You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - How To Build A Good Practice Routine From Early On - #164

Episode Date: July 25, 2018

In this episode, Adam and Peter discuss some fundamental practice techniques to add to your routine. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. That's right, every day. Do you like the way my voice sounds today? It sounds very pleasant. Yeah, well, you've been telling me I need to be six to eight inches away from the microphone. Man.

That's hard to judge. The podcast can either sound good or it can't. Well, if we're sounding good, then, you know, you'll hear it. What are we talking about today? Today we're talking about how to build a good practice routine from early on. You know, kind of like if we were to start over knowing what we know now kind of thing. And this comes from... I play trumpet.

That would be the first thing. That's right. It comes from... It comes from... A suggestion on Facebook from listener Johnny Lynn. Thank you, Johnny. Yep. Yeah, I think this is a good thing to think about.

If only to maybe retool your own practice routine. Yeah. It could be kind of a when you're a beginner or a nice little reset. Yeah, but if you are a beginner, I mean, the first thing I think about is I would definitely start transcribing a little sooner. although I did start pretty fast with that, but I would keep it in my regular practice routine earlier. Yeah, I mean, I think, I don't know if you caught me the other day. I came up with the new, you know, I like acronyms.

Yeah. I came up with one, A-B-B-B-E-T. A-B-E-T. What does that stand for? Always be ear training. Always be your ear training. That's good. And that's really, I mean, transcribing, if not transcribing,

something as part of your daily practice routine that's developing your ears. Yeah, I think that's great. Yeah. You know, actually, to kind of piggyback on this, I think really the first thing I would do, I think the most important thing I do now that I didn't used to do for years, is to keep a journal, a practice journal, of ideas, of things to transcribe, or concepts to check out, or tunes to learn, all these things that I kind of keep now so that I'm never stuck. I'm never stuck without anything to do.

That's very important. I'm actually surprised that I get a lot of, over the years, and to this day, a common question I get is, what should I practice. Yeah. And I always think that's weird because I'm like, man, for me, it's, well, maybe part of it is people want to know what should I practice of this myriad of different choices. And they need some kind of prioritization and some sort of order. But I think sometimes people also feel like, oh, if I'm practicing the wrong thing or at the

wrong time or in the wrong order, I'm going to actually get worse. And I don't think that that's true. I think that there can be a certain amount of serendipity and randomness sometimes for part of your practice that can be. very good because it's about like kind of getting in touch with what your workflow is. So if you have certain things that are always part of your structure like ear training, like technique, like repertoire, so those are always set. But then you have a little bit of freeform time in your routine, even from as a beginner

where you think, oh, it has to be so regimented, but you are always kind of have that, that opportunity to kind of, because this is creative what we're doing. So it's like, yes, there's the technical aspect. And I love this idea of like keeping a journal. because it can be reflective as much as it is planning, right? Absolutely, yeah. Because you can kind of go back and think about, oh, this is what I did and this really worked good

when I practiced in the morning, so I'm going to work that in and then try that out. Yeah. I think that's great. Yeah, the journal is key, and I think it's a huge part. Something I wish I would have done from the start, I think it would have kept me on track a little more in the beginning. Now, would you say journal?

Would that be a bullet journal by any chance? I've noticed you've been walking around with one recently. Well, you could do a bullet journal. That's not a bullet journal isn't actually a physical thing. It's a technique in your journal. Really? Come on, man. Oh, I thought it was both.

Well, it can be. Are you using, like, something that comes with bullets? No. I mean, yes. I don't know. I got to up my butt. I thought I was, but. I think it's more of a philosophy than a, than it is a.

I didn't want to say kind of a hipster philosophy a little bit. Yeah. Okay. I got my cold brew here. I'm noticing your cold brew is just a bunch of, I'm not so jealous today because it's just denigrated into a cup of ice. I should have got the large size. I'm telling you, man, I'm drinking more coffee with this cold brew than I ever have in my life.

It's good. It's not good. It's not good. I'm not sleeping. It's bad. Okay, so let's talk about some other things specific to beginners with the practice routine that might be valuable. Yeah, and you know, a lot of these things you hear said often, and you probably just ignore them. But one thing I think that is key from the beginning, which I wish I would have done more, is to play and practice and learn everything deeply in all.

12 keys. Oh, man. From the start. I mean, you talk about like, preach. What should I practice? You probably, you know, when people ask me that, I'm like, you probably don't know, you probably don't have in your hands all the scales on arpeggios and all 12 keys. That's so easy.

You don't have to think at all. Those are all in books, you know, and just like, if you can't do scales in arpeggios and all 12 keys, you're still an intermediate player as far as that. I mean, you have to get those things together. Like those. And I think we've heard quite a few players, pretty good players. not great, that if you were to dig deep and, like, sort of test them, like, they moved on without really having that foundational piece, and it shows up in their playing later.

It shows up. You can't escape it because you're playing having Memphis Jones, and then there's a, there's a two-five to G-flat. What are you going to do? Exactly. You know what I mean? Like, you've got to have it. Don't just do the same licks that you always do. Like, be as comfortable in G-flat. Be able to play tunes in weird keys. I mean, it's a skill that really separates the elite from the nun. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think some people kind of get away with just never playing that kind of repertoire or never playing in those keys.

