You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - What Should I Practice? - #14

Episode Date: September 13, 2018

Peter and Adam take a question about felling overwhelmed in practice from listener Pierre See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I'm Adam Manus and I'm Peter Martin and you're listening to you'll hear a podcast. Daily Jazz Advice at you. Daily Jazz advice at you. Yeah. Just what do I usually say? It's coming at you. Oh, that's right.

Sorry, Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. You know what threw me off? I realized you have your radio voice only at the beginning of the episode. Then you go to your regular Adam Highreach. I like to keep it professional until I don't find the words to say no more. No, that's great. It's always so inspiring, but it makes me nervous.

Don't make me nervous. What do we got for the Thursday episode, Well, we have a voice memo, a speak pipe, as it were. We have one of our beautiful listeners from France, I believe. This is Pierre, who asked a question, left us a nice voicemail. She'll give us a little love. I'll tell you what there's none of in High Ridge, guys named Pierre. You're not going to last very long.

I don't think there's a single guy in High Ridge, maybe. Well, and I'm just assuming he's from France, not only because of the Pierre. I've been known to be called Pierre. Oh, yeah, over the years. It's the French version. But I think when we hear his accent, we're going to be able to identify him as either Western Swiss or Central. French, I'm not sure. Oh, look at this guy.

Okay. Hi guys, Pierre here from France. Thanks for this podcast. It's really fun to listen to and it's a great source of information for anyone interested in jazz. As suggesting by Adam, I've started waking up earlier in the morning to practice. This way I managed to squeeze around 45 minutes of daily piano. But the problem is there are really too many things to practice.

Harmony, melody, scales, voicing, camping. Your training, transcribing, practicing classical pieces and the like. And it's pretty overwhelming for a beginner like me. So my question is, how should I organize these daily 45 minutes? Should I dedicate entire practice sessions to just one topic? Should I do a little bit of everything every day? What would you guys recommend for a beginner like me? Thanks.

Thank you, Pia. That's a great question. It's a really good question. And I would say first, you do not need to dedicate any time to English because your English is perfect. Although you have the slight accent, very impressive use of the English. Better than most people in High Ridge. Well, I wasn't going to say. In U City, too, exactly.

So the first thing I was thinking is, okay, so he's sort of saying 45 minutes, doing it early, and that's kind of his only time. That's a good amount of time. It is a good amount of time. It is a good amount of time. I mean, definitely the list, even what he said, and we could certainly think of other things to do, that's way too much to try to fit in every day.

I would say in 45 minutes. And finding, I think it's always a, challenge for us no matter what level. I think he said kind of beginner, but no matter what level we're at, finding that balance between hitting the areas that we need too often enough with our rotation, because you're going to need to rotate things in and out. Yeah. Clearly at 45 minutes a day, but also, you know, balancing that with enough time to really get into a focus kind of zone on each thing. So in a way, it's like for 45 minutes, the ideal is like you're practicing one thing. such a focused way. Because I think 45 minutes

is for me is like, that's total, that's getting into like my focus, like 45 minutes to an hour, sometimes even an hour and a half. Like I can focus on one thing and really get some things done. But I'm thinking if you do that, maybe what he could do is every few days do just one thing, but maybe

two to three per day. That's kind of the pattern that I've kind of settled into here this year is that I will rotate things in and out, but I won't do more than one or two things usually in a short practice session like that. Yeah. It's hard to get more than that in and really get the most out of it.

Yeah. Now, as a beginner, I guess maybe you could shorten things up because you're getting a lot from very little. But, you know, I would. Maybe three max, we could say. Maybe three max. And don't worry about missing things. I think that's the main thing, right? Is, Pierre, you have, I mean, especially if you're doing this regularly, which I commend you for changing your schedule to get up, that shows a real commitment.

And that's hard to do. Yep. And, but if you're in it for the long haul, don't worry about I'm not hitting this today. I'm not hitting this this week. I'm not even hitting this this month. Right. It's going to happen. You're going to have time.

You're going to, you're going to kind of naturally rotate out of the scales you were working on because you're just not mentally in it as you were. And you're going to realize that. And then you're going to get interested in something else. And you're going to want to work on that. But if you're trying to, like, progress at a certain thing, focus on that. Yeah. You know, spend some time focusing on.

