Tag Archives: Practicing Music

Ear Training For Improvisation: Three Skills To Develop

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No matter how much you study, analyze, understand or memorize, you still need good ears to improvise music with fluidity and authentic self-expression.  You have to be able to imagine and carry out your internal aural impressions in real-time.

Developing your ear is of prime importance, and is something that a serious improviser spends a lifetime cultivating.

As I reflect upon how I work on my ear, I’ve come to realize that no matter what I’m working on, I’m always developing one of three skills:

1. Recognition

2. Retention

3. Sensation

I’d like to talk a bit about each one of these skills, and what you can do to improve them. Keep in mind that the they are inseparably connected, and work together to help you to turn imagination into sound.

Recognition

This is where it starts for many musicians: learning to recognize intervals, scales (and their modes), chord qualities and inversion, chord sequences, harmonic tensions, melodic patterns, etc.

I cannot stress the importance of this foundational work enough. The better able you are to connect the various elements of music to your ear and intellect, the more melodic possibilities you’ll find when you improvise.

It’s best to start from the simple, and build your skills toward the more complex:

  • Intervals-Melody is nothing but a series of intervals, so mastering intervals is essential. You should be able to recognize any interval in all forms (ascending and descending melodic, both within the octave and beyond the octave; and the notes of the interval played simultaneously). You need to do this work to the point where you don’t even have to think about which interval you’re hearing. Prepare to spend a good deal of time working with this, and allow periods of review, even after you think you can easily hear, sing, or play back on your instrument any interval. (It’s crucial that you practice both singing back and playing back the intervals you test yourself with.) There are lots of great resources to help you with this now, including some terrific smart phone apps that are very thorough and inexpensive (or even free!)
  • Scales-The material of much of the intervallic sequences that constitutes melodies comes from scalar material. To start, you need to be able to recognize and sing, major and minor scales in any key and from any inversion (mode). Then work towards the same competency with symmetrical scales: diminished, augmented, whole tone, as well as any other scales that either strike your fancy or challenge your ears.
  • Chord qualities-Much of the structural and melodic impetus of improvised melodies in the jazz tradition comes from the harmonic form. Therefore, it’s a good idea to master not only understanding the theory of chord construction and harmonic movement, but also, to be able to sing and recognize the various chords in their inversions. Again, start from simple (major and minor triads) and move toward complex (seventh, ninth, eleventh and thirteenth chords, sus7, altered chords, etc.)
  • Tension qualities-This is related to the skill above. Specifically, learning to recognize and sing the various notes of of any given chord relative to the chord itself. For example, hearing/recognizing/singing the 7th of the dominant seventh, or the raised 11th over a major 7th chord. Tasting Harmony, A New Approach To Ear Training, by Greg Fishman, is an excellent resource for this.
  • Chord sequences-Going from the smaller picture of hearing chord qualities to hearing and recognizing chord sequences is fundamental to your freedom of expression. Learning to recognize ii-V-I movement, with all its modulations and voice-leading resolutions, will help you memorize (and retain what you’ve memorized) when you learn standard songs or other harmonic forms. It will also significantly help you play by ear when you have no idea of the chord changes. A simple but effective way of working on this is to take chord changes off of a recording by ear. Use your instrument, your voice, a piano…anything to help you. Connect what you hear, sing and play back, with your intellect (theoretical understanding). Start with easy songs (could even be simple, children’s songs) and move on to standards, bop tunes, into modern jazz compositions.
  • Melodic patterns-Learning to recognize and recall common melodic patterns and licks will shorten the road from your imagination to your improvisation. Transcribing jazz solos of master improvisers is highly effective practice for this. It’s also important (and very helpful!) to play as much as you can by memory when working on patterns of any sort. Once you understand the structure, or formula of a particular pattern, and can sing it clearly and easily, strive toward playing it by ear. (Don’t write it out to help you learn it.)

If this seems like a lot of work, understand that it is, and that it’s something that you work toward improving and growing for the rest of your musical life. Nobody has a “finished” ear.

