improvisational language richer, more distinctive and personal: Take a style vacation.

Take a few weeks or even months getting away from actively listening to jazz. Completely. Find some another type of music that lights you up, and spend some serious time with it.

It doesn’t matter what that music is, as long as it is something that really speaks to your heart and mind.

But don’t just listen to the music, study it. Transcribe pieces and solos, and analyze them. Improvise from these pieces as well. Find musical ideas you like and put them in all 12 keys. Absorb the language of articulation, time, Harmony (where applicable) and feel of the music you’re studying. In essence, do what you did (or are continuing to do) with your jazz studies.

I also suggest taking a vacation from practicing jazz. Instead, practice learning to improvise in your newly chosen idiom. Don’t worry, your jazz playing won’t get worse. In fact, it will get ultimately much better. Here’s why:

You are still engaging your brain in the process of improvisation. The “imagination-to-ear-to-sound” skills are still being called upon in a big way.
You are developing a different way of thinking about note organization. Again, this is a brain skill that you will bring into your jazz playing with (what I predict) surprisingly good results.
You are learning to hear music in a different way. If you transcribe, as I’ve suggested, your ears will get huge.
You are expanding your conception of rhythm and articulation. Though at first it may seem foreign to your jazz playing, it will ultimately enrich and expand it. You will absorb this new time/articulation feel into your jazz playing, and make it a part of your personal language.
You are learning new forms to improvise over. Whether you are working with closed-ended bar forms, open-ended forms, such as modes, or just free, thematic improvisation, you’ll really broaden your jazz concept by becoming fluent improvising in your new idiom.
You are learning to imagine your jazz improvisational language in a broader context. Remember that you’ll be bringing your improvisational skills as a jazz musician into a new idiom. This in itself will help you to think differently about how you play.

I have spent various periods in my practice career taking these kinds of diversions, these “style vacations”. Amongst them studying: Balkan folk music, the music of Charles Ives, Cajun folk music, the music of Bela Bartok, Astor Piazzolla and Hank Williams.

I’ve looked at these different kinds of music deeply, with real passion and curiosity. I’ve never consciously tried to apply a single idea or element I’ve absorbed from studying this music, but I always notice how richly different my jazz playing becomes when I return to my jazz studies.

So give yourself a break from your continuous pursuit of the jazz language and style. See what emerges. You might be very pleasantly surprised.

Practicing Music: Paying Attention To “How” Instead Of “What”

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“The experience you want is in the process of getting it. If you have something, give it up. Getting it, not having it, is what you want.”

-F.M. Alexander

On of the great temptations when I practice my saxophone is to try to “memorize” how it feels in my body when I’m playing well. Fortunately for me, I rarely ever yield to this temptation (anymore). If I did, I might find myself losing touch with the most important element of my progress: the thinking process I use when I play my best.

It’s easy to disconnect our consciousness from our activities by aiming directly for a feeling of the result we’re after. In the language of the A lexander Technique, this is working along the lines of the “end-gaining” principle. When we end-gain, we bring all our attention and effort directly to achieving a desired result, without sufficient consideration to the process of how we can best achieve that result.

When I do this practicing the saxophone (or engaging in just about any activity) the results are usually less than optimal. This is because I’m being guided by an unreliable source: my habit.

For better or for worse, we are typically guided by habit, and our habits have a certain feeling of “rightness” to us even if they aren’t helping us. (F.M. Alexander described this as an unreliable sensory awareness.) Much of my progress in playing the saxophone since I started applying the Alexander principles has involved learning to not be guided by the feeling of my habits to achieve the results I’m after. Instead, I aspire to be guided by my reasoning, by what I can honestly discern.

Alexander said that rather than going after our desired results directly (guided by the less than reliable sensations of our habits) we would be better served by paying attention to the quality of the process we use to achieve those results. He described this as paying attention to the “means-whereby”. In essence, it is a matter of being more “process oriented” than “results oriented”.

And so I’ve found over and over, both as teacher and as performer, that giving the quality of process top priority is the best way to insure desired results. Consistently.

This is not a new idea. If you’ve ever read the Tao Te Ching, studied Zen, or experienced many of the other forms of eastern mindfulness disciplines, you’ll regularly encounter this idea. It seems to be universally true.

Before I discovered this principle, I practiced in quite a different manner than I do nowadays. I really got no sense of satisfaction from my practice session unless I felt certain certain things as I practiced. “Does it feel right?” was becoming more and more of an indicator of success or failure in my practice attempts.

As a result, not only was I not allowing myself to change and grow as much as I could, but also, I was feeling frustrated by the inconsistencies of my efforts. Not to mention that a lot of what I was hoping to feel was actually nothing more than unnecessary, habitual muscular tension. It wasn’t helping me at all!

These day when I practice, I’m giving my thinking process top priority. This often manifests itself into deeply mindful work, as I pay attention to the quality of how I’m using myself as I practice.

This primarily involves two things that were missing from my pre-Alexander practice sessions:

Letting myself stop frequently to prevent habitual tension patterns, and to understand specifically what went wrong (what I’d like to prevent).
Allowing myself to slow things way down to connect my thinking to the activity (particularly when working on technically challenging material).

As I do this, I’m always coming back to discerning the quality of my own use as I play saxophone. Where am I stiffening unnecessarily? How is my balance? Am I mostly contracting or expanding, tightening or releasing? How is my breathing? Am I rushing ahead in my thinking, or staying with myself (and the music!) in the present moment? Am I tense and anticipatory, or am I flexible and yielding?

I’m not using these thoughts to distract me in my practicing process. I’m simply using them as the criteria for discerning if what I’m doing is really what I want to be doing.