that maybe it's like this week I'm doing scales and and voicing for solo piano for tunes. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's what I'm really focusing on. And I don't care that I'm not practicing improvising over the tunes. I'm just practicing my technique on scales and I'm practicing my voicings and that's it. Yeah. And I would say I just want to reiterate what you so eloquently said just now, which is not, you know,

doing whatever you have to do for your mindset so that you're not worrying about what you're not doing. because there, I mean, there's always, you know, with any kind of artistic endeavor, with any kind of endeavor, period, there's always this kind of, you know, paralysis creep that can come into your mind as far as like, why don't you do it like this? Why don't you do this? Or maybe you should practice this. Now you've wasted 10 minutes just worried about what you're not doing. And you said this before. It's like, have a plan. Yeah. You know, remember it's like, number one, listen. For practice, it's like, number one, have a plan. Totally. Of what you're going into. Now, be flexible to adjust from that plan sometimes. It's not. a rigid, inflexible plan. But I think, like, if you were to take three things that you want to practice, and for me, when I have this kind of time for something, I'll try to do it the night before,

even though you might be tired or whatever, see if you, or even the afternoon before, like, put that plan together with the three things. And just to give you a little bit of framework that may work for you. And, you know, beginner is one thing, but there's a lot of, even within that gradients of levels, but you might think about, you know, kind of technique and scales. as being, say, one of the things, working on a tune, like kind of repertoire, and then doing something ear training-wise. That could be your kind of three main areas. But you would pick kind of what your activity is going to be for each of those, like for the

scales it might be. Maybe you know half of your major scales, and you don't know the others, so you're going to work on, you know, the A-flat major scale for 15 minutes. Yeah. And, you know, but the plan would be a little bit more granular in terms of going to do it, hands together, you're going to do hands alone, two octaves, you know, the different ways to practice. So then you've got something to go on. Yeah, I think the plan that's super important. Write it down. Write it down the day before. Write it down before you sit down at the instrument.

Yeah. No matter what you do, no matter how you do this. I think that's a... Yeah, and then it becomes a nice kind of accountability thing for yourself. You're already in the routine, which is great of having the discipline of getting up and doing that and doing that. And if it's a good time for you to focus, and I would just say that. Like, sometimes, maybe you get to the point where you're doing that 45 minutes in the morning and you feel very and like have good energy. And then maybe like at the end of the day, you've got a little bit more time.

This happens for a lot of people if you're working or traveling or whatever. But maybe that's not a great time to be like focused regimen of practice. Maybe you just take 15 minutes before you go to bed to just play. You know, just kind of more free form

and let some of those things. And then you don't have to work that part into your morning practice. Yeah. You know, another way, Pierre, that you could approach this with your 45 minutes, which is like a really great time.

That's a really great time to not. knock out one idea too. And I often think about this sometimes where I'll be like, you know what, I have that one, those one voicing that I don't really have in all keys, that's what I'm doing for the next three days. Like I have 45 minutes, I have an hour every day.

Yeah. In the morning, I'm gonna just do that, like, I actually did this last week where I had these new sort of three note voices, voice leading ideas in my left hand. And I was like, all right, I'm tying my right hand behind the chair for these practice sessions. And I'm just, Because sometimes, you know, sometimes like you did you tie it?

I did not. But I, but mentally, mentally I did, you know what I mean? And it's like, I'm just getting this today. That's what I'm doing today. I'm getting this so that, you know, you're not going to get it, really. You're not, it doesn't mean you have to get it. But like, I'm only working on this. I'm focusing just on this thing.

And I love, so this concept, and we've talked about this before. And I've been preaching this for years, practicing it and preaching it. But I heard a great term the other day from someone that, that I think really applies so this discipline equals freedom. So this is like this very discipline, what we've called restrictive practice, discipline practice. Some people start to think, oh, I'm going to start playing in a regimented way or whatever,

but that's actually the opposite is true. When you practice discipline, that's going to open up freedom for your improvisation. That's going to lead so that later in the day, maybe when you've got that free form or on the gig or whatever, you're going to be able to really be able to play. I mean, it's not going to happen overnight, But the more of that, the more discipline practice you do, the more freedom you have to play.

Well, and the more discipline you are in scheduling out and preparing and writing out that list, then you're freeing your mind from feeling overwhelmed of like, you know, Pierre's problem here of like, I have so much to practice. Well, just give yourself three things to practice tomorrow and then don't worry about it. Then you're off the hook. You don't have to practice those other things you, quote, should be practicing. Yeah. You know what I mean?

And I like this idea of what you're saying of sometimes, maybe a way to do it, like sometimes when you're practicing just one thing for a day or two. you could look at, you know, it's that balance between it being regimented, but also, you know, listening to yourself and you want to do, you won't want to be like, well, I wanted to practice. I had this feeling that I could really get something out of practicing one thing, but Peter and Adam said, do three things. So maybe you do, but you do still want to have a plan. So maybe two or three days you practice the three things. And then you rotate to one day of just practicing one thing that you feel would be the most beneficial at that time. Yeah, I think that's a great, I mean, that's going to happen. and naturally we get bored with things and we... I'm bored. I'm bored and I want to do something else. But it is good to switch it up. It is definitely good to switch up. And what we talked about the other day

was in terms of self-awareness, that the more you can get in tune with that self-awareness of yourself as a player like strengths and weaknesses, that can start to dictate how you split up your time and make those decisions. But Pierre, I think the most important thing to take away from this is that this feeling

that you have of being overwhelmed, it's very common feeling. We all have it. Oh, my gosh. And it could be kind of crippling for some people, but give yourself the freedom to not practice everything all the time. Right. Give yourself that permission to not, like, feel like you have to do at all. You have time.

