Greetings Fellow Jazzer! Welcome to
The Mindful Music Manifesto! In this manifesto, I‟m going to share with you what is probably the most important lesson I‟ve ever learned about playing, practicing and learning jazz. Hands down. This lesson is what allows you to find your musical voice. Your „sound‟. It‟s what connects you to your instrument. instr ument. And lets the music just flow through you and out of you.
It’s what makes it possible to play to play what you hear . And, hey. At the end of the day, it‟s what makes music FUN. Now, you know as well as I do, that learning to play jazz is a pretty complex process. (To say the least.) But the lesson that I‟m going to share with you is about as close to the „ secret to playing jazz‟ jazz‟ as as I think exists. I didn‟t invent it, come up with it or figure it out. I learned it by searching . By looking for it. And by slowly putting the pieces together. For about the last two decades. But when I finally made this connection it literally turned my playing around in a matter of weeks. That was after 20+ years of getting my butt kicked by the music. I‟m willing to bet that you know exactly what I mean about getting your butt kicked by jazz. Chances are that you and I have that in common. We‟ve probably had the same obstacles, struggles – made the same fricking mistakes. In fact I know it. All the comments, emails and hundreds of surveys that cats have filled out for me proves it. And I know that most of my readers, and probably you too, have been playing for a while now. And struggling for a while. Struggling to sound good. Struggling to get better. Struggling to play fluidly and fluently. Struggling to even have fun with music anymore. 2|Page
Look we all want to play well. Right?
We all want respect from the other cats on the scene. We all want to be one of those cats…and kill it on the band stand. Fly High with our music. Get in that zone. I mean who doesn‟t want that? Let me ask you a question. Have you ever seen some punk kid play his ass off – the music just seems to effortlessly flow outta him? And you thought to yourself “Jeeze this kid can play! I‟ve been playing probably 5 or 10 years longer than this cat. What the hell?! Is he just more talented than I am? Do I even have what it takes? Why does my playing still kinda suck? ” I used to see cats like that at gigs and jam sessions here in Boston and think “Man…I‟m almost 30, this kid is like 20 and he‟s kicking my ass”. This is not fair. I work hard. I do what I‟m supposed to do. I mean what the hell, man?! (There‟s a pretty simple solution to this problem. You still gotta put in some work on your axe, of course . But there‟s a better way. I‟ll get to that.) So, by now you might know my slant on things. I love SOME of my teachers. Like, studying with Hal Crook was life changing for me. So were all those master classes with Kenney Werner. But a lot of „em really suck, in my humble opinion. Sorry. No offense intended. Most teachers are good people. They just end up perpetuating the problems we all face. You see all these methods, pattern books, classes, lessons, chord scale B.S., exercises, theory, etc, etc, etc…doesn‟t mean squat if you don‟t have the one key principle in place. The weird part is that barely anyone ever talks about it or teaches it. In fact most teachers unknowingly push their students further and further away from playing „real music‟. And they help create a gaping hole in the students musicality. Honestly that‟s what my entire teaching program is all about – filling in those gaping holes that exist in jazz and music education.
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I‟ve been playing since I was about 15. I took the method book, patte rn book, exercise book, private teacher route. For like 20 years. My practicing was disciplined, structured, complicated and hard work for long hours. Because that‟s how I thought learning music was s upposed to be. I guess too many years in public school conditioned me to believe that learning was supposed be a drag;-) But, for all that hard work and suffering in the practice room I could never play music the way I wanted to. I always struggled. And I would meet some cat who never practiced and just played along with records and he would play circles around me. Sure, I got some physical, mechanical chops together. I got some gigs. I could play real fast sometimes. And I even got some gigs with a few of my heroes, professors and some of the local badasses here in Boston. But my music was never connected. It was never flowing or easy. I always had to THINK on stage. I would have to think just to hang on, to keep my place in the tune. I would have to think about what to play next. It was hard work and it was nerveracking. And most often I would leave a session or gig with mixed feelings at best and feeling downright crappy at worst. I would work for hours and hours on technical things in the shed, get up on the bandstand and wonder… Why Why Why Why Why
I couldn‟t play anything… my chops would freeze up… I would sound jerky and un-flowing… I would get lost… I didn‟t know what to play…
It‟s because I was playing mechanically and intellectually. And that‟s not what music is. I never learned how to tap into that part of my brain where music actually comes from. And I never learned how to let go – because I didn‟t have the musical resources in place to do it.
