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

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.

Improvising: What To Play When You Can’t Think Of Anything To Play

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Nothing.

That’s the short answer to the question posed in the title of this post.

Seriously. If you’re improvising a solo, and can’t think of what to play next, play nothing.

You’ll notice I said, when you “can’t think of what to play next…”

Can’t think. So what to do instead?

You wait.

If you wait, the music will come to you.

Now, to be clear, you won’t need to wait long. You won’t have to. But by waiting, instead of calculating and planning, you’ll shift your consciousness from the mechanical and mundane, to the creative and mystical. This shift in thinking makes all the difference. You move from a place of effort and anticipation, to one of receptiveness and responsiveness. You call upon your intuition.

Of course, if you’re a novice improviser, you certainly need to work through lots of the mechanical, self-conscious, “this note on this chord” stuff. That’s part of the learning curve. But you’ll do best if you aspire toward being guided by your intuition, impulse, sense of movement, rhythm, imagination…

It’s not uncommon to find jazz musicians who learn a plethora of licks and patterns for the express purpose of “having something to fall back on” in case they’re not being “kissed by the muse” and “can’t think of what to play next.”

I, too, practice and study scale and arpeggio patterns, interval patterns, as well as transcribe and study other improviser’s solos (all with the aim of becoming a better improviser).

But I don’t do any of it to give me something to fall back upon if I can’t think of what to play, if I get “stuck”. Rather, I work on these things to feed my ear and imagination. To give me an experience of feeling, hearing and moving sound in a particular way.

But when I’m improvising, I never think of the things I’ve practiced. To do so would sound obvious and predictable (at best) and would sound stammering and disconnected (at worst). I’ve learned this over the years through direct experience.

It’s important to understand, and to cultivate, the very thing that really drives your muse when you play: Movement.

Time, feel, rhythm. These are the elements that fuel, that provide impetus to, your tonal imagination when you improvise (if you let them). It’s like you’re dancing inside, pulsating, and just letting the pitches (from all the studying, practicing, and listening you’ve done) fall into your dance. It’s an intuitive process, and a beautiful expreience.

Now, to some degree, this involves a leap of faith, and a bit of practice. But if you give it a go, you might be surprised to discover four important things:

1. You don’t have to fill every second within a solo with your sound.

2. When you learn to wait, you also learn to listen better.

3. When you listen better, you respond more naturally and creatively within the context of the group making the music.

4. When you hear yourself more clearly within this group context, you’re also able to hear (and appreciate) what you’re actually playing (instead of what you’re thinking).

All good things, for sure.

You can start practicing this today with any kind of play along backing track, or even a metronome. See what it’s like when you wait for your muse (give yourself time to understand what this even means!) See what it’s like to let time pass in an improvisational form (tune, chord changes, etc.) without your sound. Notice how differently you can respond (how spaciously!), moment to moment, as you improvise.

The great improvising saxophonist Lee Konitz said that he once let an entire chorus of the tune on which he was improvising go by because he couldn’t think of what to play. He next said, very sincerely, “It was the best chorus I’ve ever played.” (He went on to say how that “empty chorus” fit into the larger context of improvising his entire solo.)

And to quote another great improviser, saxophonist Sonny Rollins (from a recent interview about practicing solo, unaccompanied saxophone improvising) the aim in his practice is, “moving toward the subconscious.”

Indeed. It is this subconsciousness that is the true home of our creativity, because it exists without the filter of the calculating and judging mind. So rather than thinking of what to play, next, wait. Listen to and follow your inner impulse, your inner voice. And enjoy being surprised by what comes to you.

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

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.