You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Secrets to Playing Fast - #18

Episode Date: February 17, 2018

Speed is important asset for any jazz musician. Check out these 7 tips that can help you increase your speed, whether you're a beginner or a pro. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Peter Martin. And I'm Adam Anus. Welcome to the You'll Hear It podcast. What's going on, everybody? Today we're going to give you seven secrets to playing fast. Now, am I overselling this by saying there's secrets, Adam? Oh, no. You were going to be able to play lightning fast after you learn these very secret ideas

that we've been keeping from you this whole time. Right. But now we've had a certain bout of generosity that has just flowed over us, so here you go. Let's jump right in. Number one, and this one, I know sometimes we bury the lead until the end, but this one I think is the most important one for playing fast, and that is to relax. So this means relax your body, relax your mind, and breathe.

I mean, relaxing and breathing have to go together, right? You can't relax if you're not breathing. If you're not breathing, you can't even live. So it's even more important for that. But really, I mean, you know, it's so easy to get involved with thinking about I've got to play these changes. I've got to get my technical dexterity to this level. I've got to get my time.

Okay, all those things are important, and we're going to get into that. But none of those are going to matter if you're not getting in the habit of just relaxing and breathing. So for every instrument, there's different ways to think about this. And, you know, if you play an instrument where you actually have to breathe, the trumpet, the flute, you know, the saxophone, vocals, like where it has to be a part of your process for phrasing, just be glad that you have an advantage that, like, your instrument's forcing you. you to breathe. But pianists, bass players, drummers, it's so important. I mean, some of the great drummers that I play with, you know, Greg Hutchinson, Eric Harlan, Brian Blade. I mean, I look over at them when we're playing fast and they are so relaxed and they're breathing.

I mean, not just breathing for life, but I mean, they are breathing with the phrases and they pay even more attention to that the faster they go. So, you know, it's something to think about, especially when you're practicing slow, practicing medium, that really getting into a good habit, even when you don't have to breathe and relax, to get into those good habits so that once you start raising the speed, you're already in that sort of habit of breathing. Yeah, how many beginner-to-intermediate players, especially on piano-based guitar drums, instruments like you said, that you don't have to breathe, do you see where they're just not breathing at all, they're tense up? And like you said, with those great drummers, you know,

Greg Hutchinson is, I mean, he could be just reading a magazine as he's up there, you know, at 350, 360 or whatever. But that's not a chicken egg situation. It's not that he's so good that he just doesn't have to try. It's that he sounds so good because he's so relaxed. Right. Think about it like that. It's impressive because he's so relaxed.

Well, I've actually seen him reading a magazine while playing very fast. That was even more impressive. What a punch. All right. So number two is to practice slow. So in this example, we're going to use the analogy of a marathon. You don't have to run a marathon before the day of the race. to actually race a marathon, right? So the idea is you don't have to blaze every practice routine

before you get on the gig to be able to play fast on the gig. And this is great advice because what we want to do is make sure that the notes are accurate and in our hands and that the ideas are strong first. If the ideas are strong, no matter how fast you try to play it, it's going to sound solid, it's going to sound cohesive, it's going to sound like music. And that's what we're going for here. So practice whatever you're going to attempt to play fast, practice it slow. Please start as slow as you can and try to build it up over time. And eventually you're going to get to a very comfortable place with it that you're going to be able to blaze on it. And then you're going to get, here's what happens. You get on a gig, you got people looking at you. You're going to,

you're going to pull it. I mean, you're either going to pull it off or you're not. But hopefully that adrenaline's going to be rushed. The drummer's probably going to be rushing. And you can, and you can really, you know, pick it off. Yeah, and I think that that will work really well together with the relaxing and breathing number one, because even though maybe you've never played at that top tempo, but you've done all the right work to get you close there, then that adrenaline rush and excitement and energy from the band, energy from the audience, all that kind of stuff will actually push you over the edge.