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That‟s not how Miles played. That‟s not how Lester Young played. That‟s not how Ornette plays. Now here’s the big secret. It‟s super simple. The really powerful lessons always are. Here it is:
If you can hear it…you can play it. And conversely – if you can’t hear it, you can’t play it. So if you‟re busy thinking about where you are in the form, what scale to use on the next chord, what super hip lick you should pull out of your bag of tricks, what wacky polyrhythm you should play to impress your friends… …Or you‟re trying to figure out what to play next , what harmonic avoid tones you need to watch out for, or you‟re trying to remember that Bird lick you transcribed…forget it. You’re too late. You’re already lost. And you will never connect with your instrument, the band, the audience or the creative spirit. And on a more earthly level, you‟ll never sound like the badass cat you want to. Or get the respect.
Music is the art form of the ear. Plain and simple. The great piano player and educator Ran Blake has a book whose title is perfect, it sums it all up - it‟s called “The Primacy of the Ear” . Get that book. I‟m fortunate enough to have known Ran for a few years now and to have played and gigged with many of his students. He used to come out to my gigs when I was playing with the band Gypsy Schaeffer. Quirky cat. But really sweet, super heavy and deep. And knowing Ran and reading his book changed my playing. 5|Page
Now, this all might sound too simple. Honestly it IS simple. And in next few pages I‟m gonna share with you a method you can use to sharpen those ears, feed your musical memory, get those creative juices flowing. And I‟ll show you how to practice in a way that gets you connected to your instrument. So the music flows. I‟ d like to tell you a quick story that‟ll really help make things clear. The first time I ever actually came upon this idea – if you can hear it you can play it – was not in music school, not from my music teachers or from my fellow musicians. It came from a drawing class. Yup. Drawing. About 10 years ago or so I took a drawing class at the local Cambridge Center for Continuing Education. I always wanted to learn to draw. And I figured there must be some special techniques and methods and all that. Just like I thought about music. So I took this class. I showed up the first day. There were a bunch of easels set up in a circle around a table that had 5 or 6 tennis ball on it. There were no desks to sit at, but I took out my notebook and was all ready to start taking notes and writing down all these cool drawing techniques I was about to learn. But there was no lecture and no lesson plan. The teacher had us take out our big drawing pads, put „em up on an easel, take out our charcoal and start drawing these tennis balls. I thought to myself, wait a minute. I don‟t even know the right way to hold the charcoal. I can‟t just start drawing tennis balls. First, I wanted to know all the different types of strokes I could make, all the different effects to draw. I wanted to know the techniques, the theory. Surely there must technique! The teacher just said “If you can see it, you can draw it.” And so we practiced looking and drawing, looking and drawing. There were no lectures, no lessons, no assignments, no nothing. We just looked and drew. The teacher would make his rounds throughout the class. He‟d look at our work, compare it to the model. He‟d ask us questions to get us to expand our awareness…to see for ourselves where we were off or where we were on. 6|Page
Then he would move on to the next student. And we would just continue look and draw. Look and draw. The next week we‟d come back and the model would be slightly more complicated. Another ball was added. Maybe an empty can or a small box. Again we would just draw. No lesson, no lecture, no technique, no exercises. Just drawing. Looking and drawing. I‟ll tell you. Being a cat who was always on a quest to figure out what the hell I was doing wrong with music, always trying to figure out how to become the player I wanted to be, a huge giant light bulb lit up over my head. I quickly made the connection: Look and draw…look and draw…process, process, process…figure it out and learn through the process . No technique, no theory, no B.S. Just look and draw. If I could see it, I could figure out how to draw it. Through practice and process. That translates quite nicely into: listen and play…listen and play…process, process, process. If I could hear it, I could play it. Now, here‟s the thing. The more you look and draw the more you sharpen your eye, and the more you connect that eye to your body and to your paper. You start by seeing relationships of line and shape and then light and dark, with more and more detail and accuracy as you go. Then you start to see beauty, emotion, elegance. Then you start to bring that out through your hand and charcoal onto the page. Over time you also feed your imagination, your inner eye, your memory and your creativity. Eventually you can create and draw from the picture in your mind‟s eye and the more you can bring your own personality to the work on the page, even if you are drawing from a model. In music the process looks like this: Listen and play. Listen. Play. Your ears sharpen greatly with this process. Much more significantly than if you’re reading dots on a page and working out math on your axe. 7|Page
As you listen more deeply, you commit more and more music to your musical memory. Your aural imagination strengthens. Your ears get stronger and the connection to your instrument becomes more and more natural. So that eventually, in more and more musical situations, you can forget about thinking, forget about the theory, the scales, the ideas – and just listen and play, connected to your body, your personality shining through.