When I approach my practice in this manner, I’m staying with (quoting Alexander, above) the “getting it” rather than the “having it”.

You may have heard the saying, “To play faster, you have to practice slower.” Part of the reason this works for so many technically brilliant performers (I’m thinking here of the great clarinetist, Eddie Daniels, as he describes his approach to gaining technical fluency and velocity), is that it gives them a chance to really process what they’re doing.

Add to this paying attention to the quality of how you are using yourself, and you have a surefire recipe for continued, consistent progress.

So next time you’re having a really good day practicing, when everything seems to be going well, take time to notice some things. Notice the quality of muscular tension in your body, specifically through your head, neck, shoulders and back. See if you can understand what your not doing that you normally would do (where are you not working so hard, not tensing so much). Then observe your own thinking process. See if you can connect this kind of thinking to the ease that you have in your body as you play your instrument.

Remember, it’s your thinking process that determines the quality of your playing more than anything else. By shifting your attention from what you are doing, to how you are doing it, is a big step in the right direction to cultivate the kind of thinking that helps you the most.

The Sad Irony Of Imitation

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Throughout the history of jazz there have been various artists that have greatly influenced the direction of the music. We can feel the still-unfolding impact of these masters on the jazz aesthetic even though many of them are no longer with us.

What do jazz artists as diverse as Bill Evans, Lester Young, Michael Brecker, Louis Armstrong, Elvin Jones, Clifford Brown, and John Coltrane all have in common? They all have a sound and conception about improvising, about playing their instruments, that (at one point in history, at least) has been highly imitated.

Of course there are many others, from Charlie Parker, Scott LaFaro, Freddie Hubbard, all the way up to Mark Turner (widely imitated by young, up and coming tenor saxophonists these days). It’s not unusual for people to want to imitate those artists that inspire them. As the cliche goes, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

We often feel compelled to try to create the same magic our heros have created. But there is something sadly ironic when we do this through imitation. You see, there is also another thing that all these above mentioned great musicians have in common: the sound of surprise. In a word, spontaneity.

The more we try to imitate them, the farther we get from the magic that drew us to them in the first place.

The compelling expressive abilities that all these iconic musicians have do not simply lie in how great their sound is, nor how beautifully melodic they negotiate the chord changes of a standard song. These are things that could be reduced to a “style”, something that could be reproduced by somebody else. The thing that really draws us to these great artists is how stunningly personal, clear, immediate and alive their self expression is.

What we’re really witnessing when we listen to the great recordings of these masters is self-discovery. We’re witnessing the artist discovering the unfolding of their ideas and passions. It’s not only surprising and thrilling to us as listeners, but to the artists as well: the excitement of possibilities yet unexplored, the uncertainty of the process, the sound of spontaneity. That’s the magic.

This spontaneity stays fluid, yielding and expanding for their entire creative lives. It’s what makes them (what we deem) geniuses.

These artists rarely, if ever, aim for what might be called a “style.” They simply stay present with the possibility of exploring and manipulating the variables of their medium to express themselves. The moment they aim for a style, their spontaneity would be largely compromised, and they would lose the magic that reaches so deeply into us.

Yet this is precisely what happens with far too many aspiring jazz artists. It’s often not difficult at all to tell who’s been listening too much to whom when you go to many jazz performances.

I’ve been playing music enough years to see these trends of imitation as they change from one artist to the next. When I first started playing the tenor saxophone (in the mid 1970’s) it was nearly impossible to hear any aspiring tenor saxophonist under the age of 30 who wasn’t trying to play like John Coltrane.

Then it was everybody sounding like Michael Brecker (though still many trying to sound like Cotrane) in the 80’s and 90’s. Now (as I mentioned above) it’s many young tenor players trying to sound like Mark Turner (or other young tenorists who sound similar to him).

And it’s always the same outcome: the magic of John Coltrane, the magic of Michael Brecker, the magic of Mark Turner, all become reduced to a style. Something that can be imitated and codified. Something that hardens instead of staying fluid and dynamic.

Creativity in music, to me, is a series of problems that are to be solved. The artist feels something that is outside of reach because it’s never really been expressed yet. He or she works with the elements, see’s what works and what doesn’t, to bring their feelings, their imagination to life. There is, by design, a considerable amount of struggle here. It is through this struggle that the beauty emerges. Without it, there is never really a personal expression.

The great improvisers in jazz have paid this price to find their beauty, to find their voice. That is what thrills you when you hear them. The specifics of what they do (the things you might call their “style”) are almost incidental to this.

If you imitate them, you completely miss to point. As you steal their solutions, you rob yourself of the opportunity to solve your own aesthetic problems (and find the truth and beauty of your own expressive voice). The very best you can be is a flattering imitation of your heros. In my opinion that doesn’t honor them. It exploits them.

If you really want to honor your heros, perhaps you should do as they did on a much broader level. You should sit down with your problems, with your love and passion, with your visions, with your imagination and find a way to study and practice to find your own voice.

Maybe you should not spend the majority of your listening time scrutinizing your favorite artists. Instead, broaden your listening experience (as many of the great innovators in jazz have also done) to find not what (or whom) to imitate, but what touches you on the deepest level.

Have confidence in your own artistic vision and ideas. Trust yourself as to what is beautiful. Do so without asking why. Let yourself stay open, curious, passionate and disciplined. Let yourself stay spontaneously you at all times. To paraphrase the great Duke Ellington, “I’d rather listen to a musician that’s a number 1 version of himself than a number 2 version of somebody else.”

I would too, no matter how great the musician being imitated is.

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.