Category Archives: Practicing Improvisation

A Common Attitude That Too Often Interferes With Optimal Practice

The quality of your music practice is directly related to the quality of your consciousness when practicing.

Put simply, the way in which you pay attention as you practice significantly impacts the success of your efforts. Perhaps more than you realize. Indeed, practice is not merely a “physical” act, but a “whole person” endeavor.

Whenever I’m coaching musicians who’ve come to me for help because of frustration with their practice effort/strategy, I nearly always hear this simple five-word phrase within the first minute of their description of their problem:

“I should be able to…”

“I should be able to attack the notes in the lower register with the same consistency as the other registers.”

“I should be able to play these scale patterns at a much faster tempo than I am currently able.”

“I should be able to memorize new music much more quickly than I normally do.”

And so on.

And of course, nearly all of the “I should be able to…” assertions are accompanied by something like this:

“…especially for how long I’ve been working at it.”

So why is this a problem? After all, should you not aim precisely for what you want when you practice? Should you not have high standards?

Well of course you should! On both accounts!

So what’s the potential problem then?

In the simplest sense it’s this:

“I should be able to” places you immediately into the realm of expectation, too often taking you away from the reality what’s actually happening in the present moment.

This phenomenon leads to two closely related negative outcomes:

1 Misdirected effort.

2 Frustration.

Misdirected effort, because when you get stuck on “I should be able to do this”, you limit yourself to discerning what’s already there. In essence, you lose your entry point into where and how you need to direct your practice efforts.

For example, let’s say that yesterday you were able to play this particular piece at quarter note equals 176 bpm on the metronome, but today you can’t get anywhere near that tempo without the whole thing falling apart.

What should you do?

Well, more often than not, if you insist upon continuing the tempo at which you can’t play it, you just end up cultivating imprecision. You end up engaging in an activity that is just outside of your reach.

Both skill and conception get “approximated”, as the great pianist, Bill Evans would say. (“Garbage in, garbage out”, as my brother Ed, a highly skilled cabinet maker, would say.)

And of course this obviously leads to frustration, both in the short-run and in the long-run. (“But I’m working so hard to improve!”)

But if you first acknowledge what is already there, taking note of what you can already do (or can’t do), you discover for yourself this ever essential entry point.

And from this entry point you can also begin to examine your current conditions and explore and ultimately discern why you’re perhaps not able to do today what you could do yesterday. You can ask yourself questions:

“How am I perceiving time/rhythm today?”

“How am using my body? Am I free and mobile, or rather rigid and planted? Where am I holding on too much?”

“Where is my attention going? Is it flexible and dynamic, or too narrowly focused on one small part of the process (or on one part of my body, at the expense of neglecting the whole)?”

“How clearly am I conceiving of/imagining the dynamic nature of the music itself?”

And so on…

If you give yourself time and attention to notice, you’ll usually find where things are going amiss. Then you can ask this very constructive question:

“Where would I like to place my attention so that I can increase my odds of a better outcome?”

This question brings both your consciousness and your efforts back into the present moment, and back on track for optimal practice.

And from there you can aim for doing the best you can do in the moment, the best you can do in that practice session. You can bring things back within your reach.

In a broader sense this kind of shift in attitude can also help you to build a more constructive overall practice process and strategy that you can continue to develop for the rest of your life.

F.M. Alexander, the founder of the Alexander Technique described this attitude of “I should be able to” as part of an “end-gaining” process.

When you “end-gain”, you focus only on the desired result, without sufficient consideration to whether your efforts (the quality of process you use to pursue your result) are best suited to actually achieve the result.

Alexander encouraged us to give the “quality of process” (something he described as the “means-whereby”) top priority in pursuing our results.

In fact, when talking about experiencing a desired outcome in any activity, Alexander said:

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.

“Getting it, not having it…” is what I’m after whenever I practice. And that’s why whenever I’m having a “bad” day practicing (more specifically, when I’m playing below my normal abilities), I welcome the experience. Seriously.