You begin to tap into and trust your own musical intuition, and your own creator, your own muse. Now, don‟t mistake this for meaning that there is no place for theory, scales , technique and all that stuff. There is. But it should ONLY serve to deepen your aural awareness and your aural imagination and your physical and spiritual connection to your instrument. In fact you and your ears are the instrument. Your piano, or guitar or sax, trumpet, drums, whatever, that‟s just a machine, a device. That‟s the charcoal. It‟s not the art, or the feeling or the music. I wish I could say that after this class my music changed forever. But alas. I fell right back into my same old patterns and kept going with the technique, the theory, the mechanical, technical workouts. But when I finally realized that it comes down to process – to hearing and playing – whether starting with a record, starting with my own improvisation or starting with a pattern off a page, but realizing that it‟s about hearing and playing, and practicing that, that‟s when my music changed for good. And that‟s when it became fun again. If and when you do this in your practice room, and get your ears primed and your aural imagination going strong you will never want to go back to the old way - thinking about what to play, instead of letting your ear guide you. The way most students approach jazz is like a kid’s connect the dots puzzle or a color by number coloring book. Just plug the right scale over the right chord and your playing jazz right? Wrong. 8|Page
Those kinds of educational approaches to learning were born in academia not at some late night jam session in New York in 1942, I assure you. They might be helpful for some cats to get started, but in the end they amount to a crutch and a half-ass short cut. It’s all about the ear and melody. Whether you play drums, sax, piano or guitar it doesn‟t matter. Now, look you might be wondering who the hell are you, Chris, why should I listen to you rant about your ears. Truth is, I‟m not a world famous jazz musician. (Yet;-) But I have gotten to play with a lot great cats here in Boston. And after years of struggle, and doubt, a little sprinkle of depression now and then and all the neurotic music school B.S… …I finally truly love to play again. And I finally truly know what it means to improvise and to play what I hear, to play my thing. And the cats I play with seem to dig it too. So it‟s pretty cool. I‟ve been around the Boston jazz scene for a long time – just about 20 years now. I‟ve met hundreds of teachers, players and students. And thousands of people have joined and taken my courses on line. And, over the past few years I‟ve received hundreds and hundreds of emails, comments and questions. And you know, one of the single biggest issues that cats deal with and that I get questions about all the time is this:
How do I play what I hear? Well I‟ll tell you, struggle as they may, cats that are asking that question are on the right track. I think most us kind of intuitively know that it‟s about hearing. We‟ve got something going on in our inner ear, our imagination, we hear something. The problem is it‟s vague, fuzzy and quiet. It‟s not reliable. And it comes out vague and fuzzy at best. 9|Page
So let‟s amend the musician‟s mantra slightly, shall we.
