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Since it gets said here all the time, now can hear it from the Master.
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12-28-2014 01:58 PM
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Great staff!
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About 80% of my practice time is devoted to my repertoire. The other 20% is for technique outside the context of music. Why? Because I am not Tommy Emmanuel. I still have to work my butt off to be able to play like that. I guess when you are at that level with your instrument all you want to do is play songs exclusively.
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He's making tunes into technique exercises and etudes, and vice versa.
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I would be curious to know how people here "divide" their practice.... between technique and tunes.... I have been concentrating on technique for quite awhile now, almost like a student would I guess, but am now starting to reverse the ratio, and will concentrate more on learning and practicing tunes.
I was probably 70 technique/30 tunes, but will be reversing that.
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I apply everything to tunes. If I'm working on picking, I'm doing it on a Parker head. If I'm working on vocabulary, it's over the form of a tune, or an A section, or 8 bars.
"Playing Tunes" doesn't just mean you sit and play songs you know the same way you have a hundred times and you magically get better, though I suppose there's time for that too.
But everything I practice is applied to actual musical situations...tunes.
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+1
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Need to work on something find a tune that requires it or uses it to practice. Problem with a section of a tune, turn that section into an etude. Practice music to play music.
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obviously a traditional/classical musician separates them. the more advanced they get, the less time needed on technique, although warm-ups and refresher workouts will always be needed from time to time. everybody is human.
TE is just working on technique in a different way. Because he "arranges" and improvises, he can blend repertoire and technique together - very efficient eh? He's the boss because he plays these tunes his way, right?
in general i think that the jazz practice routine is highly dependent on the person in question, and where they are along the mastery spectrum (for lack of a better term). for example, are they a hobbyist, music major, or pro? etc.
1. If they're a beginner or intermediate hobbyist they may not be skilled enough to combine technique and repertoire together effectively (assuming they have high future goals, and don't want to take forever getting there). Same goes for developing music students - who are serious.
2. If they're a music major in a top program they may have compulsory technique tests every semester - through grad school. They'll have to practice technique.
3. If they're a pro, they can tailor more options into their routine...
4. And then there is the advanced hobbyist.
their routines no doubt run the gamut and may not be very focused in a lot of cases...
Last edited by fumblefingers; 12-28-2014 at 11:56 PM.
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Ha! I knew it. And my guitar teacher tried to fill my head with all of that other stuff. I wish I remembered it now. He would occasionally introduce a song to reinforce something I must admit learning songs with difficult parts have made other songs with easier parts so much more relaxed and smoother to play. It has helped my progress farther than I thought possible.
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Late to the party again! I've been looking for a chance to talk about this aspect - technique and tunes. First, did anyone note the markings on Tommy's guitar just beyond the end of fret board and neck on the guitar's surface to help with artificial harmonics? Wonderful technique he displays.
Not reinventing the wheel here or anything, but what I've been doing lately incorporates scales and technical exercises into playing jazz tunes as a kind of technical workout. I take a song like Misty and play it in solo chord melody style with the melody generally on top, but in a more scalar way. That is , I use the melody as a rough guide to play scales in the fret board position where I will ultimately be playing the melody more precisely. And I play it through a few times in each key. One other thing - I play this approach in a "dissociated/distracted" state. I'm listening to the music, but I'm reading the forum, for example.
The benefits: a great scale workout in positions in each key along the neck. Playing a specific tune in each key also yields what I would just call "insights" into the relationships of key and the fret board positions. What fingering works best in each key, etc. Finally, I play the 'focused' solo improvised arrangement where I articulate the melody on top in the "clean" fashion and improvise over the changes. Apart from the thoroughness of the "workout", you feel totally at home with the song in this way including those changes in every key.
For me this practice reinforces the "subconscious" role in playing. By playing "distracted" as when reading the forum, I put myself more in the listener mode. The scalar work gets done but in a context of the song's harmony, reinforcing a sense of flow on the fret board. Playing the song in twelve keys is a way to know thoroughly the song's harmony without getting bored.
Not reinventing the wheel, but it keeps me rollin' on for hours...
It has become one of my favorite things to devote my focus to solo chord melody style playing in this manner working with my repertoire of jazz songs. One by one.
Jay
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Love to hear Tommy play. He has played often with Frank Vignola (-search for them on YouTube) and Frank stresses working on tunes, learning tunes, it's all about the tunes....(Frank once said "all the turnarounds you need to know are in [Fly Me To The Moon]."
Though "playing 'Cannonball Rag' for an hour" (as Tommy says he does when he needs to build up strength) is a very tall order.
I think Fumbles makes a great point: if you're like Tommy, a solo act who calls his own shots, then practice will be different than with someone who works in different settings under different leaders and has to be able to play things someone else's way, so to speak. Session players, for example, or guys who work with more than one group, or any group in which they aren't in charge... And then younger guys who are still discovering their way, trying everything and figuring out what suits them.
All that said, if you can't play tunes, no one will want to hear you play at all....
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That is what the Schroeder Improv class at GIT had you do. In general you took the assigned song and first with the band backing you play through the changes in eighth note arpeggios only for one chorus, next chorus play anything you want. You did that for a set of tunes different tunes then back to the start this time instead of arpeggios you did scales in eighths for one chorus then second chorus anything. Most people didn't make it past that, but if you did then there was a variety of tunes in different styles and difficulty and were all about developing your solos. Originally Posted by targuit
Late to the party again! I've been looking for a chance to talk about this aspect - technique and tunes. First, did anyone note the markings on Tommy's guitar just beyond the end of fret board and neck on the guitar's surface to help with artificial harmonics? Wonderful technique he displays.