“Bad days” are a golden opportunity to learn more about myself, and to learn to trust and rely upon my process.

This leads to both continued growth and confidence as a musician.

So how about replacing “I should be able to”, with:

“I’d like to be able to”,

and,

“I think I can find a way to”

and,

“I believe in my ability to redirect my attention and efforts to be able to.”

So aim high. Every day. But be kind to yourself and find that optimal entry point in everything you practice. In my experience both as teacher and as student, I believe this shift in attitude can empower you to do miraculous things!

New Service: Introducing “Rhythm Coach”

Leave a reply

I’m pleased to announce that I’m now offering an educational service specifically dedicated to addressing and improving issues related to time, rhythm and feel.

I call it Rhythm Coach, and it represents the years of study, exploration and teaching experience I’ve acquired in helping musicians (including myself!) of all ability levels refine their sense of time, as well as cultivate rhythmic skills that significantly improve general musicianship, skill and coordination.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know that I’ve written a good amount of articles about time and rhythm. (I’ve even composed two e-books dedicated specifically toward improving both.) Anything related to time (including meter, pulse, feel, groove, etc.) and how we react to time (our skill/coordination) is a topic of endless fascination for me.

Over the past several years I’ve had a good number of musicians who have sought my help as an Alexander Technique teacher specifically because of problems they were experiencing with loss of skill and coordination (for example, problems associated with tremors, focal dystonia, injuries, health issues, etc; and sometimes just an inexplicable loss of skill).

Skill/coordination and time are so inextricably linked for a musician, that you can’t effectively address one without the other.

All the musicians I’ve encountered that have come my way seeking help with an unresolved skill/coordination problem (“unresolved” here meaning the musician has been working to improve it to no avail) also have come to me with unresolved issues with time and rhythm.

As a saxophonist successfully managing focal dystonia, I myself have had to spend a good amount of time reclaiming my playing skills. I did this, in part, by going deeply into working purposefully and methodically on my perception of time, as well as how my perception of time informs my coordination (my “reaction”). The work I’ve done on myself has yielded nearly miraculous results. (If you’re familiar with focal dystonia, you’ll know what I mean by “miraculous”!)

Besides helping me regain my saxophone playing skills, this practice has also been immensely (and somewhat unexpectedly) beneficial for me as both an improviser and as an ensemble musician. So I’d like to share my skills and experience with you!

In Rhythm Coach, you’ll get one-on-one help in identifying and effectively addressing any challenges specific to you. I’ll help you customize your practice routine by giving you notated exercises, as well as movement and thought explorations for you to measurably improve and gain confidence.

All of my work for Rhythm Coach is informed by continuous study (cognitive science, neuropsychology, etc.) and mindful inquiry, and is a continually growing, highly dynamic body of work.

So, no matter your current ability as a musician, if you’d like to improve your sense of time, groove, feel…or just expand your rhythmic skills in a methodical and comprehensive way (especially as an improvising musician), please consider Rhythm Coach! I’d be honored and thrilled to help you!

New Book: ii-V7-I

Leave a reply

I’m very pleased to announce that my latest e-book, ii-V7-I: 40 Creative Concepts for the Modern Improviser, is now available for purchase and immediate download. I’ve composed this e-book in response to the many musicians who’ve purchased my other e-books, and have requested that I put together a book specifically dedicated to exploring new and unique ways to approach this absolutely essential chord progression!

The ii-V7-I is the most fundamental harmonic-form building block of so many jazz standard songs and compositions. It is also indicative of the “dominant to tonic” (or, “tension to release”) movement energy in virtually any musical form. It serves as a template for a lifetime of study, exploration and practical application for any serious jazz musician.

ii-v7-I: 40 Creative Concepts for the Modern Improviser, is exactly that: 40 complete lessons that demonstrate various unique ways to apply the materials of music to this form, in order to open up new musical possibilities. Each of the 40 concepts is presented with a theoretical explanation/description (which includes suggested ways to modify and explore it in order to find your own “voice” with it), followed by the notated example in all 12 keys for you to practice and absorb.