If you can hear it LOUD and CLEAR, you can play it. Now many of us learn to play music in a similar fashion. We learn the information first, then we try to put it to our axe. We often deal with paper, theory, even math. Those things can be and are an important and necessary part of learning to play. But at the end of the day this is a language. And we don‟t learn to speak by reading a book. We learn by listening and imitating first. We need to learn to make sounds, then words, then phrases and then practice putting them into sentences that communicate. It‟s very similar for music. That needs to take place in the ear, the aural imagination - connected with our body through our practice process – a process that takes place at the stereo, in the shed, and on the bandstand. I think it was Chick Corea who put it this way – only play what you hear…if you don’t hear anything, don’t play anything. When I first came across that Chick Corea quote back in my Berklee days I didn‟t really know what to do with it. I was up to my ass in practice topics, exercises, method books, homework and other academic stuff. I had 6 + hour practice routines – mindless repetition of technical exercises. I thought that learning to play jazz meant hours and hours of repetition, struggle and pain in the practice room. I read somewhere that Trane practiced 8, 10 or more hours a day. So I naturally concluded that it was all about putting in the hours, paying my dues and being a good little struggling jazz musician. Now, mindful repetition in the name of creating excellent habit, feeding the aural imagination and connecting with your instrument IS a good thing. And hours of this kind of quality practice do work for some areas of our musicianship. Don‟t misunderstand me.
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But the kind of mindless repetition and almost gymnastic physical practice that many cats do is probably like 75 or 80 percent a waste of time. It‟s like running on the hamster wheel. Like, don‟t practice scales in front of the T.V. for instance. Bad idea. It’s all about hearing melody in your mind, loud and clear, responding to the cats on the bandstand, to what you just played and to the vibe in the room with that sound in your imagination. Melody is how we connect. Melody is what we give our band mates to respond to and hook onto. Melody is what we touch our audience with. Another old saying in the world of jazz is let the melody be your guide. That‟s why it‟s so important to internalize lots and lots of great melodies and melodic phrases and build up that melodic vocabulary. In fact that‟s one important way that jazz improvisation developed. Old timers playing tunes at the gig every day, tunes that they learned by ear, and improvising on them – playing simple variations, embellishments and making the melodies their own. After you learn enough great tunes you start to build a vocabulary of melodies that you can use to build solos. You develop a voice, a sound. And having learned these masterful melodies you intuitively absorb the sort of rules of melodic construction. Now, let‟s use the language analogy again. You could say that music theory is similar to grammar and the so called rules of a language. When you talk to your friends are you concerned with subject-verb agreement, choosing the most hip adjective or making sure to avoid using a dangling participle? If you are, I bet you‟re not very fun to hang out with. We study that stuff in school, after we already know how to speak mind you, so that we can understand the art of writing and so that we can practice and improve our ability to communicate. But we want to get past it, forget the rules and just write and speak - by ear really. It‟s what sounds „right‟ when you say it or write it. It‟s an intuiti ve thing.
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It’s the same with jazz. But a huge part of learning those rules comes from immersion. From hearing and absorbing them. That‟s why it‟s important to learn vocabulary by ear. Then you can analyze it, put some theory to it to help expand the possibilities. You will find that the music you play the best is the music that you have truly internalized to the point where you don‟t have to think, you can just play and use your vocabulary, by ear, to express yourself. What happens to most of us is something like this: Some fantastic, creative monster musicians came before us, developed a wonderful vocabulary and played some sick, truly original stuff. We heard it, felt it and these cats became our heroes. We took lessons or classes or bought DVDs and method books. These books, written by theorists of sorts, taught us abstract concepts that supposedly were at the heart of these great players and their music. So we started shedding some of these concepts. Then, so we thought, if we just used these things at the right time – in other words the right scale on the right chord, or the right abstract idea like motive development or whatever – if we used these concepts too we would be playing real jazz. Good jazz. But then when we play, something doesn‟t sound or feel quite right, it doesn‟t connect, it‟s just kinda off. This is music produced by the thinking mind. This is the music of a player whose musical intellect is farther ahead then his or her ear. For many of us the gap between the intellect and the ear gets wider and wider as we learn more technique, theory and practice more stuff. The solution is to practice in a way that feeds and develops that aural imagination and your musical vocabulary.
