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  1. #1

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    I have been a full time pro musician in the past but right now I'd consider myself a hobbyist. The gigs are starting to increase and I should really get some of these mistakes figured out. So I'm gonna rant here, and if anyone has input or similar experiences please give me some feedback.

    The mistakes I'm making are stuff like bad notes, missed chords, or unfocused solos that don't build and develop the way I want them to. For some of my gigs I have less than optimal mental focus at times.

    I was playing 1-2 gigs a month for a while. Now I'm at 6-8 gigs per month. I have less practice time. I've got some long drives to gigs and quite a bit of emailing and phone calls coordinating gigs. All of that is putting a dent in my practice time. To me, gigging is more important than practicing. Why practice a bunch if you're never gonna play anywhere??

    In any event, reason #1 for mistakes while playing- REDUCED PRACTICE TIME.

    I have been asked to run an open jam here in the town I live in. I play for 30 minutes with a "house band" trio and then I start bringing up musicians who have signed up. At first I was excited that maybe I was getting some kind of a reputation as a top jazz musician in my area. But now I'm starting to think it's making my playing go downhill. The house band is unpaid intermediate level bass/drums. They don't really groove like when I play with advanced players. They get lost if I don't cue them and explain stuff all the time. I have half my focus going towards holding the song together. My solos are not sounding great. They are go-nowhere solos. They are a collection of licks with little musical meaning. The audience likes it, as I am by far the best player there. But when I play real gigs with my normal band, it's just WAY better so I guess I'm just a disappointment to myself in these situations. Once I start bringing up new players I am putting a lot of focus into helping them call their tunes and not screw each other up with conflicting keys or bad count offs, etc. I play a few tunes with them, then I bring up other guitar players if there are any at the jam. I figured this was all fine, but I think my playing is going downhill. When you play badly....or you play mediocre solos that go nowhere, it can become a habit and eventually you can become a mediocre player. I am considering facilitating the jam and not really playing at all!

    Reason #2- REDUCED MENTAL FOCUS

    I was getting very confused about what was dragging my playing down. I just got my Super 400 out of the shop (I had only been playing my L5 for a month). I started to think I can't play this S400 anymore? When I picked the L5 back up I sounded way better.

    Today I put in about 45 minutes of just playing scales and exercises with Drum Genius. Now my playing is getting back to normal and sounding good again. On the L5 or on a Les Paul I sound fine. It's all confusing!

    I had a practice routine the last few weeks where I would start every morning by playing Cherokee at 300bpm and Giant Steps with no warm-up at all, just pick up the guitar cold and slam into the 2 hardest standards. This was actually working and my playing was improving. But I think without doing enough scales and drum genius maybe some other things were falling behind. I don't have naturally good timing or good focus. I have to work at it a lot to sound good. Maybe this practice routine needs to be more focused. I change up my routine all the time based on what my guitar teacher is giving me to work on.

    Reason #3- SCATTERED PRACTICE ROUTINE

    Right now my teacher wants me transcribing some bass solos by Paul Chambers and Oscar Pediford so I am about to start on that soon. I'm just starting the listening on those albums.

    In the past my belief has been that you will always improve if you do 2 things- TRANSCRIBE AND DRUM GENIUS. Even if you don't have lessons and don't do much else, this should lead to improvements infinitely. For me this has always held true. I think I have strayed from this theory too much with my morning Cherokee and Giant Steps.

    Reason #4- STRAYING FROM WHAT IS PROVEN TO WORK

    Thanks for reading my rant. Maybe I will come to my senses tomorrow and delete this post, I am just getting frustrated right now. Maybe some of you have been there.

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  3. #2

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    So, your only practice routine was running the same 2 standards and you’re surprised you didn’t improve?

    That makes sense to me.

  4. #3

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    It sounds unhealthy to pick up the guitar and blast through fast tunes without some warm up, like inviting hand problems to happen!

