Category Archives: Practicing Music

Something That Nobody Can Teach You, But That You Can Learn

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These days there are so many resources available to students of improvisation. Excellent books, instructional videos, smart phone apps, classes, private lessons, solo transcriptions and more, are there for the serious student (and for the not so serious student, too).

Yet there is a fundamental truth about any kind of instruction when it comes to improvising: Nobody can teach you how to improvise. No set of thoughts, or instructions, whether written or given verbally, can teach you this skill.

Why not?

Because improvisation is a creative process. You can’t teach somebody “how” to be creative.

It’s the same whether it be improvising, composing music, writing poetry or designing a new dress. Ultimately, you have to bring order to random elements. You have to be able to bring something forth from nothing. You have to be able to create.

For you to be able to create spontaneously (as an improviser does), you have to be willing and able to imagine, decide, and take action instantaneously. Though it is often deeply impacted by those with whom you’re playing (and by those who are listening to you, i.e.,  your audience), in the end it is all a very solitary and personal phenomenon, with the final responsibility resting squarely on your shoulders. Note to note, prose by phrase, multitudes of decisions made in the moment, both consciously and unconsciously, all shaped by your muse.

So you can’t be taught how to improvise, but you most certainly can learn.

How?

By cultivating your creativity, and acquiring the skills to turn that creativity into a sonic expression on your instrument.

As human beings we all have the capacity to create. Now, for sure, some people are born with a more natural tendency toward this than others. We might describe them as “talented” or “gifted”.

Yet the fundamental ability to imagine is a staple of the human condition, as is the ability to spontaneously create and express meaning . When you’re talking with friends, you’re improvising. Your words and gestures, organized instantly,  are a manifestation of your impulses, thoughts and feelings. They flow together naturally and effortlessly.

Though the specific details are different, the process is similar when you improvise music. (For the improviser, the details can be found in the method of study.)

Tools and Skills

Scales and chords (and all their inversions), song forms, harmonic substitutions, intervallic patterns, rhythms, articulations, etc., are the improviser’s tools. But they, in of themselves, are not improvisational skills. You may possess great control of these “materials” of music, but that doesn’t mean you have the skill to create with them.

To be able to do that, you must practice creating with them. Regularly. This practice involves (and builds upon) three components:

1. Imagination

2. Initiation of movement

3. Response to sound

In essence, you hear/think, or otherwise follow an internal impulse of your imagination, initiate its movement (you play), and then respond to what you just played (along with responding to the interactions of the other musicians playing with you, if that’s the case). That response informs what you play next.  In reality, there is no beginning or end to this sequence. It’s circular, sort of a dance. And ideally, it’s something that happens intuitively, often initiated below the level of verbal consciousness. (Though in the beginning, it can seem like an entirely deliberate, somewhat self-conscious process.)

And to be clear, it is vitally important that you constantly work on developing your tools. This will give you more material to draw upon as you create, and can even spark your creativity.  But ultimately, the creative process with these tools comes from exploration and discovery.

Even transcribing solos of great improvisers can’t teach you how to create. They only show you the end results of a great improviser’s creative process. You can certainly learn lots from this (perhaps most important, how the tools “work” in action). And even though transcriptions can show you many ways creative “problems” are “solved”,  they can’t teach you how to solve your own creative problems.

So How Do You Learn?

You learn by doing. You can start with even the most minimal of tools.

For example, If all you know is a C major scale, you can begin to really play with it, move with it, explore its sounds and relationships, how it folds and unfolds into various intervals, shapes, colors, etc. Make up a song with it, even if it’s with only one note of the scale. Rhythm is the heart of music. Use it to ignite your impulse to create.

And sing. Many aspiring improvisers think they have nothing in their musical imagination. Yet, in my experience teaching novice improvisers, even those who are sure they have nothing in their imagination can sing (or hum or whistle)  an improvisation with a backing track, piano accompaniment, with their favorite jazz recording, or even with just a metronome. The imagination is there (though it will become more sophisticated and complex through practice); it’s just not connected with the instrument yet. Vocal improvisation is a very effective way to spark the aural/rhythmic imagination. Give it a try!