Everything we do in the shed must aim at our inner process and our ears. 12 | P a g e
When we go to the gig we forget all the crap we‟ve been practicing and we play by ear. If we don‟t hear it we don‟t play it. Miles Davis, apparently, used to literally take his horn away from his mouth if he wasn‟t hearing anything. Then he would just wait for it. He wouldn‟t play until he heard something great. That takes courage and the trust that something will come to you. But through the right daily practice we can all get there. Now, when we get our butt kicked at a session or at a gig, it‟s because that context be it a tune, or a meter or a key, a form or a tempo - has not been thoroughly internalized by our aural imagination and our body. The two are connected. Therefore, the best course of action is to be objective at the gig when that happens. And say to yourself, okay, I choked during that tune in 5/4. I really had to work hard and even count to keep my place. And I just couldn‟t really play anything at all. So I‟m going to go put 5/4 under the microscope in the practice room, find some great recordings and start building a vocabulary in 5 and start internalizing the time. Then I‟ll practice letting go while playing in 5 and see where I‟m at. I‟ll record and critique myself and make adjustments accordingly. Okay, I think by now you get my point about the ear, the imagination and internalization. Now, I’m going to give you the exact process I personally use in the shed. This is not the only way to practice by any means. You can continue working on the all the other stuff you‟re practicing. Just add in this process for awhile and see what happens. Trust me though, you‟ll like the results. Learning and internalizing vocabulary from the tradition is absolutely necessary to play jazz. And I‟m going to present a process for that. You can adapt this to internalize anything musical.
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Copping Jazz Vocabulary Step 1 is to start with the vocabulary you want to internalize. You‟ll want to choose vocabulary that fits in to your current musical direction and goals. So let‟s just say that you are trying to lay down some roots in your playing, get some deep tradition. And you love Louis Armstrong. Who doesn‟t, right? And whether or not you play trumpet you can grab vocabulary from Louis or any player. In fact you should learn from ALL your favorite players – especially the founders of the music. Okay, so find a Louis Armstrong recording that you really dig and find a phrase or line or melody that really hits you. I would start by choosing a smaller piece to work on – maybe just a bar or two to start. Once you have that phrase picked out the next step is to simply listen to it many times. Get very familiar with it. Look for details as you listen – details about the rhythm, the articulation, the dynamics, the vibe - how long is it, what is the melodic shape, anything you can hear. You want to listen to it until you are completely familiar with it. Let it really seep in to your ears. This process may span over a few days. Take your time. Going slowly and patiently and really letting the music soak in and internalize is actually the fasted way to improve. Rushing through your practice is nothing more than shooting yourself in the foot. Step 3 is to sing along with the recording . Sing and listen…listen and sing, until you can easily sing along and match as much of the detail in Louis‟ playing, as you can hear, without thinking about it. Step 4 is inner hearing. Let the melody play in your mind‟s ear. As you practice inner hearing this melody many times bring more and more detail and clarity to it. You can refer back to the recording as needed. Do this step until you can hear the melody as loud and clear as possible in your aural imagination. You‟re basically purposefully imprinting this melody into your brain, and into that creative wellspring - your aural imagination. Once you can hear the phrase loud and clear in your inner ear step 5 is to practice singing the melody without the recording. Remember, if you can‟t sing it, you can‟t play it. 14 | P a g e
Don‟t worry about your singing chops. We‟re not trying to be the next Frank Sinatra here. We‟re just trying to get connected to the music. Go slow. Go piece by piece if you need to. And go back and forth between the first 3 steps as needed. The key here is to do this process until the melody is ingrained in your ear and you can easily internally hear it and sing it out loud the way you can with a tune like happy birthday. Once you‟ve reached this stage you‟ve already done a wonderful thing for y our music. If you did this every week with a new phrase your playing would be dramatically affected after a few short weeks. Step 6: Now it’s the time get your instrument out and start purposefully connecting the sound to our instrument. Eventually, we want to be able to just jump right to playing the new vocabulary. But at first you may have to pick the melody notes out 1 by 1. Once you figure out the melody, you practice it until you own it, until it plays itself. Again you can go back and forth between listening, singing, hearing and playing as needed. Step 7: Next we want to mentally rehearse it. We want to exercise that imagination while connecting the sound and the body and the instrument. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and relax. Now, imagine yourself playing the phrase. In your imagination, hear the melody in as much detail as possible, LOUD and CLEAR. See your hands and body executing the line. See and feel your instrument. Feel it in your fingers, breath, body. Experience playing the phrase, with your whole body and all of your senses in your imagination. See and hear yourself playing it beautifully. Imagine what it feels like to play it easily and effortlessly. Imagine the sound. Imagine a wonderful relaxed posture. Imagine feeling confident and having the music just flow out of you. You can even picture yourself playing masterfully on a stage in front of an audience, feeling good, having a blast. Create an ideal in your imagination.
