Improvising, in Contrast to “Practicing Improvisation”

The other night while giving a  practice coaching session on Zoom to a very good jazz guitarist, an interesting issue arose.

Though he had been putting in long hours of practice, diligently and intelligently working on the specific skills he would like to develop as an improviser, he found his actual experience  whenever improvising oddly unsatisfying, sort of “uninspired and disconnected”, to use his words.

I asked him how often he was playing with other musicians on average, and he said usually once or twice per week. I said that that didn’t seem like much, based on how devoted he was to playing jazz.

He went on to say that he had purposely put himself into “woodshed mode” for a few months, to really get his “playing to another level”, and was avoiding jam sessions and some other playing opportunites that he previously participated in.

As I began to ask more questions (about his practice routine, time spent practicing, goals ,etc.), it dawned on me that, although he was practicing improvisation  at a furious pace, he was doing very little actual pure improvising.

Allow me to explain.

He had been devoting the vast majority of his practice time to growing his improvisational skills.

For example, he had been practicing:

Improvising over a variety of harmonic forms, as he consciously connected particular dominant 7th chord substitutions via half-step voice leading.

Improvising over an entire chorus of a standard song (in 4/4) while subdividing his ideas metrically in 5/4.

Consciously applying a pre-determined set of altered scales (harmonic major pentatonic, in this case) over the basic iii7-VI7-ii7-V7-I sequence.

And so on.

All of this is good work, no doubt. Great ways to explore the materials of music in improvisation! Practical ways to practice  improvising.

But practicing improvising is not entirely the same as purely improvising.

By purely improvising, I mean there is no agenda while improvising. No subtext. No particular goal to consciously aim for. No clearly defined rules to self-consciously abide by. No self-imposed limits.

You see, when improvising just for the sake of improvising, your brain is working in a fundamentally different way than when you are consciously practicing improvisational skills.  (And of course, none of this even takes in account the entirely  different process of improvising with other people; here I’m just addressing the daily, “by yourself”, practice regimen.)

When purely improvising, you are not so much “thinking like a composer”, as you are reacting, to your subconscious impulses to rhythmically and musically organize sounds as a form of deep self expression. (All of your hard work has been a vital tool to help enable this, of course!)

When practicing improvisation, you are still improvising, but at a less visceral, immediate level. In essence, you now are  “thinking like a composer”, more or less. Connecting the dots, creating with a more specific intention, assessing, judging, editing, etc.

And again, that’s good, absolutely essential to progress.

But it in of itself  is not sufficient for calling upon your brain to go into that magical world of “accessing the subconscious”, as Sonny Rollins puts it.

For that you need to improvise. Every day. With nothing to aim for except the experience of improvisation itself.

And not only every day, but quite a bit every day.

I recommended to my client that he spend at least 50% of his practice time for the next month just improvising without working on any specific “skills”. This still allows him plenty of time to work on “practicing improvisation” to continue to boost the skills he is hoping to cultivate.

The guidelines I gave him are simple. Here they are:

Follow your desire. Let your curiosity decide what kind of time feel, tempo, mood, etc., you’d like to explore. Let your whim, in the moment, decide.

Stay simple and familiar. Choose something you know really, really  well. Maybe a standard you’ve played so many times, you could easily put it in any key you like at will. See that you’re not distracted by the form, but rather, are supported by it (and can trancend it).

Avoid an agenda. Have no particular conscious aim in mind. Leave your “composer’s mind” at the door. Let your muse run free.

Quiet your critical mind. As much as possible, don’t dwell (or even care!) on “how you are doing”. Just see if you can follow your impulses as you improvise over this “old friend” of a form. Let your feeling for moving with the music guide you.

Spend some time each day improvising with no form in mind. Improvise freely over a mode, a groove, a simple motif, a drone, or nothing at all. Let the music have a chance to emerge from you with virtually nothing in mind.

Trust your process. Realize that the skills and experiences you’re building are for the actual, in-the moment act of improvisation.In fact, you are still “practicing” even when you are “purely improvising”. Specifically, you’re practicing the psycho-physical state of being that is most conducive to the act of freely expressive and cogent improvisation.

Enjoy! (Play from a place of love, and let the beauty flow through you.)