Improvise along with recordings. Never mind that you “don’t know what you’re doing”. Just close your eyes and play, follow your ear, your impulses, your sense of movement, time and rhythm. Give yourself permission to sound “wrong”, smile about it and have fun. Like a child who learns to speak from listening, you’ll gradually form meaning in what you do (especially as you study and acquire some “tools”)

Listen, listen, listen to great improvisers. Let their languages wash over you. Listen to a solo so many times, you can sing it. Then sing variations on it. Play with it.

Be kind and patient with yourself. Just as a child needs patience and encouragement when learning to speak, so do you when learning to improvise. Enjoy in the process, and make the quality of the results secondary (at least in the beginning stages).

Improvising is all about making many, many decisions spontaneously (based on values, desires, conceptions, intuitions), and turning them into sound. There is no formula for that. Nobody can do that for you . But you sure can learn to do it for yourself!

Practicing Music: Understanding The Difference Between Routine And Process

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There is a topic that seems to be finding its way into the books and blogs of several well-respected musicians and music teachers these days. It is about the importance of paying attention to the quality of process as you practice your instrument.

I’m pleased with this trend, and am in complete agreement with it.

In the Alexander Technique, we have a jargon term that we use, called “the means-whereby”. In essence, this is a principle which asserts, that, if you pay attention to the quality of how you do something (the “means”, i.e., your process), you’ll get the best results (to paraphrase F.M. Alexander, “the end will take care of itself”).

My experience, both as Alexander Technique teacher/student, and as a musician, has shown this to be true. Without fail.

Now, mind you, I’m not talking about your practice “routine” here. I’m talking about what you do with yourself as you implement your routine.

Many musicians who come to me for help do so, in part, because they’ve developed a process within their carefully planned practice routine that is counterproductive (if not downright harmful!) As they work with their instrument, they’re so focused on gaining the desired result (sound, technical demand, reading, etc.) that they’ve lost sight of what they’re doing with themselves as they strive to achieve these results. This often leads to a variety of troubles: from inconsistent and unpredictable results, to worsening technique (and coordination),  to chronic pain and injury.

Yet, most of these musicians, after experiencing these negative outcomes, still think they need to find some kind of new, magical routine to solve their problems.

Your routine is a series of prescribed activities (exercises, etudes, etc.) that you carry out (in single or multiple practice sessions) aimed at improving your playing skills: tone production, scales, arpeggios, articulation, ear-training, repertoire, technical etudes, sight-reading, etc.

Your process is how you think as you work on these components of your routine (and how that thinking impacts what you do).

Truth be told, virtually everyone (including you, most likely) has a process that they adhere to as they practice and play music. The question is: Is your process constructive or not?

Counterproductive Thinking Habits

It’s not unusual for me to encounter a student whose carefully calculated, and faithfully executed practice routine (though once a reliable source of improvement) has seemed to become mysteriously ineffective. Whenever this is the case, I ask lots of questions. Not about routine and pedagogy, so much, but about thinking.

What I usually discover is a thinking process, gradually developed over the years, which has been making the routine inefficient (at best) and counterproductive (at worst).

In the simplest sense, it is a type of thinking that has become rigid, narrow, and over-focused on the mechanical details of playing, at the expense of the auditory/expressive component. The bigger picture, as it were.

The student is trying to hit his/her target (the desired result) with an ever-increasing sense of fear, tension, and over-efforting. I can easily see this manifested into bodily gestures as I observe them engage in their routine: stiff necks, narrowed shoulders, fluttering eyes, noisy breathing, etc.

What I’m seeing is their thinking.

When I ask them about what they think of whenever they play a particular exercise, the answer is never vague. They have a very specific “focus” in mind, a very specific intention. (This is part of their process.)

