The Seven Deadly Jazz Practice Mistakes, #1 - Are You Making This Deadly Mistake?

http://www.learnjazzfaster.com It is mind boggling to me that many jazz students will practice everyday, spending hours of precious time in the shed, without clear jazz improvisation or instrumental goals, just noodling around on their instrument, maybe playing along to a record or two or randomly playing out of a method book they have lying around. If they have a jazz music teacher they may work on an assignment for them, but they don't know why they are working on it and it certainly isn't connected to any kind of long-term musical goal of the students.

Now some students may develop practice routines. A practice routine is a step in the right direction, but absent of clear goals and plans, a routine really just amounts to slightly more organized noodling. A typical routine is what you might call vertical. I'll explain that in a second. Your routine might look like this: Scales and arpeggios -- 30 minutes; tunes and repertoire -- 30 minutes; motive development -- 60 minutes. Ok that's a start. But what scale, what arpeggio, what tempo, how many octaves, what rhythms, what tune, what key, what motive development topic, what harmonic background, when will it be learned by etc. You see that's vertical, it's up and down, it doesn't necessarily move forward.

Now let's make it horizontal. Let's move it forward. The first thing in the routine is scales and arpeggios. Well let's add some clear goals and targets. Let's say 3 months from now you will be able to play all 12 major scales, from memory, up and down two octaves, with 8th notes at quarter note equals 120. That's a clear and measurable goal. Now you can break that down into short-term goals, like 1 scale per week. Then, you can create a target for today. That might be the G major scale, played up and down one octave with quarter notes at quarter note equals 60. If you finish that today, then tomorrow you move on. You take it further, like two octaves. Then 8th notes. Then increase the tempo. If you don't finish it today then you pick up where you left off tomorrow.

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[supahsekzy]

Your point about setting practice goals is very important. I always try to tell people, there's a difference between "playing" and "practicing." Most people think they're practicing but really they're just playing. In general, if you're practicing, and it's enjoyable to a non-musician, then it's not practicing. (a little tongue in cheek of course but you get the idea)

[flinzo]

thank you!! These videos can help any musician regardless of genre

[guitarmessiah95]

Dude ! i love your vids I get so many Light bulb moments when I watch! :D