| LearnJazzPiano.com archives: what are you practicing? | |
| tomwrush -- 03/07/2005, 20:11:59 -- #11747 | |
| Hi all- Just curious what you guys practice. For me it's something like this (no specific order) bebop heads currently: moose the mooche, oleo (pat martino, joey d modal version) standard tune: yesterdays transcribing: whoever I want to steal from today... taking licks or melodic concepts off records and working/reworking through different harmonies/progressions/time feels. voicings: been practicing minor 9, dom 9, dom7+9, dom b9, dom7+5, dom7b9b13 maj9, min7b5b9. run these voicings in tunes... sight reading: 30-45 min ear training 30-45 min technical finger strength drills:30-45 min -tom | |
| lutonomy -- 03/08/2005, 02:01:25 -- #11754 | |
| One thing I really enjoy practicing, which is also very challenging, is rhythmic displacement. By taking your usual licks and phrases and being able to start them on any beat or any subdivision really adds a lot of depth to one's playing. Also good for doing the Herbie Hancock/Kenny Werner-esque thing of right hand playing a line that starts "late" so it catches up to the changes later than expected, after the left has already moved on to the next changes, creating some nice tension. I also work on walking a bass line in my left while my right plays a bebop head a beat "off", or two or three, etc from where it normally starts. Brain frying at first, but very fun and rewarding as well. | |
| Jazz+ -- 03/08/2005, 02:42:57 -- #11755 | |
| Superimposing "ahead" of the chord change is what they are generally doing ratherthan "late" after the chord changes. | |
| Paul -- 03/08/2005, 09:12:09 -- #11765 | |
| Tom, I'm just curious about what kind of things you do for ear training. Also do you cover all areas you mentioned in one day or does your practice rountine vary day to day? How long do you practice per day? Thanks! Paul | |
| lutonomy -- 03/08/2005, 15:08:07 -- #11778 | |
| Jazz+, "Ahead" is a more commonly used device, sure, but I lately am finding "late" to be more interesting. I've also heard Kenny Werner play entire choruses in two keys (not that he's the only one to do this, but the only one I've heard live do it), where the LH plays the regular changes and the RH is also playing the regular changes, but a half step up. It interesting because it doesn't sound like bi-tonality somehow. I haven't practiced it really, but it's another worthwhile exercise I think. | |
| tomwrush -- 03/08/2005, 19:35:08 -- #11790 | |
| Hey, thanks for the feedback. Luto, that's some interesting stuff. I hope to get to the point where I will be working on that stuff someday, but now it's just learning the basic language, and learning how to make it work. Paul- I use to do practice chord scales by playing voicings/scales/voicings/arpeggios/voicings. that seems to get the sounds going. Now I practice singing intervals in melodies over bassnotes through all twelve keys. Oh and of course listening to music is a regular thing that I need to do all the time. I generally cover all of this everyday. I don't spend too much time (more than an hour) on each item everyday, unless. But, I do practice these areas everyday (except saturdays, that's my rest day). I find it's better to practice things everyday than to practice sporadically. Things seem to gel better and become internalized that way. On average I do 6-8 hours. But it's always broken up into 3-4 sessions ie: technique, melodic language/transcription, tunes, harmonies. Oh and of course, since music=life I look for ways to apply everything from my life to playing/practicing. | |
| Mike -- 03/09/2005, 00:21:41 -- #11795 | |
| Alls I work on these days is my own compositions, Playing them, recording them, arranging them, composing them. Now that I am doing this it is pretty hard to imagine just why it is that I ever worked on anything else. | |
| lutonomy -- 03/09/2005, 02:19:27 -- #11799 | |
| You worked on the other stuff so you could get to the point where you're doing your own. ;-) | |
| Officer Mike -- 03/11/2005, 05:26:10 -- #11847 | |
| true | |
| Kai -- 03/18/2005, 02:37:35 -- #12035 | |
| IMHO 'late' is interesting to me as a pianist but it seems from comping with a single line instrument that they very much prefer 'ahead' - I guess 'cos they know where it's going. This is at the amateur stage tho' :) | |
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