Even Charles McNeal, who is arguably one of the most prolific transcribers of jazz solos (he has an AMAZING ear and is a tremendous jazz saxophonist!) will tell you that he can transcribe the more “bop-oriented” soloists much faster than he can the “modern cats”. Why? Because the language of bop is more familiar to him. (It is for that reason that Charles welcomes the challenge of transcribing more modern players. He wants to constantly improve his ear.)

Retention

Once you are able to recognize intervals, scales, chords, etc., you need to be able to keep the aural impression of these elements alive in your imagination as you play (this is especially crucial in transcription and memorizing patterns/licks by ear).

Neuroscientists call this ability “working memory”. Specifically, the capacity to keep multiple bits of information available to your thinking simultaneously. (As an example, it’s easier to hold two notes in your aural memory than it is to keep an entire unfamiliar melodic pattern.)

One of the frustrations with some students of jazz improvisation is with retention. They can recognize intervals easily; they can recognize scales and chord qualities and tensions, as well.

But have them play a simple melodic sequence back by ear and they sometimes fall apart. Why?

Well, it’s often because they are not continuously hearing the melodic sequence in their imagination as they try to recall it. Often they’re getting stuck on one interval at a time, and before they know it, they’ve completely forgotten what it is they originally heard.

If you get frustrated with this, here are three things you can do to help as you play back melodic patterns by ear:

First, make sure you clearly hear the entire sequence and can “repeat” it back in your memory. Listen, listen, listen, as much as you need! (Shorten it into smaller sections if need be and work with one section at a time.) It is absolutely essential that you can internalize the material and can hear it in your imagination without singing or playing your instrument.

Second, now sing the sequence several times to affirm the accuracy of your aural imagination. If it is part of a transcribed solo, make sure you are singing the inflections, articulations, dynamics, etc. Make it come to life in your imagination.

Third, play it back on your instrument (again, with all the inflections). If you know your intervals and have sung the sequence lucidly, you’ll have no problem.

This is a skill (retention through working memory) that you can (must!) continually develop. My guess is that somebody like Charles McNeal has a very highly developed working memory from all the transcription work he’s done.

Through regular practice, you can get so you can repeat entire phrases (and even sections of transcribed solos) back as easily as you used to be able to play back 3 or 4 notes. Practice working on longer and longer patterns, always keeping the aural impression within your reach.

Sensation

The ultimate aim of using your ears should be to use them instinctively. You want to follow your ear, not your intellect. (The great improvising saxophonist, Warne Marsh, would sometimes chide his students as they improvised by saying, “I can hear you thinking.”)

This is where being open to your sensory experiences can be very helpful. Learn to imagine the feeling of the sound in the instrument, of the resonance and color, as you move from one note to the next when translating something back by ear. For example, if you play a wind instrument, “taste” the sound from one note to the next.

If you play the piano, learn to sense how you move and where you go spatially as you play back what you’ve heard or imagined. I can often easily find something by ear on my saxophone just by fingering (not blowing) what I imagine the sequence to be. That feeling of movement (kinesthetic sense) is in support of my sense of hearing and makes my aural imagination that much quicker and clearer.

A very simple way for you to begin working on this skill is by playing lots and lots of simple melodies (again, highly familiar children’s songs are  a good place to start) in all twelve keys. Every day. As you do so, don’t try to intellectualize the melodic movement (interval to interval), but instead, play by instinct and sensation. Just let your fingers (and/or breath, etc., depending on your instrument) follow your ears, and other senses.

Sing as much as you can as you learn new melodic/harmonic material, not only to deepen the clarity of your aural imagination, but also, to give your brain even more of a chance to experience the music through your senses.

The more open and free you are with your body,  (as an Alexander Technique teacher, I work a lot with my students on this), the more information you’ll be able to experience through your senses. (Excess muscular tension can significantly interfere with your ability to sense and hear the music.)

So as you continue to grow your ear, please keep these three skills in mind. Make a decision to work everyday on improving and integrating them. The more you can transcend your intellect and connect with your muse, the more beautiful and expressive your music will be.

