Staying motivated!
what do you do when you think/feel your progress has flat-lined for a while? listen to great records? plunk away on the piano anyway? find a good teacher or watch someone else much better than yourself....
certainly, different things work for different people. just wondering what some of you have a done to stay inspired, and reached your impressive levels of proficiency.
any jazz oriented motivating resources out there on the web will also appreciated.
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a. take a break from practicing for a few days or a week.
b. take a break from what i have been practicing and look at something competely different.
it's always good to give your brain a rest on a particular subject. if you feel like the whole thing has flatlined, then it might be time to take a small break. this is not an excuse to take a break all of the time. once in a while it's needed, though. your brain can do a lot of improving away from the instrument. for instance, the other morning i learned this james p. johnson tune and played it at a gig later that night. it went alright, but, i definitely needed to do some work on it. well, i actually didn't play the thing for like 3 days after that. when i came to play it, it was tons better. i think this is due to the fact that my brain had time to process the information. i know nothing about neuroscience, but it seems logical that this would occur.
i think in general practice, it is good to rotate what you cover. so, monday, you shed voice leading. tuesday you transcribe. wednesday you work on octave lines. thursday back to voice leading. friday transcription.....etc. of course..........i tend to transcribe everyday, but with everything else, i rotate. this helps keep me motivated, and maybe it will work for you.
there are definitey exercises well worth working on. i for example really like w-i-d-e (over one octave) voicings in the same hand. they sound so neato.
bb7 = ab,d,g,bb or ab, d, bb or ab,d,c,g,bb
or, combined with the lh, you could have, for f7:
lh: f, eb, a rh: eb, ab, d, f
" " " rh: eb, ab, b, d, f
" " " rh: eb, a, b, d, f
in these individual examples the lh could be 1 7 3. you'll notice the voicing in the first three examples is a m6 & a tritone.
here's one i like...lh. g c e a rh. d g b e
(5 1 3 6) (9 5 m7 3)
of course both hands don't have to be wide.
that got me re-energized!
what do you do when you think/feel your progress has flat-lined for a while? listen to great records? plunk away on the piano anyway? find a good teacher or watch someone else much better than yourself....
certainly, different things work for different people. just wondering what some of you have a done to stay inspired, and reached your impressive levels of proficiency.
any jazz oriented motivating resources out there on the web will also appreciated.
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Volume 1 of this educational jazz piano book contains 15 jazz piano exercises, tricks, and other interesting jazz piano techniques, voicings, grooves, and ideas Scot Ranney enjoys playing.
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