The Practicing Thread
 

Musicians practice to get good and maintain their level of playing. I am interested in what you do to keep your chops up. What are you doing to expand what you can do? What sort of curveballs do you try and give yourself to keep things interesting and challenging.

I'd like to hear from everyone who plays or creates music. If you create music digitally what do you do for brain input? What do you do to make sure that your creative well is overflowing? Singers...what do you do? Turntablists?

I'm even interested in non-traditional practice...I've heard of people who never sit down alone and get better only by playing gigs and jamming.

To get the ball rolling, here's a little blow by blow of what I like to do:

Lately I've been doing about half an hour to an hour a day at the piano (not enough for what I'm trying to achieve, but I'm happy I do at least that). I'll spend about 10 mins. on Dohnanyi finger exercises and lately I've been exploring "mirror technique" (will get into that if anyone cares to know). Then I'll play some voicings around in different, usually related keys (15 mins). Next I'll do a diminished scale pattern in the right hand and a diminised voicing in the left hand (15 - 20 mins). If I have time, I'll take a standard tune and play it in a non-standard key and do it in an odd meter as well. I'm a big fan of mashing different concepts together. If I have more time, I'll try and practice some sight-reading for about 15mins.

Keep in mind this routine seems to morph over time. Some sessions I'll do nothing but technique...some I'll do nothing but play a tune.

Also to get the ball rolling, I have a question for others - how do you sabotage your procrastination instinct and "just get on with it" when practicing?

On the trumpet, procrastination was always the enemy. I loved jamming but hated practicing on my own. Getting past that was just a matter of willpower - I knew that if I wanted to get anywhere I had to practice every day, so I did. Once I'd gotten somewhat proficient, it was easier because I had a lot more technique available to me. I could sit around and improv a tune, or pick a favourite and do theme and variation. I'd do variations of Summertime for hours when I was learning improv, because it's a nice easy melody to work with.

With my guitar, it's a lot easier. I love sitting around jamming and if I'm not otherwise engaged I'll usually just pick it up and noodle around a bit. Sometimes I decide that I want to learn a new tune and I'll go look it up, or sometimes I just play whatever comes to me. I think it helps that I enjoy playing the guitar, much more so than the trumpet. It's easier to get motivated, because it's something I want to do anyway.

When you drum, its so easy to just end up hacking out some shit you dont really know what youre doing. When Im just hacking out on a drum pad, ill try technique things, left hand developers. playing an excercise on each hand, then playing it two handed to match techniques. playing an excercise on the right and doing the same thing DOUBLE on the left.

Also simple technique exploration does a world of good, playing something (lets say consistant 8th notes for arguments sake) and then change the grip focus, dropping off certain fingers, holding on only by one finger to really feel how each individual finger operates with the stick.

I play at least a couple hours a day, of that usually 70% guitar 30% piano. However I have totally no structure to it, its just playing, not technically practicing. I really need some excercises for both insturments, got any pointers? I love to play them both, so time isnt a problem.

whether it's the drums or the bass........i usually put on our tunes and play along.

changin' this and that........plus,i'm teaching my son all of my bass parts so i can drum to them.

and any drumming i do on our tunes,he's being taught those as well.......

opens things up for me and him.


love making music........

Hi Lak. The best way to decide what to practice is to figure out what it is you want to be able to do. Of course there are some basic technical exercises for every instrument which I find are good for warming up and a general sort of dexterity on the instrument, but doing Hanon exercises on the piano will never get you any closer to playing like Horowitz or Keith Jarrett.

So...what is it that you want to be able to do?

On guitar, I'd like to stretch my ability to form unusual and awkward chord forms, and speed up soloing.
On piano, everything :|. I'm teaching myself. I can play Radiohead's Like Spinning Plates* pretty good, if you want my level.

edit: live version that is

Interesting. I'm learning jazz piano right now--got the basic scales down pat, but no licks. Anyways, I slow ballads better so licks aren't that important for me. I'm trying to get to a point where some of the more complicated voicings come automatically (upper stuctures, block chords, so what chords).

my practice routine is therefore just picking random songs from a fake book and trying to voice them as quickly as I can. I'm sure there's a better way to do this--any advice is appreciated!

Hi rsl12! I would suggest the following: first pick about 5 tunes from the standard repertoire and stick with those for the next couple of weeks instead of skipping around. If you need some suggestions, tell me which book you're using and I'll tell you which tunes I think are best for learning voicings and at the same time, getting the right repertoire.