And that’s it. I’m curious to hear back from my client in a couple of weeks, but I predict he will have good things to say about his new process, as he learns to more optimally balance his skills and practice efforts.

So how much do you actually improvise each day, versus practicing improvisational skills? Both are of equal  importance.

Here’s a nice little video of two great innovators in modern jazz, Warne Marsh, and his teacher, Lennie Tristano, talking about the musical skills of improvisation (Warne Marsh’s comments), and the actual act of improvising (Lennie Tristano’s comments). Enjoy!

Physical Efficiency in Playing Music: A Question of Economy

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Many highly skilled and accomplished musicians have lots to say about efficiency in playing their particular instrument.

Whether it is about what the hands/fingers should (or shouldn’t do), or the arms and legs, or how any particular part of the oral mechanism involved in playing functions optimally, there seems to be no shortage of opinions about how to play without “wasting effort”.

And I have my opinions, too, of course, which are based upon my experience teaching the Alexander Technique to musicians, coupled with my growing knowledge and explorations of anatomy and neuroscience.

One of the ideas that can cause considerable problems for some of the musicians who come to me for help, is “economy of movement”.

In playing saxophone, for example (the instrument I play), there are those who advocate this concept: “To move your fingers with the greatest amount of speed, you need to move them as little as possible to raise and lower the keys.”

On the surface, this seems like a good idea. It’s kind of variation on the “shortest distance between two points is a straight line” concept. It obviously takes less time to move a shorter distance than a longer one, all other things being equal.

I describe this concept (in reference to what I’ve written above) as “economy of movement”.

So what are the potential problems with this?

Well, for many musicians, this attempt to limit movement can often begin to manifest itself as stiffness and rigidity.

Not just stiffness and rigidity in the specific parts of the body involved in carrying out the movement, but in the entire organism itself: stiff neck, shoulders, jaw, knees, ribs and more.

And with this comes yet another form of “stiffness and rigidity” as well. Specifically, in the cognitive functioning  of the musician.

I describe this as the “deer in the headlights” syndrome. In the focus to “limit” the movement often comes the narrowing of the focus of attention  in general. Not a good thing, as this tends excludes and disintegrate (rather than include and integrate) the various experiential elements necessary to play optimally.

So instead of thinking “economy of movement“, I encourage the musicians I work with to begin to think more in terms of “economy of effort“.

Now, to be clear, I’m not necessarily advocating less  effort (as that in itself can have the same negative unintended consequences of “less movement”).

More specifically, what I am advocating is the “optimization of effort”. That simply means that the effort applied to the task of playing is directed in a way that is most conducive to the task itself.

It means that the effort you use to play your instrument is best directed when it’s based upon what you want (sound, time, articulation, etc.) in cooperation with design. 

Design includes your human structure (and how it optimally functions), the acoustic principles of your instrument, as well as how your brain works to bring it all together to make music.

Playing with optimum effort means not forcefully using your neck muscles to do the work most suitable for your arms, for example. Or to not strain your jaw in doing the work better suited for your soft palate (when playing a wind instrument).

And sometimes you actually have to let something move more than you might think it needs to in order to optimize effort. Try walking sometime as you limit the movement of your ankles, and you’ll immediately realize that less movement isn’t always better movement. (This is analogous to not allowing your “MP”, or, “knuckle” joints to bend the way they need to if you try too hard to limit the movement of you fingers.)

One of the things I love most about the Alexander Technique is that it employs a clear set of principles that teach you how to recognize misdirected effort as you play music, or do anything else.

As you learn to recognize and prevent your habitual pattens of misdirected effort, you simply play better (and feel better, too!)

So consider replacing the idea of “economizing the movement” with “optimizing the effort”. Really explore the contrast between these two concepts. In doing so, you’ll open up a marvelous new world of possibilities for yourself.

Improving Technique: It’s More Than Simply Exercising Muscles

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There is a common, often disconnecting, conception many musicians carry with them when they first seek my help as an Alexander Technique teacher:

In essence, they believe that the very problem that brought them to me is of a purely physical nature. Put more precisely, an issue of muscle function.

I call this a “disconnecting conception” because not only is it untrue, but it also tends to harmfully divide and  separate them from themselves as whole beings.