    In my case, actually writing down a list of goals helps. Don't know about your time schedule, but mine is pretty hectic right now, so practice time is valuable. You do what you can, and try to optimize it the best you can. All hard tunes require months of work to play properly.

    The first step towards improving is seeing the weak areas in one's playing, so it's a nice place to be. It's good to be a better listener than player, otherwise you'd never improve.

    So for me the answer is.. practice! Listen to music, transcribe, play, all of that ..

  5. #4

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    Quote Originally Posted by JazzIsGood
    GOING DOWNHILL!
    Lol!

  6. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by AllanAllen
    So, your only practice routine was running the same 2 standards and you’re surprised you didn’t improve?

    That makes sense to me.
    I had lots of other stuff I was practicing, this was just the first 20-30 minutes of the day. Turns out it was a bad idea.

    I'm instituting a new routine-

    20 min - scales and drum genius
    10 min- play previous transcriptions
    20 min- turnarounds
    30 min- play tunes with MrSunnyBass or Amberol tracks
    20 min- MISC
    transcribe- until I run out of mental energy

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alter

    The first step towards improving is seeing the weak areas in one's playing, so it's a nice place to be.
    I've never had any hand problems, not even a hint of tired hands in 35 years of playing.

    You make a good point that it's good to notice what needs improvement.

    I think it will help to write this stuff down somewhere, like here on the forum.

  8. #7

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    My theory is forward progress is strongest when the three legs of the stool are all the same length, so balanced.

    Instrument - quality, play-ability, other things that make it a plus, not a hindrance (switching guitars is often a temporary hindrance). For practically everyone these days, instrument problems are minor to nonexistent, just keep it set-up and play it enough to stay feeling right.

    Hands - what you are mechanically able to execute. If your hands are falling behind, your frustration will feel like you have great ideas but your playing sounds weird, off, goofy, etc. That means more hands focused time on the instrument (anything you play is good for the hands).

    Ears - what your musical mind can grasp. If your ear is falling behind, your frustration will feel like you can play anything you think of, but your ideas sound plain, weak, lame, etc. That means more time listening to music, ear focused stuff.

    Examine yourself and focus your practice time. If you hit a rough spot, take a quick break. When I get stuck I like to call in sick to places I don't work. This morning I got written up at Best Buy.

  9. #8

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    Out of curiosity, what does it mean to “play scales?”

    You can do lots of cool things with scales but playing them straight up and down can kind of be a time waster if you’re in a rut.

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by JazzIsGood
    I've never had any hand problems, not even a hint of tired hands in 35 years of playing.

    You make a good point that it's good to notice what needs improvement.

    I think it will help to write this stuff down somewhere, like here on the forum.
    I just want to say that about 6 hours after saying I have never had hand problems, I jammed my 3rd finger on my fretting hand while playing basketball.

  11. #10

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    Quote Originally Posted by pamosmusic
    Out of curiosity, what does it mean to “play scales?”

    You can do lots of cool things with scales but playing them straight up and down can kind of be a time waster if you’re in a rut.
    I do a variety of scale exercises, stuff I'm sure lots of us here do. I don't play them up and down. I play 2 up, 3 up, triplets, skipping notes, stuff like that. Whole tone exercises, diminished patterns, chromatic exercises, some Barry Harris 6th exercises, etc. I have gotten a lot of great scale exercises from the teacher I study with.

    My playing really started taking off when I started taking scales seriously. For a while I was practicing scales for an hour or more every day, usually with drum genius. This unlocked the swing feel I've been searching for since I started.

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by JazzIsGood
    I do a variety of scale exercises, stuff I'm sure lots of us here do. I don't play them up and down. I play 2 up, 3 up, triplets, skipping notes, stuff like that. Whole tone exercises, diminished patterns, chromatic exercises, some Barry Harris 6th exercises, etc. I have gotten a lot of great scale exercises from the teacher I study with.