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Not only is this going to help you achieve mastery over this one phrase. Not only is this going to help strengthen your ear-body-instrument connection. It‟s going to feed your creative wellspring. It‟s going to develop your aural imagination. And it‟s going to set you up to experience this on the bandstand. And as you get better and better at this you‟ll begin to move more quickly through those in-between steps. And go straight from listening to assimilation and mental rehearsal. Then you‟ll be able to add desired musical elements & vocabulary to your playing at will. You‟ll be able to practice music anywhere. And you‟ll have a super strong and natural connection between your ears and your body. And soon you will never want to play anything that you can‟t hear again. Seriously, try this out. It’s super powerful. Many of the greatest minds in history in all fields have used mental practice and process to take their craft to unprecedented heights. From da Vinci to Paganini to Tesla, to Rubenstein, Mozart and even Einstein. And it WILL work for you. Just be sure to choose music that is challenging but doable. And take your time…enjoy the journey.
If you can hear it you can play it. So now we‟ve talked about how music must come from that inner process, that aural imagination. And when it does, when the sound is really internalized, playing becomes easy, fun and flowing. When that internalization is there and the connection to the instrument is st rong that‟s when cats sound great. That’s when cats turn heads on the bandstand…without even trying. The bad news is that very few players these days really make that connection. With the very theory and information heavy music education world most cats are doing little more than a live version of guitar hero or Beatles Rock Band. 16 | P a g e
If you‟re familiar with those video games, you know they‟re fun as hell but they have nothing to do with hearing and playing music. It‟s about pushing the right buttons at the right time. The good news is that anyone at anytime at any age can start building that inner process, making that mind-body-instrument connection and start playing music in a way that is truly personal, joyous and natural. Using mental practice & rehearsal along with the right strategies it‟s possible for anyone to start feeding and tapping into their musical mind and start playing what they hear. And it doesn‟t matter if you‟ve been playing a long time and have developed bad habits or never got that inner process happening. But when I finally discovered and began to use these things we‟ve been talking about my music was never the same. It got easier to play. My playing became consistent, flexible and flowing. I also discovered the joy of letting go on stage. Some cats think that letting go is a magical process. That somehow the top players just have the courage to let go and great music comes to them through divine intervention. The reason they can quote-unquote „let go‟ , is because the music they are playing and improvising on is completely internalized. They‟ve prepared. They‟ve got music just running through their head. Loud and clear. Anchoring them, supporting them and they are able to let their musical instincts guide them. If the music isn‟t strong in your head - your inner ear it‟s like walking on egg shells. It‟s uncomfortable, labored and at any moment you could fall apart.
Now you’ve got a process to internalize music and musical vocabulary. Let‟s talk about what to do next with that vocabulary and how to get that inner process cooking. 1. You‟ve picked a piece of musical vocabulary to learn - a short Louis Armstrong phrase. 2. You‟ve listened to it many times and let it start to sink in. 3. You‟ve practiced singing along with the recording. 4. You‟ve practiced inner hearing the phrase using mental practice.