You see, in truth, nothing you do when you play music is “purely physical”. Thought (both conscious and unconscious) impacts all of the physical manifestations of your music making.

Now, to be sure, most of the specific fine motor skills you’ve acquired as a musician can be called upon with minimal thought, or even below consciousness. (Some folks refer to this as “muscle memory”, a not particularly accurate description of the phenomenon.)

But these motor skills can be modulated significantly for better or worse (in the moment!) just by changing your thinking. (You’ve no doubt experienced this countless times.)

F.M. Alexander (the founder of the Alexander Technique) had a more complete term to describe not just musical performance, but all human activity: psychophysical.

In dealing with his own rather serious issue of losing his speaking voice during performances (he was a stage actor), Alexander came to realize that the physical manifestations of his problem (excessive misdirected bodily tension) were inextricably linked to how he thought  about using his voice while acting.

It wasn’t simply a “matter of muscle”, so to speak. It was a matter of mind and muscle, the relationship between thought and action. (Hence, the term “psycho-physical”.)

This isn’t such a foreign concept to grasp for most musicians, as “focus” and “intention” both play a significant role in success in both performance and practice.

Yet, I’m still surprised at the amount of rather highly skilled musicians who have a tendency to reduce the acquisition of technical skill to purely physical, muscular exercise.

For example, I’ve encountered brass instrumentalists who routinely practice long tones while watching television to “bulid strength”. Or woodwind players silently practicing fingering exercises (without blowing) as they listen to music to cultivate “muscle memory”.

This practice habit, in my experience both as teacher and as musician, is inefficient, and only marginally helpful (at the very best!)

At worst, it can also be counterproductive, and sometimes even harmful. This is because it is an invitation to develop unconscious patterns of inefficient bodily use and sub-optimal coordination. Often these patterns become gradually ingrained into what the musician thinks it should “feel like” while playing.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, strength and coordination are inextricably linked, but coordination takes precedent over everything.

Mindless, repetitive actions might build a certain amount of muscular strength specific to the particular technical challenge you’re addressing on your instrument, but strength without coordination is functionally useless.

That’s a simple truth for any activity.

So rather than exercising muscles as you work on improving your technique, think instead of exercising your coordination. And not just the coordination of your fingers (and lips, tongue or any other part of you that is directly involved in playing your instrument), but the coordination of your entire self.

See that you aren’t compressing yourself as you play. (Avoid pulling your head down into your spine, stiffening your shoulders, locking your knees, etc.) Take time to notice this misdirected tension and energy and work toward gradually reducing it. Integrate that awareness consciously into your intentions  to improve your technique.

Notice where your attention goes, both when you’re playing well, and when you’re not playing so well. As you notice the shift in your attention, you can also notice how your entire body changes (see above).

Give yourself a chance to stop and redirect your efforts. Make sure you’re clear about what you want (your sound, execution, etc.) and just as important, how you are “using yourself” to get what you want.

And, of course, make it musical. Give whatever you practice some sort of musical intention and imagination, each moment you practice it.

If you work each day to observe and more effectively integrate your thinking into your playing, you’ll find that not only do you improve more steadily, but that you don’t even need as much time as before making mindless repetitions in order to build “muscle memory”.

A few moments of mindful work will always take you further toward your goals than an hour of mindless “exercise.” It always works this way for me and my students, and mostly likely will work this way for you. Give it a go!

Something Every Serious Student of Improvisation Should Be Doing Regularly

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Photo by Steve Johnson on Pexels.com

 

If you ask just about any highly skilled jazz musician what you need to practice for optimum improvement, you’ll typically get advice that concurs with other highly skilled jazz musicians.

The reason is simple.

Some things work better than others in leading you toward developing the skills and conception you need. (And some things don’t really work at all!)

Practicing (and studying) arpeggios, scales, intervals, voice leading, approach notes, enclosures, rhythm, form, meter…these are some of most basic materials of music that improvisers draw from.

Then there’s your ear. Learning to recognize (and being able to sing!) intervals, chords and scales in their various inversions, altered harmonic extensions and substitutions, is fundamental to your ever-evolving skills.

And it is doubtful that you’ll ever find an accomplished jazz artist that won’t strongly recommend transcribing the solos of other great artists.