You, Your Instrument, Space And Movement

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There is a fundamental error that I see many musicians make when positioning their instruments in preparation to play. It usually begins seconds before the first note is produced. It might seem like a small thing, but it can have big consequences.

What is it?

It’s in how musicians bring their instruments to themselves to play.

Notice I said, “bring their instruments to themselves.” In a sense this is a misnomer. Because in truth, the real problem is that rather than bringing the instrument to themselves, many musicians bring themselves to the instrument. And they often do so in such a way as to compromise their balance, flexibility and coordination.

Allow me to clarify.

The other day I was giving a first Alexander Technique lesson to a violinist, who came to me because of unresolved chronic neck pain. We spent a good part of the lesson exploring and clarifying her natural balance as she sat, and as she stood. 

(We do this in order to bring her most basic postural and movement habits to light. More specifically we’re looking at how her habits might be interfering with the way she moves, balances and maintains positions with respect to her bodily structure, and how that structure work best with gravity.  How she might be unconsciously “fighting herself”.)

Once I was reasonably sure that my student was aware of (and at least somewhat able to prevent) the most obvious habitual interferences to her balance and coordinatin as she sat and stood, I then asked her to play her instrument.

What I saw was a habit that is common to many musicians: She was there, sitting in fairly good balance (based upon our brief work). But as she brought the violin up to her chin, she (simultaneously) began to pull herself downward (and somewhat sideward) into the chin rest.

So once the violin was in position to play, my student had lost the easy, elastic and flexible balance she had, and had replaced it with a rather stiff and inflexible “position”. (This is all driven, of course, by habit; and that’s where our real work begins.)

It took a significant amount of intention and conscious direction for her to stop this from happening. (This goes to show how powerful the habit of “position and posture” can be to a musician.) But she has made a step in the right direction. (She’s also going to re-consider the height of her shoulder rest, to see if it’s “inviting” her to pull downward.)

And I see such similar habits with so many instrumentalists: I see saxophonists (playing with the neckstrap adjusted too low) pull their heads down into the instrument (not good for your airstream or the freedom of your jaw and tongue); I see trombonists pulling their heads (like the violinists) down and sideways into the horn. I see guitarists hunched over an instrument that is too far (or sometimes, too close) to themselves. And so on.

It’s almost as if there is a fixed perception of where the instrument needs to be in space. And that perception demands that you distort yourself into position to meet the instrument.

So here’s a very simple bit of advice: Bring your instrument to you. Find balance first, as you sit, or stand.

In brief, this means letting your head balance on top of your spine freely as it is poised over your pelvis, with widening shoulders and unlocked knees, letting your weight travel evenly through your body to your sitting bones (if you’re sitting) or through your feet (if you’re standing).

Then practice bringing the instrument to you in such a way that you interfere with this natural balance as little as possible.

If you have to rotate (say, to play flute or violin), see if you can do so by “thinking upward” so you’re not pulling downward into tension and imbalance. Let your neck be free and your eyes be lively and engaged as you allow your breath to flow naturally and easily. Then allow your head and eyes to lead your body fluidly into rotation.

Practice this in front of a mirror (highly recommended!) if possible. Do it lots of times, until you feel reasonably confident that you can keep the awareness and intention up as you play.

Then work on bringing your instrument to yourself to play one note (just one!)

Again, do this with the aid of a mirror. Think of maintaining your internal space (so you’re not contracting and twisting) as you move the instrument toward yourself. 

If you practice this enough, it will become part of who you are as you play your instrument. Not only will you find less tension and more balance and flexibility in your body as you play, but also, you’ll breathe better and will be more accessable emotionally and creatively to make your best music. Give it a go!

Three Misconceptions About Your Hands That Might Be Holding You Back

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Many musicians who come to me for Alexander Technique lessons do so because they have problems with their hands: chronic pain and/or coordination issues (these two can be very closely related).