And because you're relaxing and breathing and have those good habits in you, they'll really work together to push you in a positive way, past the point you need to. That's right. Okay, number three, this is a technique specifically for practicing, you know, over tunes and specific things that you want to be able to play fast. And that is to use the metron when you're practicing and to start very slow, like slower than you even know that you can already do. I don't mean like if you want to be able to do it at 300 beats per minute and you know you can do it at 260, you start at 260. No, go back to like 180 and start there. And then practice improvising or practice the melody or whatever.

is, especially at those slower temples and gradually raise the metronome up. And you can do that over a number of days, a number of weeks. I mean, really, the longer the time period, the better because it's going to give you a chance as you slowly increase the metronome to work in those really good habits that you want in order to execute at that higher speed. And I'm thinking specifically about maybe heads. I mean, you could do this on improvising, but it's really useful, like for bebop heads. If you're going to play and you want to event.

get to you should be starting with that metronome going click click click click and even slower than that maybe where you really listen to the phrasing because once you play it faster you want to have as much of that accurate phrasing the accents certainly the timing as you do when you're playing it slower and you're just not going to have a chance to hear all that you're going to be you know blazing as you say blazing through it and so practicing slow and then the gradual increase of the metronome gives you a chance to, you know, in a way, it's like you'll finally be at that target tempo, but you've never, you know, raised it more

than two clicks at a time. So it's almost like you just sort of gradually get there and it's a way to regulate your improvement in terms of time as opposed to jumping in bigger increments. That's right. And some of those things you just can't get at faster tempos. You just have to start slow. There's no getting around it. Yep. But that takes discipline. So that's going to. be one where it's going to be like, I don't need to do that. I already know how. You do need to do it. You do need to do it. We need to do it, so you need to do it. That's right. Number four is to learn and really know the tune that you're playing.

So when I talk about know the tune, I mean know the form, know the melody, know the changes backwards and forwards, inside and out. Because here's the thing. The faster the tempo gets, the less time that you have to think about what's going on. And you do not want to get caught up in your brain thinking about like, oh, wait, is this the bridge? No, no, no. You just need to be able to feel it at this point. You know, if you can't feel where the bridge on a rhythm changes is, then you need to slow down the tempo, like that you're going too fast. So make sure you know the tune that you're about to blaze on backwards and forwards, top to bottom, you know, no doubt about it.

Yeah, you really have to know something that you're going to play fast. You've got to know it better than a ballad or something. I mean, look, we want to know a ballad just as well. But in theory, you would have a little bit of time to pause and think about where am I at the form or whatever. So it's even more important, I would say. Absolutely. Cool. Okay.

Number five. Listen to great fast players. Okay. So we always want to be listening to great players, but if you want to be able to play fast, it stands the reason. Check out the ones really study, try to emulate those players that are known for their abilities to play fast. And I mean, you're going to find that most really good jazz players on different instruments are going to be able to play fast to a certain level. But there's certainly those, I mean, I'm thinking like, you know, Sonny Rollins and this is just off the top of my head. Clifford Brown.

Ella Fitzgerald was a great uptempo improviser. So it's like you're going to want to hone in. on those, you know, Greg Hutchinson, certainly, as for Drummond, always comes into mind, just those kind of things, like, and listen to those players, emulate what they're doing, check out their techniques, and check out how they're applying all these different areas to their craft. Yeah, absolutely, like Chick-Korea, Chris Potter for some more modern players, Peter Martin, you know, guys like this who do it at such a high level that it's, you can hear things

in their playing that are easy to imitate because it's a stylistic thing for them, the fast playing. Yep. That gets us to number six, which is technical exercise. This is a exercises, excuse me, this is a crucial part of playing fast, because if you're chops ain't up to it, it's not going to happen. The best way I know for pianists is we're so lucky we have this tradition of technical exercises going back hundreds and hundreds of years. So there's a wealth of information.

