Summer Practice!
The HOW and the WHY
An incoming jazz student just asked a GREAT question — “what should I practice to be ready for the upcoming school year?”
I ask this question of myself in the summertime. What should I be practicing right now?!?
When classes are in session, everyone knows what is supposed to happen—during the school year, teachers find and prepare assignments and students work to master the assignments. Right now, none of this is happening!
THE WHY
First, the why—here are reasons why musicians should not stop practicing in the summer:
we need to maintain our chops — our agility and precision on the instrument
we need to keep our ears open and working
it really stinks to have our playing ability regress and to lose our chops
This is one of my biggest reasons to keep practicing—it feels SO good to have the fingers working and it simply feels awful to not be able to pick up the instrument and have it work as well as we know it should.
HOW
I appreciate that this student asked such a great question about what to work on. I would say there are THREE things that are overall facets of summer practice for a jazz musician. There are obviously many, many more, but these are things that are fun and will provide motivation. We do not want to burn out and be exhausted when school starts this fall.
I. Technique
This means different things to different musicians. For a brass musician, it means lip slurs and everything associated with brass proficiency. I am a woodwind specialist, so I can say that for a sax player, technique would refer to scalar or pattern work on the sax, voicing exercises (for sound AND altissimo range), flute/clarinet embouchure and tone, etc. EVERYONE needs to maintain their technique — because it really, really, really stinks to have to take a step backward.
Also, technique does not have to be boring. Practice with the DrumGenius app or some cool YouTube beats. It doesn’t have to only be with a metronome. I LOVE practicing with Latin and funk and hip hop beats.
II. Learning Repertoire
This can be fun.
Choose an artist you like and learn tunes they play—Cole Porter, Coltrane, etc.
Go through the Real Book and find new tunes, listen to the originals, and play along with the recordings and/or the play alongs.
Practice blues and minor blues in multiple keys.
Learn new rhythm changes heads.
Transcribe new music from jazz artists who are still alive (as opposed to only celebrating the past).
Put on recordings, play along, and enjoy yourself.
Motivation and fun are two powerful assets that you can have when learning music.
Here is a list that I came up with for our jam session here in Morgantown. Here are 15 tunes that everyone should know. If you know these already, learn other tunes!
Autumn Leaves
Oleo
All of Me
All the Things You Are
So What/Impressions
There Will Never Be
What is This Thing Called Love?
Afternoon in Paris
Straight No Chaser
Summertime
Lady Bird
Softly, As in...
How High the Moon
Stolen Moments
Mr. PC
III. Transcribing
I think this scares a lot of students. It can be really overwhelming if you think that transcribing means jotting down the most blistering fast solo and being able to recite it by memory. That can be transcription, but transcription can also be learning simple things from a recording by ear on the piano (if you are or are not a pianist) or simply learning lyrical solos by ear.
These are things to think about for people who are new to transcribing:
Listen over and over to a piece before trying to transcribe it. You need to know the overall phrase structure before trying to figure it out by ear. This will save you time and it will save you from a lot of frustration. Be able to sing along with a recording before trying to transcribe it.
Transcribe things that have melodic or harmonic material that you can apply to your own playing. In other words, transcribing an F blues is helpful because you can immediately use the material that you are learning in your own solos.
Transcribe the heads of tunes. You might even just transcribe the head and not a solo. Learning the heads can be incredibly beneficial.
Use technology to slow it down. This can help you hear it and put it on your instrument. YouTube makes this easy! The other programs have even better fidelity.
An example of my own this summer: I like a tune on a recent Kenny Garrett album so I learned it. I started with learning the melody and then figured out the bass line. The middle part comes after knowing the melody and bass line.
Interesting that you should mention this. First, I know some great musicians that practice a FULL set of music like this. It also helps with endurance.
For me personally, it is interesting too because I really don't play many "standards" gigs but practice standards ALL the time. I find it interesting that I and other musicians practice a variety of things (like standards, flute, clarinet) that are so seldom performed live.
Isn't it strange that we so often practice alone, but what we really are striving to do in jazz is to actually communicate with other people? Why don't we practice more (or teach more) in groups since that is such an important part of jazz?
I’ve been thinking about the repertoire piece. I think it can helpful to think in terms of developing sets of music for a real or imagined standards gig. Put together a setlist then learn or brush up on those tunes. This can help with deciding what to work on (the sets will cover a variety of feels, tempos, etc.)