Medical conditions like carpal tunnel syndrome and elbow tendonitis, as well as general discomfort and fatigue when playing can be, are often caused (or made worse), in part, by a misunderstanding of the structure/location and function (anatomy and physiology) of the hands, fingers and arms.

The same goes for coordination. I’ve lost count of the musicians I’ve encountered who are stuck at a certain level of technical proficiency (no matter how much they practice and how hard they try) because of the mechanical disadvantages they bring upon themselves through their habits (with their hands, arms, neck and back) as they play.

I won’t go into full detail here about how the hands relate to the arms, which relate to the back, which relates to the balance of the head on the spine. (Although this is of prime importance, and I’ve mentioned it before in several other articles).

Rather, I’m going to briefly talk about the three most common misconceptions (in my teaching experience) that most musicians have about the hands, wrists and lower arm. I’m also going to share some videos that will be highly useful in helping you to better visualize and understand how your hands, wrists and lower arms function.

So what are the three misconceptions I’m talking about here?

1. The location of your knuckles. Many musicians imagine their knuckle joints (metacarpophylangeal, or “MP”  joints, as they are commonly called) as being in the location where their fingers connect to their palms (looking at the hand palm-side up). But in truth, these joints are lower than that. If you look at the topside of your hand and bend your fingers at the knuckle, while at the same time keeping them straight, you’ll see exactly where that joint is.

Now, bend your fingers the same way and look at the palm-side of your hand to see how much farther down those joints are from that fleshy place where your fingers meet your palms. If you play your instrument by trying to bend your fingers at this imaginary joint (where the fingers meet the fleshy part of the palm), you’ll create a signficant amount of excess tension and compression in your entire hand.

2. The joints of your thumb. Your thumb has three joints, not two. Many musicians think of the thumb has  having one joint at the knuckle and the other joint at the fleshy location of where the thumb connects to the palm (an accurate, but incomplete understanding). But if you take the tip of your thumb (again, do this palm-side up) and touch the tip of your small finger with it, you’ll see how your thumb rotates from the bottom/middle part of your hand (from a third joint).

If you don’t allow for this movement when you play, you’re going to get a great deal of fatigue in you entire hand, and you’ll measurably interfere with the freedom and coordination of your other fingers. (I see this often in how woodwinds players use their right hands.)

Here’s a video excerpt from a DVD that I very highly recommend, called  Move Well, Avoid Injury. This video not only illustrates my points about the knuckle joints and the thumb more completely, but also, offers a more constructive way of thinking about them:

3.How your wrist rotates. You have two bones in your lower arm (the ulna, which is on the small-finger side of the arm; and the radius, which is on the thumb-side of your arm). When you rotate your wrist at the elbow (let’s say, for example, what your left hand does as you play flute), the bones cross one another. (This movement is called pronatation and supination.) The most efficient way for this to happen is to allow the pivot point to be on the small-finger side (the ulna), so that the thumb can sweep radially into rotation (hence the name, radius).

If you try to rotate your wrists from the thumb-side, you’ll create a good deal of strain in your entire lower arm, as well as your hands and fingers. Your elbow joint, in particular, will be negatively impacted. This movement habit is what can lead to elbow tendonitis, among other things.

Here’s another video clip from Move Well, Avoid Injury to help illustrate this and suggest more helpful ways of thinking about it:

So whether you play, piano, guitar, saxophone, trumpet, drums (or any instrument where your hands are involved), by clarifying these three things you can play with greater freedom, less strain and more pleasure.

Tempo, Perception And Tension

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Some months ago I wrote an article about how coordination was inextricably linked to the perception of time and rhythm. But just recently, I realized another aspect of this connection while giving an Alexander Technique lesson to a bassist.

This student could not seem to play a particular technical passage beyond a specific tempo without the entire passage falling completely apart. I began to suspect that he was thinking about the tempo in such a way as to create problems for himself as he played.

As it turned out, his self-imposed obstacle wasn’t a lack of clarity of tempo (he wasn’t dragging or slowing), nor of rhythmic conception (he demonstrated to me that he could sing the rhythms of this passage quite accurately).