But it is this “focus” that has divided their attention, cutting themselves off from what they sense in their bodies, the feel of the sound inside their instrument,  as well as to what they hear. And this divided attention is what’s rendering their practice routine ineffective.

As I ask more questions, I typically find that there was once a time when their thinking wasn’t so rigid and contractile as they practiced. There was once a time when their thinking was more flexible and responsive, and less anticipatory and anxious.

My job is to help them get their thinking back on track. I start doing this by helping them to become more self-aware, and then to help them soften and expand their attention as they play. In short, I help them to improve their process.

Improve Your Process

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you practice that will help you establish a more constructive process:

  • Notice how you react-What do you do as you prepare to play an exercise? Where do your thoughts go? What happens in your body? Do you contract? Tighten your neck and shoulders? Lock your knees? What happens to your breathing? Where do your eyes go? See if you can play with even a bit less of this unnecessary tension, and you’ll likely be surprised by the results.
  • Give yourself permission to stop-Get comfortable with stopping, whether in the middle of an exercise or the middle of a phrase. In fact, make it a point to stop more than you normally do. Not only can you use the pause to redirect your thinking, but also, by having an active willingness to stop, you’ll keep some of your excess tension in check.
  • Balance the internal and the external-It is easy to become too focused on what something feels like at the expense of what it sounds like and vice versa. There is a dance between what you imagine (your aural impression), what you sense in your body, and what you hear. Let that dance be flexible, dynamic and responsive.
  • Aim toward easy-Don’t make the exercise itself your target. Make playing it with efficiency be your goal. Think of reducing effort wherever and whenever possible. (This ties into my first bullet point, above.)
  • Aim toward flexible-In body and in thought. Rather than narrowing your focus, see if you can gradually expand your consciousness to integrate what you sense, think, and hear.
  • Always play with clear intentions-Never practice anything mindlessly. There is never any benefit in doing so, but can be some harm. If you find your thinking slipping away as you start and exercise, STOP. Reaffirm your aim and intention with whatever you’re working on, then continue when you’re clear and ready.
  • Reassess regularly-Not only your process, but each detail of your routine. Be willing to question, modify, or even throw out completely a particular exercise if it doesn’t seem to be fruitful.

So if you’d like to  take your practicing to a new level, it might not be that you need a new routine. Maybe just an improved process.

Six Quotes About Learning (And Unlearning) That Inform My Teaching And Practice

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Everything that I write on this blog, whether it’s about practicing more efficiently, improvising with greater skill and expression, or about how to avoid injury and strain, is based largely upon the ideas of a person who didn’t even play music.

Yet his ideas continue to serve me well, both in helping me to help my students, and in helping me explore more deeply my own process of growth and development as a musician.

The person I’m referring to is F.M. Alexander, known as the founder of the Alexander Technique.

In solving his own problems with using his voice (he was a stage actor), Alexander discovered several fundamental principles about how thought and movement are inextricably linked (in any and every human activity). And though he wasn’t a musician, his ideas are highly applicable (and highly usefu!) for any musician.

As a certified Alexander Technique teacher, I can say with great certainty that his ideas not only helped me to solve my own serious problems as a musician, but also, continue to influence how I approach teaching and practicing music.

So I thought I’d offer up six fairly well-known quotes  (well-known in the Alexander Technique world, that is) attributed to Alexander that exemplify some of the most essential ideas that I keep in mind as I do my work. Here they are, with a few brief elaborations beneath each one:

1. “You translate everything, whether physical or mental or spiritual, into muscular tension.”

There is an inextricable relationship between what you think and how you move (how your muscles react). The extra strain and effort you put into playing your instrument is a direct result of how you choose and organize your thoughts as you play your instrument. Improve your thinking, and you’ll improve your playing.