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5. Then you practiced singing it without the recording because, as the old time cats used to say, if you can‟t sing it you can‟t play it. 6. You found the line on your instrument and practiced it until you owned it. 7. And then you used full on mental rehearsal to practice hearing, seeing, feeling and experiencing playing the melody. I want to emphasize here that this is just one application of this process. You can use mental rehearsal for literally anything and in many different ways. You can mix these steps up and even jump straight from listening to mental rehearsal. In fact once you‟ve got a strong connection with your instrument that‟s naturally what‟s going to happen. You‟ll hear recordings and just immediately hear and see it on your instrument without ever even having to play it. Once you‟ve got that connection established listening to records is effectively like fueling your creativity. You‟ll more quickly absorb musical ideas and vocabulary into your long term musical memory. And the stronger and deeper the musical memory the deeper and more connected your playing becomes. Okay, so now you have that 1 phrase internalized. What‟s next? You could simply move on to the next phrase. Or perhaps learn the entire solo phrase by phrase in this same fashion. That of course would teach your ears a thing or two about building solo and telling a musical story. But let me also give you a few different ways to start using this phrase. One. Play around with it. Experiment with it. Play with the rhythm. Take some notes out. Invert it. Play it backwards. Augment the rhythms. Add some embellishments. Think of the phrase as source material for free improvisation. Stay close to the phrase at first. Altering just a note or two. And gradually take more liberty. You are literally just playing around, seeing what you can find. You could call it creative exploration. Let your ear and your own musical taste be your guide. A lot of the ideas you find won‟t be keepers. Maybe even most of what you find. That‟s part of the process. But when you do find something really cool, you want to add it to your musical memory, your vocabulary. So you practice playing these new variations until you own them. Then you practice inner hearing. 18 | P a g e
One thing that is helpful is to record this kind of work from time to time. Listen back and pull out the stuff that you really dig and purposefully add it to your vocabulary using mental rehearsal. Okay #2. Practice applying the phrase in a solo. In other words practice applying and using the vocabulary. This is for the practice room, not the bandstand mind you. For instance, if you‟ve grabbed a Two Five lick from Louis, practice applying it to a solo over a tune. You could decide to plug it in to every 2-5 that happens or just one or two that you decide ahead of time. Remember, it’s completely okay to be intellectual with music . To be mathematical even. To make little musical puzzles for self. You just need to move past it and really assimilate what you’re workin g on into your aural imagination, musical memory and connect it with your body. Because on the bandstand you don‟t want to be thinking. Or at least as little as possible. #3 Of course it would also be a great idea to take the phrase into a few different keys. Applying it to a tune that has Two Five‟s in several keys would be a great idea as well. Okay that‟s a few ideas for you to apply your new language. But use your imagination. It‟s your phrase now. Do with it as you will! Let‟s talk about a few advanced applications of mental rehearsal. Practice hearing chords and voicings. Find a musical example that you really dig - that you can actually wrap your ears around - of a pianist or a guitarist comping through some changes. Choose a short phrase and go through the same process. Listening many times until the different notes become clear to your ears and until it sinks in. You obviously can‟t sing a chord, but you could sing part of it if it makes sense, like one voice – the top note, bass note, 3rds, 7ths. Or you can skip the singing step for this. And just listen many, many times until you can hear it in your mind‟s ear. Then find it on your instrument. Then practice until you own it. Then use mental rehearsal to really solidify it. Then make it your own, experiment with it.
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If you have a hard time hearing chords and voicings you could start with theory and use a similar process. So you take some standard voicings you have learned – say shell voicings or something like that. And you play a simple Two Five voicing that you have practiced. And record it. Now practice listening to it, and repeat the process with that. Get it into your mind‟s ear. In fact you could do that with anything you learned from written music. You don‟t even necessarily need to record it. Y ou could play it many times and listen closely. Play it slowly and until you don‟t have to think about it at all and you can put more and more attention on listening to what you‟re playing, hearing all the detail you can. The limits are endless. The key is to always focus on developing your ears and your aural imagination. And to always remember to take time to apply the new found vocabulary, to practice using it. It‟s also important to practice playing with other people. Sessions and later gigs are a huge part of the learning process. That‟s akin to using and applying new spoken language in the real world. For instance, if you were learning Spanish you might learn a new phrase in Spanish in a class or from a CD program. Then you practice using the phrase with your classmates, spouse, friends, etc. Then you practice using it in context, in a Spanish speaking country to order a coffee or ask where the train station is. Through this process and other immersive activities like watching Spanish T.V. reading Spanish books and magazines and writing simple notes and letters in Spanish you gradually become fluent, the language becomes real for you through applied practice. It‟s the same with jazz. But, the name of the game and the crucial step is internalization. And mental rehearsal is probably the most powerful thing we have at our disposal to that end. Well, I‟ll tell you, it‟s been truly awesome getting this info down on „paper‟ for ya . When I was learning to play no one ever taught me this stuff. I was just taught from books and methods – techniques and exercises, repetition and rote playing.