There are a wealth of harmonic and rhythmic elements presented to both challenge your ears and open up your melodic imagination. Nothing is ordinary here. In fact, virtually any of the 40 concepts could be a subject in of itself for a book! I’ve kept the “high intermediate” to “advanced” jazz improviser in mind as I compiled, selected and edited these etudes. They’ll keep you busy for a long time, continually helping you build and expand upon your own personal improvisational language.

If you’ve enjoyed my other e-books and/or etudes, I think you are going to find this one to be very special!

So take a look at the ii-V7-I landing page on my blog, which has a pdf sample of one of the notated exercises, as well as a pdf copy of the written introduction of the book, which further explains the concept, the format, the benefits and the practice guidelines for implementing the work.

And as always, let me know what you think! Thanks!

Want to Improve Your Sense of Time? Connect Meaning to Movement

Leave a reply

One of my emerging specialities as a musician who teaches the Alexander Technique is helping other musicians improve their sense of time.

In truth, many problems that musicians have with their skill and coordination are fundamentally problems of time perception and rhythmic conception (rhythmic imagination, feel, etc.)

Often musicians don’t recognize this truth so readily, sometimes thinking that their problems with technique and articulation are simply “finger dexterity” issues, or “strength issues”, etc. In short, purely “physical ” issues. (And sometimes they are for sure, but not nearly as much as you might think.)

Part of my job with these musicians is to help them (through direct experience) discover on their own the connection between their technical struggles and their problems with time perception.

But when a musician comes to me knowing full well that they have issues in with time and rhythm, I too often find that their strategies to remedy their problems on their own have one thing in common that is fundamentally interfering with their progress.

In essence, they are thinking about time “accuracy” in an entirely abstract manner.

As I ask them questions, I often find they are also spending lots of hours trying to improve their time perception by practicing exercises that have little or no actual musical meaning.

Some of these exercise aim for what I call “pulse memorization”.

An example of this might be to count out loud in 4/4 with the metronome clicking quarter notes until the tempo seems firmly established in your mind. Then turn the metronome off and clap, count or play the quarter notes for a minute or so, then turn the metronome back on to see how accurate you were in your “memory” of the original pulse.

Another example might be the classic “canceling the click” exercise with the metronome. If you don’t know this one, it’s where you clap with each click of the metronome, attempting to “cancel” (you can’t hear) the click because you’re right in the “center” of the beat.

To be clear, I don’t think either one of these exercises is a bad thing to do, nor a waste of time (no pun intended!)

I simply think that they have limited value.

You see, both of these exercises are lacking in any kind of musical context.

When I coach a musician who is struggling with time, I might have them work on exercises like this in a sort of remedial way in the beginning to help them begin to recognize certain habitual tendencies in perceiving time.

But what I attempt to establish from the beginning with the musicians that I’m coaching, is to let them discover that they already have a strong sense of time. It’s really a matter of teaching them to access it more readily by changing how they think about time.

This is where meaning comes into play.

You see, even the most “time challenged” (or “rhythmically challenged”, if you prefer) person has one thing they do all the time that has rhythmic pulse and regularity: They speak.

Yes, words not only have meaning, but also a rhythmic component that is conditioned by the structure of the language itself, and any kind of accent attached to the spoken langauge. Linguists refer to the this as “prosody”, or the natural “music” within any language. (When the musicians I coach discover this truth, their confidence and skill expand exponentially!)

So rather than having a musician start remedial work on improving time with an “abstract” activity, like cancelling metronome clicks, I might have them notice rhythmic patterns in how they speak, both in individual words, and in phrases/sentences. This creates a “context” for their rhythmic expression.

A simple exercise to discover this would be to speak words of various syllable lengths with the metronome click, noticing how “regular” and rhythmic the words are, how they line up so easily and naturally with the metronome click.

It is virtually impossible to speak in any kind of understandable way without the element of rhythm.

You think it’s difficult to “feel” and conceive of a quintuplet?