2. “Change involves carrying out an activity against the habit of life.“

The most powerful force (for better or worse) in playing your instrument is habit. Most pedagogical problems (especially for advanced musicians) end up calling for the subtraction of counterproductive habits. The only way this can happen is to come to the stimulus (the thought) of doing a particular activity (for example, singing  or playing a high note), and reacting differently. Most of this “reacting differently”, in the Alexander Technique, involves keeping ineffient movement/thought responses in check as you proceed in playing your instrument.

3. “Everybody wants to be right, but no one stops to consider if their idea of right is right.”

One of the biggest stumbling blocks that keep many musicians from  improving, is an almost religious reverence for the advice of a so-called expert, no matter how flawed the logic is in this expert’s advice. Unless you understand the measurable cause and effect relationship involved in any pedagogical principle, you can’t make an accurate assessment as to the  efficacy of the principle. Therefore, it’s a good idea to study and understand both the acoustical science of playing your instrument, AND, your anatomical and physiological makeup (and how these things work together). The better your understanding, the clearer you are about why things work the way they do.

4. “When people are wrong, the thing that is right is bound to be wrong to them.”

Alexander wrote about a faulty sensory appreciation, meaning that, because of habit, the wrong thing (e.g., excess tension, imbalance, etc.) often feels right (i.e., “familiar”) to the person with the habit. In fact, some musicians don’t even feel like they can play their best unless they “feel” all this excess tension and misdirected energy. For this reason it’s not such a good idea to be guided exclusively by what something feels like if you want to improve your playing. To experience change (to experience something new and more efficient) you must be willing to accept that you might  feel wrong (at first, anyhow). 

5. “When you stop doing the wrong thing, the right thing does itself.”

Much of my work as an Alexander Technique teacher is getting my students to stop doing the thing (their habit) that is interfering with their beautiful and efficient playing (the right thing). Rather than adding more “doing”, we’re primarily aiming at undoing (unlearning) these old habits. The results are consistently remarkable.

6. “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.”

It’s not unusual during a lesson that a student has a wonderful new experience  of lightness and ease, and then wants to “hold on” to the experience, almost trying to “memorize” the feeling. This often leads to just another type of stiffness,  rigidity, and counterproductive expectations. I remind my students that rather than chasing the feeling, it’s more helpful to follow the process of thinking that led to the better result  (because ultimately, it was this change in thinking that produced the result). Our work is about examining and cultivating this new thinking. Pay attention to the quality of process, and the end result will take care of itself (as stated in number 5, above).

I hope I’ve given you some things to consider as you strive for improvement. The longer I stay with Alexander’s principles, the more amazed I become at what is possible. Just by changing my thinking.

Deep Mastery: One Project At A Time

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I had the good fortune some years back to study the saxophone with Los Angeles woodwind doubler guru, Bill Green. The older I get, the more I appreciate (and put into practice) the things he taught me.

Bill played all of the instruments in the traditional woodwind family: the saxophones, clarinets, flutes, as well as oboe (English horn, too) and bassoon (including contra!) His ability to move from one to another and play with considerable ease, confidence and skill was his calling card. (He played on countless television and motion picture recording sessions.) Needless to say, he was a highly disciplined musician, who practiced a great deal.

One of the things Bill always had going on was a “project”, as he called it. This was his way of describing the ongoing, dedicated work that he applied toward developing (or improving upon) a very specific skill.

The need for these “micro” skills was constantly revealed to him through his work. He loved to find technical demands that “put him in the wrong”, and find a way to master them.

For example, some of his projects were things like: slurring rapidly between high ‘E’ and high ‘A’ on the flute; double tonguing in the first octave of the English horn; playing secondary minor triads in all keys on the soprano saxophone up into the altissimo register.

He went deep into these projects, was very methodical in his approach to them, and was entirely mindful and disciplined in his pursuit.

He told me that no matter what he needed to practice on any given day, he made a commitment to spend a predetermined amount of time on his project until he achieved his objective. For some projects this was maybe 10-15 minutes per day, and for others, as much as an hour.