Next, spend a decent amount of time on the basic chord forms, and that is, the 4 note chord (without any extensions). Most tunes you encounter will have major 7th, minor 7th, dominant 7th (sometimes with a flat or sharp 5), diminished 7th and half-diminished 7th. Major 6th and minor 6th chords are important too (especially when functioning as the tonic). So there you have only 7 different chords.

To voice these in an interesting way, all you need to do is make it open (for example, Gb Major 7th would start on Gb below middle C, then going up, Db, F, Bb). You can always change the voicing (e.g. F below middle C, Gb, Db, Bb).

Next, play through the tune sticking only to these 4 note chords, voice leading as smoothly as possible (e.g. in a progression going from C7 to D minor 7, voice it this way: C, G, Bb, E could go to either D, A, C, F or C, A, D, F - both pretty smooth.

Now here's the hard part - do it in a couple of different keys. I can't stress how important it is to start this as early as possible. Memorization of tunes is only one of the multitude of things this helps with and it's essential for any versatile musician. I suggest playing in the keys related by diminished 7th to the key of the tune. For example, Autumn Leaves is often in G minor. I'd also suggest practicing it in Bb minor, C# minor and E minor. That way you generally get 2 easy, 2 hard keys.

OK. I've been practicing rootless voicings, because that's what's emphasized in the book i'm using -- Jazz Piano by Mark Levine, and also because I've fallen in love with the upper structures voicings in upper registers (dunno if 'upper structure' is a term used outside my book--for example, a Falt chord is played from bottom to top: E-flat, A, D-flat, F, A-flat, or a F7-raised 4th can be played A, E-flat, G, B, D). I do practice a few ez songs in multiple keys (autumn leaves, my romance, misty, blame it on my youth, paper moon)--I know I should probably do more.

I have bill-evans style 4-note left hand voicings down pat for pretty much all flavors. I'll try your way with the roots through. (My lazy style of playing is hitting root and a 5th or a 7th with the left hand, and filling in the rest with the right.)

PS. I have a few fake books, all by Sher--the Jazz Standards fake book, and the Real Fake Books vol. 1-3.

I've found rootless voicings to be over-emphasized in general. They are important but thanks to the Levine book being most peoples' "way in" to jazz piano (not that it's a bad book) there's an international ban on rootful voicings.

Here's why playing the root is important -

a) The majority of a pianist's playing is not going to be in a quartet or even trio situation. From my experience, the most playing is done solo or duo, in which case roots are more useful.

b) There is nothing wrong with playing the root when playing with a bass player. As long as you don't start walking quarter notes or hammering out the root you won't really be getting in his way.

I'd say keep doing what you are doing, but don't dismiss the idea or simple two-handed, four note voicings voice-lead well. That list of tunes you're playing is exactly the sort I'd have recommended, so I'd say start making sure you memorize them then move on to the next batch. Do you know the melodies?

Just a general note: The thing I've been into more than anything else lately is transcription. This, for me, is the most direct way to learning non-classical music. The above discussion of Mark Levine's Jazz Piano Book got me thinking about the way things often get learned these days - out of a book.

There's a lot to learn from books. The problem is, it's third hand information often driven by the commercial interests of the print music industry. I also find few books by the great recording artists and conversely, many books are by people who I haven't heard any recordings of. What am I getting at? Well of course there's the old saying of those who can't do, teach...or in this case write instructional music books. So who would you rather learn from? Jamey Aebersold or John Coltrane?

So go out and transcribe some stuff. Sure it's hard...so pick something easier. I think one of the first things I lifted was the Billy Preston break in Let It Be...

a practice routine--i remember that.
practice is an intense object of nostalgia right now as i just moved to chicago and have been caught up with the transition.
generally, i do about 1 1/2-2 hours a day a full speed. compress alot of the space away that i would usually use in performance. practice is part about muscle tone, part about exploration, part about confidence. it is also about finding new sound possibilities. chops so you can go anywhere and not have to think about them. muscle tone because without it, you dont have chops. exploration because, for me at least, that is what music is. confidence is the lamest variable, but sometimes i find i hard to walk out on stage unless i can tell myself that i have a wall of technique behind me and if everything goes south i can power through with that.

once i have more time again--maybe i'll check back in and say more.
i dont do the sort of music that is under discussion above--straighter jazz--i learned it, i did it for a long time, i wandered into other places and have been pushing out there for a while now. the mode of thinking about organizing sound is genre specific, really. if you are playing stuff that involves playing changes then what aberkok says above is really useful. if you arent, then it remains useful, but for other folk.