Instead, it was his subjective reaction to what he defined as a “fast” tempo.

I discovered this after asking him a few things about how he was thinking:

“Why does it always seem to fall apart there?”, I asked.

“I’m not sure. It’s actually quite easy to play at a slower tempo. It just seems to get tricky when I try to play it at a fast tempo.”, he replied.

“What is a fast tempo?” I further enquired.

“When I’m practicing at home, it seems like it gets fast at about quarter note equals 138.”, he responded.

So I broke out the metronome. And sure enough, he was fine until that “breaking point” of 138. Then I had him play it at 132 and everything was fine: accurate, beautiful, lively, clear.  I asked him his perception.

“No problems. Like I said, it’s not difficult to play at slower tempos. And I thought to myself, “132 isn’t that much slower than 138.” But what I observed as he played at this slightly slower tempo helped shed light on the real problem.

The most significant thing I noticed as he played it at this “easier” tempo was how differently he was using himself as he played. His eyes looked calm, yet lively. His neck and shoulders looked more spacious and elastic. He looked more mobile and fluid, less “planted” and rigid. In Alexander Techique slang, we’d say that he was using his primary control (head/neck/back) in a more constructive, helpful way.

I had him notice how free and easy he was as he played. (Being a good Alexander student, he could notice this quite readily.)

Then we brought the tempo back up to 138. And everything changed.

His eyes became fixed, almost fierce looking as he knitted his brow. His shoulders began to narrow as his neck stiffened slightly. I asked him to notice this. (Again, being the good Alexander student that he was, he could do so readily.)

“Why do you think you change how you’re using yourself so noticeably?”, I asked.

His reply: “Because now I think I’m playing fast. And the thought of playing fast seems to tempt me to do certain things.” He just solved the mystery.

So we began to work toward getting him to react differently to the thought of playing “fast” in this particular passage.

The first thing he did was to redirect his thinking as he played in such a way as to prevent himself from physically responding in his “fast tempo” habitual way (no tense neck and shoulders; no glaring eyes and knitted brow).

In the Alexander Technique, we call this ability to consciously prevent unwanted tension  inhibition. It is a skill that is cultivated over time by studying and applying the Technique, and this particular student has developed his ability to “inhibit” quite well.

This redirected thinking made a noticeable difference in the outcome. Much less tension, better precision in execution of the passage.

But then we did something else. We started playing some games with the metronome to “trick” him about his perception of the tempo.

For example, I had him play the passage (continous sixteenth notes in 4/4 meter) as if they were eight note triplets. We started at quarter note equals 130 and gradually moved the metronome tempo upwards. The passage felt to him very easy and clear when approached as triplets. Before long he was playing the passage at quarter note equals 180 with considerable accuracy.

He didn’t have time to do the math to realize that he was actually moving the notes faster than he was able to do before.

I immediately had him go to quarter note equals 138 and play the passage as it was originally (in sixteenth notes). He was able to play easily and consistently at this tempo. Laughing, he said, “The tempo feels slow now. If feels like I have time to think.”  (He laughed because he realized that he just tricked himself in a good way).

This change in his perception of the tempo helped him to get out of his habitual thinking, and helped support his wish to keep the excess tension in check as he played.

In truth, there is no “fast” or “slow” when it comes to tempo. “Fast” is just an opinion (an adjective of judgement, if you will), as is “slow”. There is no absolute measurement for either. All there is is the objective measurement of beats per minute. There is just relativity between tempos.

So when you’re practicing or performing, don’t think, “Here comes the fast part.” All you’ll probably do is tense up unnecissarily and create unhelpful conditions in yourself to play the passage.

Think instead, “I have time.” That will help (if even a little bit) to keep you from going into tense anticipation of the music. It’s this tense anticipation that not only creates mechanical disadvantages in your body as you play, but also, puts your brain into an unclear state of a mild “panic”.

Let go of the idea of “fast” or “slow” and replace it with the more objective and measureable “clicks per minute” on the metronome (or whatever source you’re using to establish tempo).