There is so much to be gained by transcribing: a clearer and more detailed conception of the “language” of the music, a deeper understanding of jazz harmony, not to mention a wonderfully effective way to functionally improve your ears!

Lots of highly skilled jazz musicians that I know seem to always be in the middle of some kind of transcription project. (In fact for some, it is at the core of their entire practice/study regimen.)

I’ve encountered fewer accomplished artists/teachers of improvisation that recommend another very helpful thing that I think you should be doing regularly, practically from day one of your study through the rest of your musical life:

Composing etudes.

Though related, composition and improvisation are not the same thing. But when you improvise you most certainly are utilizing particular compositional principles in order to express your musical impulses in a cogent manner.

Elements of form, meter, harmony (including, voice leading, tension/resolution, substitution, etc.) and rhythm all come into play.

I’ve been composing jazz etudes since nearly the very beginning of my study of jazz )and other kinds of improvised music). This discipline has helped me beyond measure.

In fact, when I first started to study improvising over standard song forms, I would regularly compose a solo over the harmonic form of whatever tune I was studying, which not only helped me to learn, but also encouraged me to develop and trust my artistic sensibilities.

And some of the great teachers of improvisation, such as Lennie Tristano and Joe Henderson prescribed this practice to their students.

There are three main reasons why it is helpful to compose jazz etudes:

1. Curiosity and investigation-This could be as simple as an intellectual inquiry into harmonic relationships (e.g., being curious about how augmented scales function as upper partial harmony over dominant chords);  or it could be something you discovered by “accident” that really excited your ears, and then piqued your intellectual/musical curiosity.

2. Clarification-Composing etudes enables you to turn abstract musical materials or concepts into cogent, musically satisfying, intentionally created and expressed melodic ideas. It’s a chance to really use your ears, imagination and aesthetic values to create something that sounds precisely the way you’d like it to sound.

3. Utilization-Ultimately, you get to put whatever concept you’re working on squarely into your “wheelhouse”, so you’re most inclined to have it available to your muse when you are actually improvising.

By spending time conceptualizing, exploring and then constructing a musical composition that both pleases you aesthetically and supports the specific concept you’re aiming to develop, you are further developing your own distinctive improvisational voice.

I compose etudes of various kinds, some over specific bar forms (or song forms) and others only a few bars long that explore a specific harmonic, melodic or rhythmic concept that interests me. (In fact, the etude e-books I make available for purchase are simply documentation of a particular practice goal that has been methodically organized and expressed in written form.)

So if you’re not already working regularly on composing etudes, I strongly suggest you do. Here are some suggestions, or guidelines that might help:

  • Ignite your curiosity-Be actively curious about things you hear. It might be a particular solo you heard, or even a single melodic line in that solo. It could also be as simple as a standard song you’ve heard that you love, and that you’d like to go deeply into. Or it might be some specific skill or concept that inspires you, like polyrhythm,  tritone substitution, or triad pairs. Use your intellectual curiosity as well: “What would it sound like if…?”
  • Aim for one thing-Every etude (whether classical or jazz) is, in essence, some form of a musical composition based upon one specific pedagogic goal. Embrace that direct simplicity, and avoid trying to juggle too many pedagogic balls at the same time.
  • Define the scope of your concept-Once you know what you’re interested in studying, distill and clarify the concept. Give it some clear borders so that you can keep it all within your reach. You want to be challenged, not overwhelmed. Some examples might be, “I’d like to delve deeply into Body and Soul“; or “I’d like to be able to feel and play a 3/4 pulse against the 4/4 form of Giant Steps.
  • Play with the concept-Spend a few days with your instrument playing a few easy improvisation games with whatever the concept is. Get some of the basic ideas into your ears and under your fingers.
  • Sing, sing, sing!-Before you even write down one note, practice singing some improvised iterations of your concept, whether, tonal or harmonic. Again, plant the seeds in your ears.
  • Write it down-Compose it using your instrument, your ears and your muse. Make it yours. Craft it carefully so that it represents exactly what you want. It goes without saying that means making it musical and artistically meaningful (especially to you!)
  • Reflect and reassess-Play, study, sing and memorize your work. Give it time! And your work need not be written in stone. It’s okay to make changes along the way (in fact, that’s a very good thing!) Like any good composition, keep working at it until you’re satisfied. (Don’t be afraid to stay with it until you’re satisfied; trust your muse.)