    My playing really started taking off when I started taking scales seriously. For a while I was practicing scales for an hour or more every day, usually with drum genius. This unlocked the swing feel I've been searching for since I started.
    Nice. Since that’s a place that really helped spur some growth maybe it’s worth leaning in and getting kind of weird and creative with the scale practice?

    You can mess with the order of any of those patterns? Two up or three up becomes two down or three down. Or two up, two down, two up two down. Or two up two up two down, etc.

    Same with any of the interval skips. Ascending, descending, alternating in various combinations.

    Diatonic triads? Inversions? Quartals? Inversions?

    One of my favorites is to take an enclosure or approach or something and put it over all those scale things you might normally do. Like if it’s straight up the scale you put an enclosure around every note. If it’s the groups of three (CDE, DEF, EFG, etc) then you enclose the first of each grouping. The first note of each interval or triad or whatever. Though I guess you could enclose any or all of any and all patterns. ANYWAY. I particularly like the enclosures because they force you into playing all kinds of tricky half step chromaticism that is super hard on guitar, but also super idiomatic to jazz. It also breaks up all the rhythmic patterns you’re used to from those exercises so you start hearing them differently.

    I guess my point is that the possibilities are kind of limitless, so if you get a lot out of the scales you might try playing something other than the usual?

  13. #12

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    You might want to take a look at Interleaved Practice

  14. #13

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    Trying to diagnose skiing mistakes...going downhill!

  15. #14

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    Here's a few pages of scale exercises. Every line is a different exercise. Pretty standard stuff, triads, arpeggios, inversions and connections, then some quartal stuff and more advanced patterns. A nice supplement to just practicing scales.

    Scale Exercises.pdfScale Exercises.pdfScale Exercises.pdf

  16. #15

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    Maybe a dumb question, what is drum genius? I just use a metronome

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by Hartguitars
    Maybe a dumb question, what is drum genius? I just use a metronome
    An app that has tons of drum samples that can be manipulated by pitch and tempo. So instead of practicing a tune to a metronome you can practice it to “Victor Lewis on Come Rain or Come Shine” at 106 bpm or whatever.

    pretty cool.

  18. #17

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    Drum genius is really good

  19. #18

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    Welp… just took the plunge. Hopefully it’s worth the $8 for all the grooves.

    I think this may be just as useful for my drum practice. Thanks for the tip folks!

  20. #19

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    Thanks for the exercises PDFs. This kind of stuff is helpful for me.

    Is there a guitar method called Interleaved Practice, or is it more of a general term? I did look it up and read up on the idea.

    Drum genius is a big deal and a real game changer for someone in my position. I did not go to music college. I have taken lessons, maybe like 20-30 lessons. The rest I am teaching myself. For someone who is not a pro and is not playing gigs with good drummers 5-6 nights a week, I think it's pretty hard to develop legit level swing feel. Swing feel is very important to me, it's the main thing that sets jazz apart. IMO the only jazz worth listening to is stuff from people with great swing feel. All the really shitty jazz I've heard (Kenny G etc) is stuff where I don't like the swing feel or lack thereof.

    Pro guys play 6 nights a week with good drummers, guys practicing in their bedroom with a metronome get left behind and will never catch up. IMO drum genius levels that playing field and makes it possible to build serious swing feel at home and then make the jump to playing real gigs with good players. The only other ways I have thought of to get swing feel are to either play along with records or to just be born with a talent for it where you can absorb all that timing information and replicate it or create it somehow from listening.

    All of the upbeats and little nuances of a real drummer are replicated by drum genius. You get none of that from a metronome. Practicing with iRealPro midi tracks causes you to develop bad swing feel that is too stiff.

    I figured if you transribe you will learn the right notes and with drum genius you will learn the right timing. If you have those 2 things you're gonna sound pretty good.

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by JazzIsGood
    Thanks for the exercises PDFs. This kind of stuff is helpful for me.