But even that exposes you because you go to hear your gig and you're, you can kind of tell by the tunes they're playing like, ah, certain things they just can't do. Yeah. You know, it was nice. I did a tour last week with a young bass player and the great Ulysses Owens on drums. And they're like, you know, they're enough younger than me that they're still, they still kind of like to, like, it's important to them to have, like, a tough key or like a really fast tune in every set. Like, to me, I don't really, I feel like, I don't feel like I have to

prove myself with that. I do enjoy playing that. But I'm kind of past the point of like, oh, what if somebody comes to hear me and I didn't play, I mean, I'll play all, if the moment feels right to just play all balance, I'm like, to me, that's just as impressive to fit into the moment. But it was fun also, like, getting back into that kind of mentality a little bit. And so, like, they call, it's funny you say, how have you, Memphis Jones? Because the bass player called it and I was like cool and I said yeah well let's do it in a different key on top of that and he was like right cool like he was like bet bet you know but that really I mean yeah that one element does not mean you're a great player of course it can be a parlor trick as well but you combine

being a very good player and the ability to do that that's saying something because there's a certain amount of ear training facility at the instrument being able to get around and then you know a player like that you can throw anything at them that's right you know you can throw anything at them and they're going to be able to, if not, play to immediately adjust and get to it. They're not limited. The whole goal of this is for everything that you play to feel comfortable and easy to the listener, that you're not working too hard. They don't usually know if you're in a funny key. That's right.

No. So if you get to a 3625 in E and you can't hang and it seems like you're really trying too hard, that's going to throw the listener off and really kind of take them out. So I would say from the beginning, practice in hard keys. You know, and actual advice on this, we've talked about this before, if you're practicing. say scales or voicings or something, start in E, or start in D flat. And go in fourths or go chromatically

or just hit those hard keys specifically. And then go to G and B flat and F and C and all the ones we all play in all the time. I'm really grateful that I don't know how this happened. It must be one of my really good piano teachers. But, you know, I learned a lot of the scales going through. I mean, I definitely learned the cycle of fifths and cycle of force and did some, but I did more chromatically.

And so that kind of forces you out. You see, because a lot of people will start to practice scales, and then they either get sidetrack or they don't have enough time or the phone rings or whatever. So if you're going cycle of fifth and say you're practicing a new scale or a new, you know, intense or contrary emotion, you're going to start at C. Oh, this is great because it's easy.

Then G, this is not that hard. Then D. And then, oh, I got sidetracked. So then you never get to B and A and D flat. Whereas if you start C and then go chromatically, you're already getting into some hard keys and some totally different fingering. So you're kind of like muscle confusion and really tried to learn some of those.

I mean, it's definitely good to learn in the cycle of fists too when you get in the fingering because then you get that lineage of the fingering and how that develops. And that's important. But as you're getting into more advanced scales and advanced ways to do them, I really recommend. Now I know this is for beginners, so that's why I'm talking about advance. Well, but no, beginners need to start with hard keys. That's what I'm saying.

If you start as a beginner on keys like D flat and G. flat and b they're going to seem easy by the time you're an intermediate player i think it's important it is important and then just go slow yeah go slow take your time hands alone uh anybody can play anything slow that's right you know you could train a monkey to play i think they have i'm gonna go on youtube and see that trained monkey playing scales and don't think that you're not making progress by going slow you are connecting you know your neurons to your hands you're you're making these connections you will get the speed right just keep going slow accuracy over over speed at first I like it.

And then I think, you know, another crucial thing that I wish I would have done. And I did this kind of probably after a couple years of playing, but start recording yourself early. And then be honest and non-judgmental about it and just kind of take stock of things that you need to work on. You know, record. A little judgy with yourself every now. Well, yeah, I mean, you want to be critical, but you don't want to beat yourself up. Right. You don't want to be like, I suck.

Yeah. Don't get discouraged. Yeah. Don't get to like, oh, I sound great. That can be a beginner problem, too, of course. like I'm fine. Well, that's usually people that don't record them. So I think your advice about recording, well, that'll kind of, you can't lie to yourself. Can't lie to yourself. So I like to record myself and really be specific, pick specific things up and say like, why did I just play that

voicing? I don't want to play that voice. Yeah, and then start taking that out. And that's, and that plays in a little bit of ear training as well. Absolutely. Yeah. Good. I like it. I feel like I'm on a little reset for my practice now. Yeah, I guess my ideas. I'm going to come out to some beginner practice. Me too. I'm going chromatic here on my scale practice from here on that. That's how we do it. I'm going to record myself. Absolutely. Cool. All right, well, we want to invite everyone to join in our new tradition of our weekly newsletter.

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Exactly. Exactly. She'll, she'll tell you about beginner practice techniques on scale. She might put us to shame. She has a great sound on the keyboard, man. She really does. So if you want to get in on this great newsletter and see what you're missing out, it's totally free. It's not spammy.

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