By practicing this way, he developed three very valuable assets:

1. A continuously growing set of skills that expanded his capabilities as a studio musician, effectively increasing his chances to work more frequently, and express himself more readily.

2. A sense of self-efficacy. (He developed an iron-clad confidence in his ability to analyze and effectively prescribe and carry out the work necessary to deal with any pedagogical difficulty that might come his way.)

3. The intrinsic reward of solving problems. (He didn’t avoid the “impossible”; he actively sought it out and welcomed it with joy.)

For many years I have applied this approach to deepening my own skills, both as a saxophonist and as an improviser. I tend to balance the regular, daily work of my practice (tone production, technical studies, eartraining, Improvisational work, etc.) with some kind of a project.

Of course, these projects are often specific elements nestled into the above mentioned “daily work”. (For example, this last week I started a project involving slurring overtones on the saxophone in ever-widening intervals using the octave key; really helpful for adding complex color and resonance to my sound!)

Many of my projects are to develop specific improvisational skills, whether it be aural familiarity and control of specific tonalities (forming diatonic triad pairs from the 6-note augmented scale was a recent project), or of time, rhythm and/or form (playing “Giant Steps” in 7/8 was a project from about two years ago).

Here’s something very important that I learned from practicing this way: I never lose the skill I’ve acquired. I just keep building upon what I have. The skills become part of who I am as a musician, become integrated into what I do, and readily available.

So if you don’t have a project, I heartily suggest that you find one and dedicate yourself to carrying it out. Here are some guidelines that might help you:

  • Start with your need, and turn that into genuine interest. What would you like to improve upon? What sparks your interest? What would the possibilities be in your musical expression with this new skill?
  • Examine  your motivation?  Does your wish for this new skill come from inspiration or fear? It’s best if it comes from inspiration, from a place of love and positive energy  (see my point above).
  • Balance addition with subtraction. Keep in mind that not all improvement means adding things. Lots of pedagogy is aimed at subtracting things: bad habits to be specific. If you’re struggling with certain things technically, ask yourself, “What do I need to stop doing to improve in this area?” (For example, are you stiffening your fingers, needlessly tensing your facial muscles and/or jaw?) Then aim at playing with greater ease and control by subtracting the excess tension.
  • Work as specifically as possible. Define not only your goal, but also, how you can best carry it out. Sit down with pencil and paper and think your practice strategy and prescription through. (It’s worth the time to do so, I promise you!)
  • But don’t be too specific about time. Aim for a clearly defined goal (for example, “to play this particular scale in sixteenth notes at quarter note equals 120 in all three octaves”). Carry out the work in daily sessions (with predetermined time allotments for each session), but don’t get too hung up on how long (weeks, months) it should take. If it’s taking more time than you think it should, reassess (and then see below:)
  • Smaller is better. Make sure your project is attainable in a relatively short period of time (one week, to let’s say, three months). Anything that takes longer is not really a project but is either an ongoing skill (a daily practice habit) or it is several projects needing to be separated out and defined. When in doubt, cut it in half. You’ll stay motivated this way, as you keep your effort in close proximity to the desired result.
  • Aim for ease in yourself. No matter what the goal of your project is, one of the requirements should be that you cultivate a natural and efficient use of yourself as you carry it out. If you’re adding tension to what you do, you’re most likely moving in the wrong direction.
  • Always have a project. Get in the habit of not only knowing what you’re current project is (and where you are in reaching your goal with it), but also, what your next project might be.

One of the things I notice with many musicians who don’t seem to improve (despite their daily practice) is a “maintenance” approach in their practice, addressing only the very general pedagogical skills, but with little (if any) deliberate work toward specific skills that are outside of their reach.

If you continue to work on the basics every day, yet always have a project that brings you into a deeper, more specific set of skills, you can’t help but improve. It worked for the maestro, Bill Green, it’s been working for me, and it can work for you, too.