    Is there a guitar method called Interleaved Practice, or is it more of a general term? I did look it up and read up on the idea.

    Drum genius is a big deal and a real game changer for someone in my position. I did not go to music college. I have taken lessons, maybe like 20-30 lessons. The rest I am teaching myself. For someone who is not a pro and is not playing gigs with good drummers 5-6 nights a week, I think it's pretty hard to develop legit level swing feel. Swing feel is very important to me, it's the main thing that sets jazz apart. IMO the only jazz worth listening to is stuff from people with great swing feel. All the really shitty jazz I've heard (Kenny G etc) is stuff where I don't like the swing feel or lack thereof.

    Pro guys play 6 nights a week with good drummers, guys practicing in their bedroom with a metronome get left behind and will never catch up. IMO drum genius levels that playing field and makes it possible to build serious swing feel at home and then make the jump to playing real gigs with good players. The only other ways I have thought of to get swing feel are to either play along with records or to just be born with a talent for it where you can absorb all that timing information and replicate it or create it somehow from listening.

    All of the upbeats and little nuances of a real drummer are replicated by drum genius. You get none of that from a metronome. Practicing with iRealPro midi tracks causes you to develop bad swing feel that is too stiff.

    I figured if you transribe you will learn the right notes and with drum genius you will learn the right timing. If you have those 2 things you're gonna sound pretty good.
    Yeah it’s very cool, but there’s a place for the metronome too. Being able to hear and react to the time is a very good thing, but with the metronome you have to make the time for yourself.

    It can be cool to play scales or bebop tunes with the click just on 1 and 3 or maybe just 1 (or even just 3?). That’s a different kind of exercise than playing with drum genius. Love drum genius but good to get a little of both.

  22. #21

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    Interleaved practice is a general concept where instead of practicing something for a block of one hour say, you divide a number of or at or activities into 3-5m slots and then interleave them and repeat as necessary. I used a timer

    There’s some evidence supporting its use in sports and maths tuition and I think there’s a guy at Julliard. Things take longer to learn at first but tend to ‘stick’ more and results are better over the long term.

    i haven’t done it for a while but it did change the way I practice. I tend to practice this way anyway atm due to family life etc lol.

    but little and often can be highly effective. I don’t think it’s a panacea for everything but I’ve had good results. If you are used to blocking practice it may be fun to try this as an alternative.

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by pamosmusic
    Yeah it’s very cool, but there’s a place for the metronome too. Being able to hear and react to the time is a very good thing, but with the metronome you have to make the time for yourself.

    It can be cool to play scales or bebop tunes with the click just on 1 and 3 or maybe just 1 (or even just 3?). That’s a different kind of exercise than playing with drum genius. Love drum genius but good to get a little of both.
    I have it go off every two or four bars on the four usually. I have good days and bad days lol. As Peter Bernstein points out the in between tempos are the killers - we all have let tempos we tend to gravitate. If you always practice with the click at 120 or 100 or 180 that’s what you will gravitate to.

    the slow metronome exercise roasts you on that. Tempo is a good app for this as you can set the tempo to 107 in 8/4 so that it’s on the 1 and 3 or 2 and 4 (so effectively 214bpm) and then remove clicks, until you have one every 16 quarter notes (every four bars.)

    click on the and is good too. Not done that for a while

    I also record myself and look at the wave forms; looking for consistent placement of the onsets. It’s quite interesting the relationship you build between your internal psychology and the objective aspects of your playing.

    also try being your own metronome. Try going ‘boop’ on the 1 and 3, then 2 and 4. Then just 4. Then try singing the clave. Clave is good for groove.

    all fun. But it’s mostly more about developing consistent clock time than swing feel. I tend to feel swing feel is best learned playing with musicians, so I tend to agree with JazzisGood. Playing with records is a time honoured way to do it at home. Drum genius is the same type of thing.

