You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Best New Practice Techniques We're Doing

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

Today on You'll Hear It, Peter and Adam talk about some brand new practice methods they've been trying out and how effective they are.Have you checked out the latest course from Open Studio - Bebop Enclosures for Beginners? Learn how to create swinging bebop lines as Adam Maness walks you through how to practice bebop standards. For more information, just follow this link. Interested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Wednesday's Open Studio Live Events:1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)For the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, what's new? Man, what's old is new again. We know that. Are you practicing new things? Yes. Let's talk about them today. I'm Adam Manus.

And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear Podcast. Daily music advice. Coming at you. Emphasis on daily. Emphasis on daily. We are back to five days a week. And this is, I think, our third week back to five days.

I mean, we're so back to it. It's like, it's the new thing. We've had some people say, like, I won't, I'll believe it when I see it. Like, I believe it after like a month of it. Well, we've only had like, two people say that. We don't want to call them out by name. You know who you are. I know you are. But I hope you're feeling more confident in our daily skills at this point. Well, but I have received actually a few emails, several emails of people saying like so glad

you guys are back to five days. So when we went from five to three, nobody said anything. No. And we thought, oh, people just don't care. No, they were sad. Now that we've gotten back to five, I've heard from so many of you, thank you for reaching out and saying glad you guys are back to five. Yeah. And look, thank you guys for listening. It means so much to us. We're glad to go back to the five because folks are listening and they want to listen every day. We didn't want to flood the market with our knowledge, but apparently that's what the market wants. So we're all good. We are all good. And today we're sponsored by Open Studio. Hey, I have a new course on Open Studio. Yes. And this is an exciting one because it is not just for pianists.

You are known as the master of what we call colloquially around here. Is that correct? That doesn't sign you look. I think it's right. Yeah, yeah. It was wrong. But, but, But informally known as the piano mini courses. Yeah. And they're not many in terms of a modern knowledge, but they're focused. And they're shorter than our full-blown courses. I focus on one subject. Yeah, I like to call them surgical, right?

Because I get in there with a scalpel. And I just get out exactly what we need to get out. Yeah. So if you want to do a course, be a video where Adam is getting in there with a scalpel with you. Nope. You've come to the right place. Don't let me anywhere near you with a knife. No, but there's been things like, you know, how to, you know, lead sheet basics.

Right. Left hand cords. Left hand. Left hand. Like, so much stuff like that. Solo piano. But this one is for Beyond Pianists. So folks might be surprised because they might think,

oh, Adam in another piano course, no thank you. But O Contrary, even if you're not a Pianist, this is Bebop. Bebop enclosures for Bebop. And I'm not to say basics. I'm like, it's not. I've not checked out, but I've heard good things about it. Yeah, of course I can check out.

Yeah, this is for. I was just trying to remember the name. We got a lot going on. I know. There's a lot of names coming around. No, this is called Bebop Enclosures for Beginners. it is for beginners to bebops. It's not for total beginners of music,

but it's for all instruments. And really, I just break down, I think the two things that will get you started with the bebop sound, broken seventh chords and enclosures. Like, that whole thing is broken seventh chords and enclosures. So it's very much a toolbox kind of course, would you say? For sure.

Yeah. And what's cool about it is we have a workbook that has all of the exercises in atudes and tunes in 12 keys, and it's all got a practice session. based. So I'm literally telling you what and how to practice. We're setting the tempo with the metronome. I'm telling you how to phrase things. So it really takes the guess workout. So if you really want to kind of have your handheld through some bebop that everybody really plays, check it out. Bebop and Coaches for Beginners. We'll actually put a link here in the description

for it. And yeah, thanks everybody. Got a lot of good feedback on it already. Yeah, absolutely. So it's been a beautiful thing. I think that the guided practice session based courses, this one are great for, especially for folks that feel like they have a little bit of more focused time right now and want to get, you know, from A to Z and B, well, from A to B, really, from the specific, but I don't want to oversell it, but I don't want to undersell it. But you want to go from a definitive point to a definitive point. Absolutely. And you're willing to put the time in.

Absolutely. So, speaking of practicing. Yes. Today we're talking about practicing. We're talking about the best new practice techniques that we are doing. As in you and me. As in Peter and Adam. That's right.

practicing because here's the thing everybody like we get asked all the time how do we make a practice routine what do i practice whatever we're always common questions we're always tweaking it we always you know we get bored with things we have to mix it up right everybody does this is a lifelong pursuit there's no finish line as like as we like to say and so you got to switch it up well when you die that's there is a finish line there sorry i don't want to get morbid but wow you're really so i mean well you said there's no finish line i'm the ultimate end there we're trying to be you know the the accurate here but no you're right like The attitude of always be learning, I used to have a hashtag for that ABL is important because that applies not just to learning about bebop, learning solos, learning tunes, yes.

But it's also learning new ways and keeping practice fresh. Like if your practice routine is starting to get stale, learn some new techniques. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Yeah, buy some new bread. That's right. Get stale. Yeah. Get a new sourdose starter.