You know, you have, if you're committed to practice like you say you are, waking up early, that means you're probably in. Are you doubting him at all? You sound like you. No, no. Okay. I'm just trying to give him some affirmation. If you really are committed. You are committed because you're waking up.

So you obviously are in it for the long haul. So you have time. Focus on things that actually. make you better that need addressing right away and you know prioritize those and then go down the list well and the great thing about music but but what can be kind of a danger for you know us in our practice routines is that no matter what age you are if you're kind of a beginner as a pianist as a musician you sort of go back to being a child you know which is great and like that mindset can really help you with your development in an artistic endeavor

But the thing about it is that I totally forgot what I was going to say. I kind of zoned out there a little bit. Your mind went back to like a child. I did. I went to that childlike spirit. And then it's just, well, it's like a child. It's just like, oh, I really, oh, look, a balloon. Do you have Pokemon Go on your phone?

Oh, is Pokemon Go back again? Dude, my son is obsessed with Pokemon. Really? Man. I mean, he can talk about Pokemon for hours. Wow. At you. But not the cards.

They're not up on the cards anymore. He has all the cards. You can't even read yet. Well, those are hard words on there. Well, Pierre, thanks for the great question. This is definitely something, like I said, that everybody deals with, and it's feeling overwhelmed is easy to do because you feel like, oh, there's all this stuff.

We talk about all this different stuff all the time, but you have time, focus. You know, stay focused on the things that matter right now. Okay, I remember what I was going to say. So you've got the childlike mentality where you're kind of drifting around like I just was, right? What's on? Huh? Oh, sorry. That was good.

I was like, wow, I thought something was really happening. Yeah, but so what the part, and that's great because, like, that'll give you that inquisitiveness and that sense of discovery that's going to propel you for. Remember when you were a kid and you'd learn and you do, like your son with the Pokemon, you know, learning the names and everything. He does, he's not like, wow, I spent hours on this, you know, working at my discipline. No, he's just doing it because it's fun. Yeah. But if I could get him to get into, like, investing in stocks. Right.

Right. with his little mind like Pokemon, that would be great. But the thing about it is that what you don't have when you have that childlike kind of mentality is the vision to know three months down the road, six months. So then you want to put your adult mind back on. So to your point about you're spending that 45 minutes a day, you can relax and not worry about what you're not doing

because think about where you're going to be in three months. Think about where you're going to be in six months. You know, just like anything that you work on, if you get into gardening and you spend 45 minutes every morning, even if you're not doing all the right fertilizer, the right seeds or whatever, but you're in there learning and trying to do some of the good things

that you know to do. Your garden is going to flourish. It's going to grow eventually. And you might have rabbits like we do that come and eat it all because it flourishes so well, but we can't be responsible for that here at the you'll hear it podcast.

Well, that's a good point. I'd like to thank your childlike brain for coming up with that. Yeah, thank you. Can I get something? Can I get an ice cream cone now, daddy? No, but you can get a t-shirt and you'll hear it.

I want a t-shirt. I want a t-shirt. How's you like that? Transition. I want it. I want to want to want to. I'm a bratty kid. I'm going to make a,

I'm going to make a gif of this. A gift. What's a gift, Daddy? I've become a little angry, like little Chuckie. I know. Chuckie clown kid. I might have a third edit of the podcast for this. No edits.

Hashtag no edit. Hashtag no edit. Lou Donaldson. Was it blue. Yeah. So you go to you'll hear.com. You can get a t-shirt. You can get a t-shirt.

You can. say what's up. You can ask us a question. You can leave us a voicemail. You can go to iTunes, podcast, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and leave us a rating and review. I don't want to overstate it,

but you'll hear it. You'll hear it. You'll hear it. Wouldn't you say that's a way to... I would say that's overstating. Oh, sorry. Okay. No, it actually is. There's a lot of people hanging out there.

It's virtually a meeting place. No, there are people hanging out there asking questions and we're in there sometimes to answer questions. So go there and we have a little redesign. We got a new logo. How do you feel about the new logo? It's on the new t-shirt. I like the new logo.

shout out to Dan and I think Clara helped with that too. That's right. Shout out to Dan and Clara for the new movement. Thank you for that. So yeah, until tomorrow, you'll hear it.