Body Awareness And Music Making: Learning To Reinterpret Your Senses

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One of the aims (and benefits) of studying the Alexander Technique is an improved sense of awareness. Without exception, my students gain measurable improvements, not only in their kinesthetic (body) awareness, but also, in their overall awareness through their other senses, as they play music. They learn to hear more vividly, perceive time more accurately, and notice subtleties in themselves (and the music) more readily.

Yet, most of the musicians I teach already come to me with a more acute awareness of their bodies than the average person. It is not difficult at all to get musicians to notice what they’re doing with themselves as they play. Here’s a typical exchange between me and one of my students in a first lesson:

“What do you notice about your shoulders as you bring your hands to your instrument?”

“I lift them up.”

“What do you notice about your head and neck when you to that?”

“I kind of scrunch my head down into my shoulders.”

“Can you see how that could have a negative impact on your playing? Maybe interfering with the freedom in your arms and hands?”

“Yes, now that you mention it. Sure.”

In contrast, when I give a first Alexander Technique lesson to the average person who doesn’t play music, it is usually not quite like the above exchange. We may be working on a simple activity, like rising from a chair, or beginning to speak. As I ask the same questions about the head, neck and shoulders, it is most typical for my student to draw a blank. (My job starts here by helping them become aware.)

But as I continue to ask my musician students in their first lesson about noticing things as they play, it becomes clear that it is not their inability to do so that’s causing the problem (prompting them to seek me for help in the first place).

So what is causing the problem?

In the simplest sense, it’s not a lack of awareness, but a misinterpretation of bodily sensation. You see, it’s not that most musicians have difficulty noticing these things (once they’re pointed out), it just that they often don’t perceive of these things as misdirected effort  (the very thing that is causing their problems as they play!)

Instead they think of what they do is part and parcel of what it takes to play music. It’s a kind of “over-efforting” that not only feels right, but even seems necessary in order to play their instrument. Becoming aware of these tense gestures is the first step.

The next is to reinterpret them for what they actually are: unnecessary habits of misdirected  tension. That’s not always an easy thing to do, as many musicians are quite attached to the physical sensations of playing their instrument. It’s not unusual for a musician to want to feel that they’re working hard (even though it’s creating difficulties). This sometimes becomes almost an addiction, an affirmation that they’re playing “well”.

And to make matters more complicated, my students will often have an almost religious reverence for certain points of pedagogy taught to them that they believe to be virtually indisputable (usually dispensed to them by another excellent musician/teacher).

My job is to connect the new experiences of playing without the excess effort, to my student’s reasoning, and (ever-increasing) knowledge. This is a matter of re-education: helping them to better understand the actual acoustical demands and principles of playing their instrument as it relates to the way their bodies can best accommodate these demands and principles.

I encourage my students to not believe what I say because I say it, but rather, because it can be tested and found to be true. I want them to know why they choose to do (or not do) something with themselves as they play. They need to own it. They gain this ownership through direct experience.

The next step in this process (once they’ve clarified their misconceptions about their bodies) is to learn how to play without going into their habit. This is where the real work (and real value!) of the Alexander Technique comes into play.

By design and necessity, this happens gradually. But the changes that take place can be absolutely remarkable.

Here’s the good news

Because you’re a musician, you already have the skill set to be able to notice many subtle (and not so subtle) things about yourself as you play. This is a HUGE advantage, and can really speed up your progress if you wish to change your habitual tension patterns. Whether you have problems with chronic pain, and/or coordination, being able to pay attention to yourself as you play gives you a definite leg up.

If you find a good, AmSAT certified Alexander Technique teacher, you can find how quickly you can learn to interpret what’s happening in your body in an accurate and more helpful way. You’ll learn that all that extra effort with your head, neck, back and shoulders, your locked knees, tense feet, noisy breathing and squinting brow don’t help you one bit when it comes to making music.

And of course, always feel free to contact me if y0u need help. I would be my honor and pleasure to do so!

Playing music can be much easier than you perhaps thought. Use your skills of awareness to help you discover how much easier it can actually be.