So number one, this is a really good one. How to use stress and rest to be a better. player. Yes. That's really this. I don't think people understand the stress and rest scenario. Why don't you break it down? Well, and you know what? To tell you the truth, I've done this and been the benefactor when I've paid attention to this, but I'd never really consciously thought about this until recently. Is this one of your running techniques that you're now applying to your piano practice? Well, this sounds like a running technique. A little bit. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. A little bit. But it's more like, you know, some stuff that we were talking about the other day in terms of looking back at

different periods of practice that I felt I really was making some strides and really felt very productive in my practice and trying to figure out what that was. And I think that it was not as much based upon like, oh, I'm in that flow state constantly. It was more like I'd go into it for a certain period of time and it was not the whole practice period actually. It was surprising. So it was like if I had four hours to practice, I didn't feel like I might have felt like maybe 90 minutes of that I was really killing it maybe two hours and the other period I was getting things done but there was like that it's almost like you warm up to a certain point and then you're just like in that zone and you're getting so much done and so I think that when you do that and you're in that

flow state of practice there is a certain amount of stress not physical stress like with running or something although it could be but more mental stress and not in a bad way I shouldn't say maybe stress isn't the right word but it's kind of like stretch you know like you're you're You're really at the edge of what you can do. You're pushing yourself. You're pushing yourself or whatever. But then you need some rest after that so that you can come back and hit that same kind of stress and stretching this. And so being a little bit more thoughtful, I've been trying to be a little more thoughtful when I go into practice and sort of delineate between those things, whether it's on technique, which I find it very simple to kind of apply this to.

But it could be compositionally. It could be a lot of different things. And so just sort of paying attention to that, you're either stressing yourself or you're resting. yourself mentally, musically at different times, and you want to find that balance and be cognizant of it so that when you go in there, you can really take advantage of it. I love it, man. Number two, this is one that I've been doing a lot in the last two months or so, and this is to randomize my practice with flashcards. Oh, me likey. Oh, it's really great, man. So what I have on my piano, on the music stand on the piano now is a set of three flashcards. And one pile is just 12 keys,

right literally just 12 keys the other pile is about four tunes right and I might do forms do like I might say rhythm changes or something but I like have inner urge and a minor blues and you know four tunes not too many and then the third pile is one of about five to seven concepts that I'm working on so it could be my magic voicing system that I really want to get in all keys maybe it's bebop enclosures right maybe it's pentatonics maybe it's my uh my George Garzone chromatic, triatric chromatic enclosure. Almost an enclosure. But anyway, it doesn't matter.

Whatever concept I want, and I literally just randomize it. Because here's what happens. And I don't know if this happens to everybody else, but this happens to me. I tend to spend more time going back to the things that I already am comfortable with that I'm already knowing. Even if I'm trying to push myself, right, I might just, I don't really feel like doing anything.

I'll just do it in B flat today. Well, you know what? There's a concept for that. There's an actual scientific concept. You know what that's called? What? Human nature. Human nature.

Exactly. So this kind of takes it out. And actually it's really, really fun. Like you can just spend 30 minutes and say like, all right, I'm going to hit, you know, three different cycles, right? I'll spend 10 minutes on each. Or maybe I'll hit six different cycles. I'll spend five minutes on each. And I'll just kind of, once I feel like I'm happy with where I'm at, I switch.

So I might have D rhythm changes and I work on pentatonic. right? Yeah. And that's what I'm working on for five minutes. And then I do a different set of flash cards. Oh, now I have, and you shuffle them, right? So now I have A-flat minor blues, and I'm working on enclosures, or I'm working on left-hand soloing.

You know, it really forces you to commit to what you're going to work on. So at the beginning of the week, you simply write out, what are the concepts I want to work on this week, left-hand soloing, stride piano, and then I have my keys that's already laid out, and what are the tunes I want to do? Inner Urge, minor blues, regular blues, and rhythm changes. That's great. Well, you know what I love that?

And this is kind of a new idea. I'm going to try that. I want to definitely try that. ABL, always be learning, even from your friends, is that it's a kind of a combination of two things that I like. Actually, the sort of stressing yourself and stretching yourself, because as you say, our human nature is to go to the things that we know that we're comfortable with, they feel good, that sound good. which is going to be more of the rest as opposed to the stretch or stress but it combines that with

almost like a time blocking type of situation where you're saying okay these are the things I want to get accomplished this week there's always more things that might come up or whatever but you're committing to these things and then with the randomization of the flashcards almost like having a friend kind of be like oh make sure you do that

and not only that you're not going to get to do it at the time you necessarily want to or where it's convenient because it's never convenient I'm in the mood to play a D rhythm changes right now. Yeah, maybe you're never in that mood, right? So this kind of forces your hand. And you can actually, you can tweak it too to be more or less focused. Yeah. You can tweak it like a meth head if you want to tweak like a method. No, you could add like if you want to say like,

okay, well, maybe I want to spend more time in D flat and D and A flat than I do in C and F and B flat. Take your C and F and B flat cards out of your pile and add some extra keys that you want to spend more time in. It's going to randomly bring them up. So you would be raising the stress ratio to the Rast ratio. I like that. Dial it in where you want it. Awesome. All right.