As far as your brain is concerned, it actually isn’t.

If you repeat the word the five-syllable word, “fundamentally” over and over, back to back, you’ll find that quintuplets are quite easy.

That’s because this word has a meaning (in this case, the adverb form of the word “fundamental”, meaning “essential”) that is inextricably linked to it’s sonic/rhythmic expression. Sound, rhythm and meaning work together, in an immediately integrated manner.

It’s simply wired into your brain that way. And though it has less meaning out of context here (repeating it over and over) than it would in the context of a sentence, it has more meaning to you than trying to “imagine” the subdivisions of the quintuplet.

You see, whether you’re playing your instrument, or speaking, you’re always doing one fundamental (there’s that word again!) thing: You are connecting meaning to movement.

The meaning is to be found in the intention, and the movement is the manifestation of that intention.

When you speak you move (your vocal mechanisms certainly do, at least). When you play music you move. It’s impossible to have either of these without coordinated movement.

I’ll say it again: Movement is the manifestation of intention.

Even a cursory understanding of how the brain is involved in making music makes it easy to understand why dance is so inextricably connected to music in virtually all cultures. Dance is the psycho-phyisical whole musical impulse and expression. Context provides meaning, which turns into movement.

Another way to turn the abstract idea of “pulse memory” into something meaningful is to always imagine tempo and rhythm within a more specific musical context.

I remember once taking a class to become certified in CPR (cardio-pulmonary resuscitation), where we had to learn to give chest compressions with our hands at the tempo of 100 beats per minute.

The teacher told everybody in the room to sing or “imagine” the disco classic by the Bee Gees called, “Staying Alive”. (All the class participants were easily old enough to know this song.) Sure enough, the whole room is creating chest compressions with considerable rhythmic evenness and unison.

Meaning informs movement.

So if you’re working to improve your time, or are helping other musicians how to do so, bring the abstract into meaning as much as possible. Use your imagination.

You don’t have to use just the metronome for a time source when practicing, you know. Using backing tracks, drum loops…anything the establishes context and broadens meaning.

And instead of focusing exclusively on the “clicks” whenever using the metronome as you practice, imagine how you would like to express each phrase relative to the clicks. Let each phrase come vividly to life in your mind before you start to play. It is the music between the clicks that is the most meaningful, and the most beautiful.

Deep Practice: Living in One Key at a Time

Leave a reply

Photo by Steve Johnson on Pexels.com

Probably because I’ve been an improvising musician for so many years, every time I discover a new melodic idea that I like (and get it well into my ears), I’m compelled to put it into all 12 keys.

To me, I don’t even begin to “know” the new melodic idea until it’s been expressed and explored in all keys. (This is just a starting point of course, but it is a rather essential one.)

And it is indeed a great habit to cultivate in your practice (whether you improvise or not!). Doing so helps with so many basic musical and cognitive skills.

But I discovered some years ago, that I was taking this idea too far, at the expense of limiting my growth in another area.

In particular: going deeply into each key, one key at a time.

I recently watched a video of a wonderful masterclass given by tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm. (I would say that Joel is, arguably, one of the great living masters of jazz improvisation pedagogy, especially where “language” is concerned.)

This superb musician gave lots of valuable advice and information, but one thing he said really stuck with me, because it is something I had finally discovered myself some years back that significantly improved my practice process and routine.

He said, essentially (I’m paraphrasing here), in response to one of the masterclass participants questions:

“Whichever key makes you feel most afraid, most insecure…spend lots of time each day living in that key.”

That thing he said, “living in it”, rings so true to me.

By allowing myself to patiently explore, to be wrong, to struggle, to be confused, to be stuck, to dig deeper and reach further in one single key, I also allow myself to come out the other side of this “darkness” with tangible assets: better ears, better technique, richer melodic imagination and greater possibilities for melodic invention in all the other keys.

Yes, in all the other keys! By going deep into one key, by really living in it, day after day, week after week, you’ll find that your ability to hear/think/imagine/execute ideas in all other keys becomes more acute and readily avilable to you.