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That can be a useful way to learn in the beginning. It‟s a way to get some chops and learn some instrumental basics. The problem is that so many of us just assume that‟s how you do it forever. We continue to practice and study the same way we did when we first started out. And a lot of cats never get past that push-the-right-button-at-the-right-time- while-counting-out-loud approach to playing. I do feel blessed and fortunate that I was able to eventually figure how it really works and discover what I was doing wrong. Most importantly, so I could regain my love of music. And that‟s exactly why I decided to put this short book together and why I created my online course “The Mindful Music Method” . It‟s an amazing thing to watch a student make the right connections and have those light bulb moments when the process starts to make sense and click. This can be a serious turning point for many cats. In The Mindful Music Method I dig into the world of mindful mental practice and lay out what it is, why it works and exactly HOW to use it to get dramatic results with your playing. Mastering the art of mental practice will allow you to connect to your own musical voice and let your personality shine through. It will allow you develop a strong inner musical guide so you can easily internalize the music that important to you.
As that inner ear strengthens you can begin to let your ear be your guide and start to truly improvise and communicate with music. It‟s not really the point, but as an added bonus when that connection happens you start to sound better and better. You start to play some serious music on the bandstand and at the session. That’s when you start getting the respect you want as a player. That‟s when the other cats give you that approving nod that says you just played your ass off. That‟s when you start to be one of the so called cats. Pretty cool stuff.
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But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The really cool part is feeling great when you play, playing with joy and ease - getting back in touch with that spark of excitement you felt the first time you heard Charlie Parker, or went to your first live concert, got your first instrument or whatever your first truly inspired musical memories were.
The Mindful Music Method. Now the Mindful Music Method is an online video course. The lessons are presented in 6 Modules and clock in at over 4 hours of mindful music content. I had an amazing time making it because it‟s probably the most important thing I could ever offer my fellow musicians. To help musicians get ever closer to their musical potential and help save them some of the frustration I experienced is what my teaching is all about. That‟s why I do this. I have personally experienced the profound affects that these methods can have on your playing. I know I will never go back to the old way of practice and learning. I love music again. I love to play. And I‟d love to share that gift with you. Because music truly is a gift when it’s coming from that place . And if it‟s good enough for Mozart and countless other great creators throughout history it‟s good enough for me! Imagine being in control of developing your musical voice. Imagine having that anchor, that inner sound keeping you afloat on the bandstand or at the jam session.
No thinking. Just playing. When you have that aural imagination going strong it supports you and makes playing easy. You can literally stop playing and the internal sound keeps going, keeping you in the right place, connecting you to the band and to the music and to the creative spirit. It‟s a beautiful thing.
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Quick Heads Up: Now, in a few days I‟ll be opening up The Mindful Music Method for the first time in almost a year. I‟m not sure yet, but I‟ll probably limit the number of people I take in. Just so I can offer the kind of attention and support to the cats who need it. I‟ll send you an email in a couple days with a link to the page that will tell you all the details about the Mindful Music Method. Just click on that link and go to that page to get the low down on the Mindful Music Method. And even if you‟re not ready to take the plunge and jump into The Mindful Music Method, I truly hope you‟ve gotten a ton of great value from this little e-book. And some really useful ideas you can take to your practice room to start getting better right away. I hope to see you on the other side. I‟ll be in touch soon. Okay, bye for now. Chris
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