And by all means, start using the metronome in such a way as to keep you thinking differently in how you perceive tempo and rhythm every day. Using your body well as you play and being flexible in your perception will reward you with measurable benefits.

Your Equipment: Keeping Things In Perspective

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Musicians and their gear. The topic itself brings up endless stories (not to mention debates), no matter what instrument you play.

As a saxophonist, I’m not immune to sometimes misunderstanding the role of my equipment with respect to my musical ability. (Many of us saxophonists love going on endlessly about instruments, neck pipes, mouthpieces, ligatures, reeds….)

But I always come back to this simple, truthful mantra (I’ve heard declared by some of the wiser saxophonists I’ve come to know here in Los Angeles):

“Your equipment either gets in your way, or gets out of your way. “

And it is as simple as that. You make the music. Your equipment doesn’t. It either interferes with your musical imagination and inspiration, or it doesn’t.

(To be clear, I’m not talking here about metronomes, apps, music stands, microphones, cases and such. I’m talking about the music making part of your gear, e.g., instrument, mouthpiece, strings, sticks, etc.)

Here are two extreme points of view about equipment that can lead to problems:

1. “My equipment is primarily responsible for my musical results (therefore, I’m not).” Musicians who think this way tend to always be looking for some new miracle piece of gear that will solve their problems. They’re always changing things (mouthpieces, instruments, etc.) in an eternal quest to find something (skill) that  can only be attained through intelligent, mindful and disciplined musical study.

They’re also quick to run to the repair tech the moment they’re having a bad day practicing. (It can’t be something I’m doing! It must be the horn.) The problem with this attitude is that it takes the responsibility for successful results off the shoulders of the player. By doing so it stifles the development of skills, and leads to endless frustration (not to mention expense!)

If you find you’re always looking for the “next best thing”, do yourself a favor and stay with one thing for a good while. Learn to really play on what you have before you venture off to find something new. Come to know exactly how this particular bit of gear is holding you back. Try to understand as clearly as possible the role of your equipment in relationship to your role as the player.

2. “If I’m having difficulty playing my instrument, it must be entirely my fault.” The other extreme is to blame yourself exclusively for everything that you don’t like about your playing. Sometimes it really is and equipment issue. Maybe the mouthpiece you’re using actually is unsuitable for your instrument (and/or your anatomical make up, and/or your musical conception).

People with this attitude don’t visit the repair tech enough. (I’ve been guilty of this myself sometimes.) If they’re struggling to play it must be them. As admirable as that attitude is (taking full responsibility for results), the truth of the matter is that sometimes you just need to get your instrument repaired. Not doing so leads to frustration, stunted development (not to mention what it does to your self confidence!)

Whether an ill-suited piece of gear, or an instrument in need of repair, in both cases the equipment is “getting in your way.” If you lean towards always blaming yourself, make it a habit to try different instruments, mouthpieces, etc., from time to time on a timely basis. And try to see a tech regularly, even if things seem fine. (I make it a point to visit mine every 2 months. I’m so glad that I do).

And if you are even reasonably sure that some bit of your equipment is defective, worn or has in some other way gone wrong, don’t take it personally. For example, if you know you’re playing on a dying saxophone reed, don’t morph that fact into the absurd notion that your sound has mysteriously changed for the worse because of something you’re doing wrong all of the sudden. Just find a better reed. Then get on with it.

As a final thought, regardless of your relationship to your equipment, the most important thing of all to remember is that you are the primary instrument. As I stated above, you make the music. So in this respect, take care that you are operating at an optimum level when playing.

As a teacher of the Alexander Technique, my job is to help musicians improve the quality of how they use themselves as they use their instruments to make music. If , when you play, your neck and shoulders are overly tense, your breathing forced and noisy, your legs are stiff and unyielding,  then you’re never going to get your best results.

Take responsibility for yourself first, find equipment that gets out of your way (and take care of it, too!), practice mindfully, and get on with the business of improving as a musician (and enjoy playing that much more!)