    I like to record myself comping and playing bass as well as solos and try and get it grooving as part of my reading practice. It’s also good to record without a click. Listen, record solos unaccompanied and comp with yourself. It all teaches you something.
    Last edited by Christian Miller; 05-27-2023 at 05:26 PM.

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    Interleaved practice is a general concept where instead of practicing something for a block of one hour say, you divide a number of or at or activities into 3-5m slots and then interleave them and repeat as necessary. I used a timer

    There’s some evidence supporting its use in sports and maths tuition and I think there’s a guy at Julliard. Things take longer to learn at first but tend to ‘stick’ more and results are better over the long term.

    i haven’t done it for a while but it did change the way I practice. I tend to practice this way anyway atm due to family life etc lol.

    but little and often can be highly effective. I don’t think it’s a panacea for everything but I’ve had good results. If you are used to blocking practice it may be fun to try this as an alternative.

    ohhh yes! I don’t think I heard it called this but I had a college professor into it. The thing I took from it was sort of like playing a tune in multiple keys without letting it settle. Like play it down once in C then once in G etc while I’m trying to learn it. Takes longer to learn but I learn it better.

    That’s not quite what you’re talking about but that’s what my 18 yo brain did with it.

    Something else I’ve found helpful is when I have a routine like the OPs is to try and have some through line in it. Like I’ve been doing lots of little things lately but my throughline is triplets and articulation. So trying to have those elements in all my little practicing modules or whatever

  25. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by pamosmusic
    ohhh yes! I don’t think I heard it called this but I had a college professor into it. The thing I took from it was sort of like playing a tune in multiple keys without letting it settle. Like play it down once in C then once in G etc while I’m trying to learn it. Takes longer to learn but I learn it better.

    That’s not quite what you’re talking about but that’s what my 18 yo brain did with it.

    Something else I’ve found helpful is when I have a routine like the OPs is to try and have some through line in it. Like I’ve been doing lots of little things lately but my throughline is triplets and articulation. So trying to have those elements in all my little practicing modules or whatever
    sort of, but in what I’m talking about you’d do 3 minutes on a scale, then 3 minutes learning a tune, then 3 minutes on sight reading, 3 minutes on voicings, say, then get up, stretch, put the dishwasher on or make a coffee and repeat with variations. So different key maybe for instance.

    it sounds nuts but 3m is quite a long time, and 5m is ages. Try it with a timer. I honestly think that’s about as long as anyone can truly concentrate at a stretch before needing a short break. After an hour or two of this you will be knackered i promise.

    obviously you have to get good at choosing little bite size chunks of work on.

    I don’t really do this anymore, but I think where it really scores is learning pieces of music and scales and so on.

  26. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by Christian Miller
    sort of, but in what I’m talking about you’d do 3 minutes on a scale, then 3 minutes learning a tune, then 3 minutes on sight reading, 3 minutes on voicings, say, then get up, stretch, put the dishwasher on or make a coffee and repeat with variations. So different key maybe for instance.

    it sounds nuts but 3m is quite a long time, and 5m is ages. Try it with a timer. I honestly think that’s about as long as anyone can truly concentrate at a stretch before needing a short break. After an hour or two of this you will be knackered i promise.

    obviously you have to get good at choosing little bite size chunks of work on.

    I don’t really do this anymore, but I think where it really scores is learning pieces of music and scales and so on.
    Yeah.

    Mine is definitely less rigorous than that. A friend of mine (former forum dude, I believe) describes what I do as “muscle confusion.” More like when you’re working muscles, it makes sense to change up what you’re doing so that your body doesn’t get used to what’s going on and start diminishing returns.

    So like working on a scale in thirds for one key, fourths the next, triads the next, fourths descending, fifths. So that you’re working on a scale for a long time but never letting your brain get into that kind of auto pilot mode.

    I like that a lot in particular with jazz because the goal isn’t usually to play one thing perfectly, but rather to be kind of fluent and agile with a concept in general.