You know, grab your classical books, grab your hand in, grab your Phillips exercises, grab all those technical. The churning one is great. Any of the Chopinetudes or, or. are excellent for this. Get a classical teacher if you're having problems with it. I mean, this is a good way to master your technique is to apply the pedagogy from hundreds of years before

that was proven to work. And I should just say, let me just interject. You said grab those exercise books, and it should be obvious, but grab them and then practice them. Don't just grab them, right? Oh, yeah, yeah. Don't just, like, hold onto them and then read them and be like, yeah, I could do that.

No, but this is a problem. Like, sometimes we think, oh, I've got the perfect exercise, book and then you order it or you go and buy it and you're like ah i'm done no you know like i'm going to become a marathon runner so i'm going to get some great shoes and some great gear hey yo and listen you know you can get a lot done with just practicing the chromatic scale right as far as technique goes and scale on the piano and probably on any instrument but if you just work on scales on all 12 keys that's going to go a long way to getting your your technique up it doesn't matter what the technical exercises really are as long as they're specifically helping you out

in the areas that you're weak, it's going to work. And for your instrument, that's the thing, too. Like, I mean, how many times have we heard the trumpet players? You know, like, they pick up the trumpet and they play, I don't know if that's Arbons or whatever it is, like these different exercises that are specific and, you know, technical exercises that address the technical issues on your instrument.

I mean, I think the chromatic scale and really mastering all these scales for every instrument and vocals is so important for being able to improvise fast, but you've also got a, I guess we're talking about those things that specifically solve sort of dexterity-related issues to that instrument. Absolutely. Okay, so that brings us to number seven. Number seven, secret. Now, this one is going to sort of, I think, bookend with our number one, which was

relax and breathe. And that is to look at some things away from your instrument, some things that we can do. I'm thinking along the lines of, like, meditation, concentration exercises, maybe a little bit of yoga, maybe a little bit of palates. I'd just like to say that word palates. Yeah. Interesting. involves some gear and that's actually all I know about it. That's what I know is that I think it's

yoga with gear. Right. Yeah, like some kind of wooden gear. But I mean yoga, I've been practicing yoga for a little while now and I'm not a yogi, maybe more yogi bera than anything. But no, but it's really done some great things just in terms of helping me be aware of my body. And with the relaxing and breathing, it's such an integral part of that. But it's a little bit of a way for us to, I think, connect some strength, core, athleticism, but in a very relaxed and organic way with the demands of our instrument. And again, every instrument has these sort of different uses of our body, but all instruments we use our body. And I mean, the piano, a big challenge we have is it's just, it's a massive, powerful instrument that we have to harness and mold to

the way we want it to be. But, you know, a saxophone is a very smaller but complex, you know, metal piece of equipment that they have to harness with... Oh, it's all in the mouth. Yeah, with a little bit of wood in the mouth. I mean, it's a lot of technical challenges. So, I mean, I would encourage you to explore these kind of areas that kind of force you into a thing of thinking about your core, thinking about your breathing. And then, you know, the meditation is a little different, but it's focusing you on being

able to really concentrate on one thing and take a lot of things out of your mind, which is so important for being able to play fast. No, meditation completely changed the way I play the piano. I mean, I meditate before I practice. I meditate before gig. Sometimes I meditate as I'm practicing or on the gig. And it just really focuses me. I stop.

I don't completely stop, but it helps me to not think about like, oh, I got to pick up the kids or I got to get this to the grocery store or whatever. I can really hone in on the music when I need to. And that's incredibly important. As well as it relieves some anxiety from performance, you know, which is I don't know a single even famous musician who hasn't struggled with, at least, that a little bit of performing in front of people and what that could mean. So, you know, to release that tension and to really work on your concentration is a huge part of

not just playing fast, but playing music. Great. Well, you'll hear it. That's it for today's episode of the You'll Hear It Podcast. For more information or to hear more of these podcasts, go to openstudio network.com slash podcast.