Now, if you don’t want to plunge straight away into the key that “makes you feel the most afraid”, you can also try a different approach:

Which key are you most comfortable in? Whichever that key is, test yourself to see how easily you can “think” in it, and if you’re pleased with your abilities in that key, move on to the key that follows it in the circle.

So let’s say for example that C major is your most comfortable key. See if you can do everything in the key of F as easily as you can in the key of C.

If you can’t, you’ve found your staring point. Commit to “living” in F major for a long enough time that you can just as easily think/hear/imagine/execute the things you can in C major.

If you can do everything in F major as easily as you can in C major, move on to the key of Bb and do the same, and so on, until you find the key that makes you pause a bit to work things out. That’s your starting point. Live in that key for a good long time.

After the weeks of practice pass that enable you to have the same mastery in this key, move on to the next key in circle. You’ll find that it’s not very difficult to bring yourself to the same level of mastery as the previous key.

You’ll also find that each key takes just a bit less time than the key before to gain the mastery you had in your starting key.

And bear in mind that, even if you are super comfortable in one key, it doesn’t mean you’ve even come close to “mastering” that key. You could spend months just exploring the key of C major, finding things that challenge your ears and your technique.

(Take a look at the example I put up at the top of this blog post. Can you easily play this pattern by memory, throughout the entire range of your instrument? Can you sing it? If not, maybe you haven’t completely “mastered” the key of C major.)

So what should you be able to do in any particular key to “master” it?

I don’t know, and I also don’t think there’s a definitive answer for this question. It’s entirely up to you.

But here are some basic skills/activities that I do think all improvising musicians should be able to easily carry out in any particular key in order to approach mastery:

Playing the scale from each degree all the way through the entire range of your instrument.
Playing the scale in thirds, both ascending and descending, throughout the entire range of your instrument.
Playing the scale organized into secondary triads (triads formed from each degree of the scale), as well as secondary seventh chords (formed from each degree of the scale), all throughout the entire range of your instrument. Played in all inversions, of course.
Playing chromatic enclosures of each degree of the scale, that is, the upper and lower neighbor tones enclosing each note. (e.g., Db to B natural to C; Eb to Db to D natural; F to Eb to E natural, etc., on each degree of the scale, throughout the entire range of your instrument). I would also say you should be able to play each triad if the scale in “enclosure form”.
Playing simple diatonic melodies by ear: folk songs, children’s songs, classical music themes, jazz “standards” that don’t modulate or use chromatics (If I loved You, by Richard Rodgers comes to mind here).
Playing standards by ear that do modulate and/or have chromatics (e.g., Night and Day, by Cole Porter).
Improvising over ii-V7-I, applying any or all particular tonal alterations (diminished scales, augmented scales, particular substitutions, etc.)
Improvising over altered chord sequences that begin/end in your key (like the Coltrane Matrix).
Improvising freely, purposefully and melodically (in and/or out of time) diatonically (no passing tones).
Improvisng freely, purposefully and melodically (again, in and/or out of time) using chromatics and non-scalar passing tones.
Exploration/mastery of melodic shapes. This is where you could go endlessly, if you like, finding more and more possibilities in interesting and beautiful melodic movement. (The excellent book, Bach Shapes, by Jon DeLucia, demonstrates just how much beauty can be found in one key.)

Sound like a lot?

It is indeed.

But you have lots of time. You have weeks, months, years if need be. No hurry. It’s a journey as much as it is a destination (perhaps more so!) Keep in mind that the work gets easier each day, because you’re revisiting the same key. You’ll build upon this. And most important, you’ll sense tangible, measurable gains in your improvising skills as you stay with this process.

Just go deep into one key. Like Joel Frahm encourages, “live in it”.

And when you make this kind of deep practice part of your daily routine, also make sure you’re still spending some time each day putting things into all 12 keys (again, still an important daily skill for you to cultivate!) You might just find that this, too, becomes easier and easier to do as time goes by. Happy practicing!