The more you make composing etudes a regular part of your practice, the better you get at it. And the better you get at it, the more precise your skills and expression as an improviser become. Your true voice emerges.

Sonny Rollins said that his aim as an improviser is to access his “subconscious” as he creates spontaneously. Think of composing etudes as a form of written, intentional meditation that helps you to become more familiar with the nature of your marvelously creative and unique subconscious. Discover and enjoy!

My Main Objective When Practicing Something Difficult

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Is there an ideal, universal, one-size-fits-all objective that musicians have when practicing something they perceive as being “difficult”?

Well, certainly the most obvious objective is to become functionally proficient with the very thing that’s being practiced.

But there are typically several other aims nested inside that main objective when practicing difficult music.

How about you? What is it that you want when practicing something significantly outside of your comfort zone?

It’s usually a lot more than just getting the notes “under your fingers”, so to speak. Don’t you think?

You probably want to be able to play whatever it is you’re working on with beautiful tone, good intonation, time, feel, expressive nuance, accurate details (like articulation and dynamics), and conviction.

You might also have a specific goal in mind regarding the tempo, or the key, or with the range.

All of these are reasonable and worthy goals, integrated into the overall goal of becoming proficient with the music that challenges you.

I share these goals, as well, and keep them in my consciousness when practicing anything difficult.

But I have one main objective that I give even higher priority to than the music itself when practicing anything outside of my own comfort zone:

Optimizing the quality of how I react  moment to moment as I play.

More specifically, optimizing the quality of what I do with my entire self  as I play:

“Am I free and mobile?”

“Am I in reasonable balance?”

“Is my breathing easy, expansive and reflexive?”

“Are my eyes lively and engaged, but soft?”

“Am I organizing myself to go lightly upward?”

“Am I connected to (and supported by) the ground?”

“Is my attention flexible and responsive?”

These questions I’ve mentioned above reflect many of the aims and benefits of studying the Alexander Technique. In the simplest sense, the Alexander Technique helps me to react more favorably to my musical (and technical) aims and desires when practicing.

This is especially important when working on anything that I find challenging to me as a saxophonist and/or improviser. By paying attention to (and gaining domain over) my reactions (i.e.,how I move, maintain balance and perceive myself and the music) I cultivate two very important skills:

1. Being able to use my entire self in such a way as to give me the greatest chance of success in actually playing the music (because I’m working in harmony with my human design).

2. Building a constructive attitude and consciousness that becomes the norm in musical performance.

You are not here to do exercises, nor to learn to do something right, but to get able to meet a stimulus that always puts you in the wrong and to learn to deal with it.

-F.M. Alexander, founder of the Alexander Technique

Alexander went on to say that one of the main aims of his work was to help us to more effectively and confidently go from “the known, to the unknown.”

And for a musician, practicing or playing anything perceived as being “difficult”, is, by definition, a step into the unknown.

Alexander describes prioritizing this “quality of process” as the means-whereby.  When I pay attention to quality of the the means-whereby, I simply play better and learn more efficiently.

So, for example, I increase the tempo of a particular exercise only if I can do so and still maintain a reasonably good use of myself. I won’t move the metronome up a few beats-per-minute at the expense of taking myself out of optimal coordination. It makes no sense to do so. There is nothing positive to be gained from doing so.

It is this very principle that most informs how I work with a musician when teaching the Alexander Technique. So many musicians that come to me for help are literally “un-coordinating” themselves when playing music that challenges them. As they learn to stop doing this, the doorway to their potential becomes open and clear.

So notice how you’re reacting moment to moment the next time you’re working on something outside of your comfort zone. What do you do as you prepare to play each phrase?

Do you compress yourself? Do you tighten your neck and jaw? Do you lock your joints? Do you knit your brow?

See if you can react in a freer, more elastic, and expansive way. Let your neck be free and let yourself be supported by the ground. Organize yourself upwards in a light and lively manner, allowing yourself to release so that you can approach the music with ease, confidence, curiosity and joy.