Number three, this is our best new practice techniques we're doing. Okay, this is what I call Uber purposeful practice. What an Uber on this list? Well, you know, Uber is like, it used to be you get in the car. Who wants to get in the stranger's car right now? That's got to be a business hurting right now, the Uber, right? You know what? Surprisingly, I mean, they're doing okay?

I don't know. Yeah. Who knows? Who knows? I mean, they had a trillion dollars. So they had a little. Hit us up Uber drivers. They had a little bit of run.

way. But so this is really where you say it's very outcome based. So the purpose of your practice is very much like I want to get to Z from that we talked about A to Z or whatever. And so as opposed reverse engineering. A little reverse engineering. So this can can fall, you know, at various places in the spectrum from stress to rest. But the idea is that that you're going to say, I'm definitely going to get this this one thing accomplished. Now you can't do this all the time because it kind of goes, it's a little bit anti-creative sometimes and it's also a little bit can be demoralizing. So you have to pick your battles with this. I totally know what you're talking about.

But I mean, it's like the opposite of like, let me just see what I can feel and do this. It's just like I really need to get this very specific thing accomplished. And these are probably good things that go on your flashcards, I would think. Yeah. Very much so, you know. Totally. But sometimes these are things like when you get Uber purposeful, like, and you reverse engineer and say, okay, I want to be able to play Donna in D major.

Like that might be something. So you'd have to break that in the steps still. It's not like, okay, let me do that. It's like what are the flashcards that would come up to? Got to get my left hand voicings together. I got to get the fingering for the Donnelly, you need fingering. Exactly. Yeah.

So fingering. Yeah. And different instruments could be different things. But you're saying, okay, this is specifically. And I think just from a kind of keeping from getting discouraged, this is an important part to have in your practice. And I find during this time when a lot of people are having trouble focusing and even knowing what day of the week it is and like what do I practice I'm overwhelmed.

If you have one part of your practice each day that's uber purposeful, I think it can really energize all of your practice, even the creative stuff, the technical stuff, all the different areas. I love it, man. Our final new practice technique that we are doing is uber focused practice. And this is great because this is really planning your day around the time where you can get the most out of your practice time. I mean, if you are maybe have a lot of free time and you don't have kids or a job or a lot of responsibilities, you might be living like, yeah, that's all my time, Adam. What are you talking about?

Yeah, right. But if you have a lot of things going on, like we both do, sometimes a quiet 15 minutes can be better than a hectic or notification heavy hour. Right. You know what I mean? Where you're being pulled away and then you've got a meeting coming up and you got to prepare for that. and then your kids are like, Dad, I got a Zoom meeting for my class. And you're like, what's the meeting ID number?

I got to practice my Donnelly and D. That's right. Get your party straight, kid? Finding that time in that place with no distractions and where you're not multitasking, but you really shut it all down except for the focus practice is crucial. Yeah, and I mean, this has been kind of new for me, at least to really concentrate on it,

because I've had the time and opportunity. Yeah, it has been busy, but without all the truth, travel, I'm realizing like, oh, wait, maybe I can not just, I can get out of that thing of like, oh, let me just grab some time to practice whenever. Yeah. And like, let me be a little bit more purposeful about the time of day and like thinking about the kind of practice I want to do and when I'm sort of best optimized to what I am to do at that different at that time.

If it's a time that I can do it with no distractions. Because I can get, I mean, I think especially as you get more advanced and kind of know more like your purpose of practicing, you know, going back to the last one, you can, you can get a lot done, you should be able to as you learn more about this. Sometimes I'm like, man, I should be able to get way more done than I do. So I'm really trying to be like, okay, what is the state? Single minded focus, not multitasking, the right time of day for me. I mean, you can take this to the extreme and be like, yeah, I have to have the right color highlighted behind me and all this. Don't go over. It's very important. It's important. So that's our four

new practice. And it's an exciting time because we've been talking about, I think together, not only on the podcast, but just as we converse about stuff and with members and questions about practice more than ever, which is exciting because everybody's practicing. I know. Now is definitely a time to focus on growing so that when this is all over, we're ready to go. We're ready to go. Bam. And you know what I just thought of too?

We kind of started talking about the new bebop course, the Bebop Enclosure. If you want to do that, we'll put a link here with the launch discount that we're still running. We should do that. Yeah, for our You'll hear of listeners. Okay. You save $30. 30 bucks. Andrew's going to put that in there for you guys.

So if you want to check out that course, the link will save you $30. What's the, um, so go to the link that's in the description. Yeah, you just click on that link and it'll take that $30 off for you. So go do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're going to personally give them that $30 or is it? Well, you're the CEO, so. Okay, cool.

Let's split it. Okay. 20, 2010. No, it's what we're doing now for lunch. So it's a new course. We'll give you, and, you know, you'll hear it, lymphers are always like, those are people. Yeah.

Absolutely. We're happy to do it. Cool. All right, everybody. Until tomorrow. You'll hear it.