Not reinventing the wheel here or anything, but what I've been doing lately incorporates scales and technical exercises into playing jazz tunes as a kind of technical workout. I take a song like Misty and play it in solo chord melody style with the melody generally on top, but in a more scalar way. That is , I use the melody as a rough guide to play scales in the fret board position where I will ultimately be playing the melody more precisely. And I play it through a few times in each key. One other thing - I play this approach in a "dissociated/distracted" state. I'm listening to the music, but I'm reading the forum, for example.
The benefits: a great scale workout in positions in each key along the neck. Playing a specific tune in each key also yields what I would just call "insights" into the relationships of key and the fret board positions. What fingering works best in each key, etc. Finally, I play the 'focused' solo improvised arrangement where I articulate the melody on top in the "clean" fashion and improvise over the changes. Apart from the thoroughness of the "workout", you feel totally at home with the song in this way including those changes in every key.
For me this practice reinforces the "subconscious" role in playing. By playing "distracted" as when reading the forum, I put myself more in the listener mode. The scalar work gets done but in a context of the song's harmony, reinforcing a sense of flow on the fret board. Playing the song in twelve keys is a way to know thoroughly the song's harmony without getting bored.
Not reinventing the wheel, but it keeps me rollin' on for hours... It has become one of my favorite things to devote my focus to solo chord melody style playing in this manner working with my repertoire of jazz songs. One by one.
Jay
There was another teacher with great and difficult practice routine along these lines I'll explain later, I have to run right now.
Okay back now.....
Now the other routine was like the Joe Elliot connection game playing arpeggios and voicing leading them to the nearest chord tone on the change. Where Joe's and most other guitar approaches they having you play within whatever finger patterns they teach. This teacher you would select a range of the neck like 3rd fret to 14th fret and you wouldn't reverse direction till you reached and end point of the range of neck. So do 8th note arpeggios up to the 7th of the chord and instead of tunes he wrote these cycles of changes to practice through. So using that much neck was easy to work yourself into all sorts of fingerboard situations so you really need to know your chord spelling and neck to connect to nearest chord tone. So once that was down then he expanded to playing the arpeggios out to the 13th so even more potential connecting points. Then it got real hard he adding altered notes to the dominants so now brain really had to work hard to he the proper connecting tone and he was stickler for the actual nearest connecting point. All the time more different cycles of chords hitting all 12 keys. Once that was done he then switched to sca;es and same approach but with scales. That was a real mental challenge playing altered scale and next chord is Lydian and what's the nearest scale notes between the two scales. Also when learning the scales he would have you do the usually interval patterns like scale in 3rd's, 4th's, etc, but going up the range of the neck, so better know your scale spellings.
Now before anyone freaks out that's too much, too hard, too <fill in the blank>. He expected in the begging it would take a some time like the basic arpeggios, but after than then he said it's something to work on a little bit each day. He said it's still the first thing he does every morning make some coffee and spend some time running a cycle of chords in arps or scale like this. This guy he brother played bass for Charlie Parker for a short time, so don't know if this where he got it, but you hear about the great improvisers running thru cycles of chords all the time. So just throwing this out for something to ponder this weekend.Last edited by docbop; 01-17-2015 at 06:30 PM.
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From Dutchbopper's interview with Martijn van Iterson:
Do you remember certain practice routines that you stuck to when you were studying?
No. I’ve never practiced according to any schedule. I always just picked up my guitar and after I was warmed up, I started playing anything. If I would meet a limitation while playing, I tried to improve myself on that. But I never forgot to just have fun practising.
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I've known a lot of players in other styles (rock, blues, classical, pop, folk) who can only play the songs that they've practiced. Once you ask them to play something outside their comfort zone, they have no idea what to do.
Most of the jazzers I know can have fun jamming over anything. They might not deliver an authentic performance in that particular genre, but they can do their thing along with it and have fun.
I think this has a lot to do with the fact that jazz players practice more than just songs. We develop an understanding of the fundamental structure of music and can adapt to many different situations.
So, to me, practice /= just playing tunes.
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Yea ... I hate to be the wet blanket on this one but I don't really buy that. Transcribing? Technique? Maybe you can write a technical etude over the changes to a tune and practice that but I don't think that really qualifies as working on a tune. Also I've never really been a believer that you can work on technique in the context of tune unless you've already put some reasonable time in getting the technique down. Like ... really? You're going to practice your scales and arpeggios over a tune without first sitting down and working them out by themselves? Maybe for some but I honestly don't buy it.
I will say that if you're doing the jazz thing then putting anything over a tune as soon as possible is certainly the way to go. Also I'd say that anything you can't apply in the context of a tune isn't learned yet. I just don't buy that you can just sit down and work on tunes and be done.
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Another thing you have to consider when you're taking advice from someone like Tommy Emmanuel is the source. I had a lesson with a world class GFA classical guitarist who said he really hadn't worked on technique in fifteen years - only music. Now one might say "wow great I guess all I need to do is work on pieces of cool music - nice!" ... but the next thing he said was that he started playing at age 5 and his father was a conservatory professor and guitarist in France so he was practicing two and three hours a day by age six and his technique was automatic by nine. So the reality is that he really did put tons of time in on his chops. He just started ten years earlier than me. I don't claim to speak for Tommy Emmanuel but he's probably had his chops together for more than a few decades.
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Peter - Not sure if you were referring to my post regarding using the chord structure of a particular tune as a vehicle for practicing scales, but I don' t write out technical etudes. I do have a personal library of Sibelius arrangements I create of quite a few jazz songs as essentially chord melody solos and "duets," as I write out a separate staff for the melody and lyrics over a guitar staff or piano accompaniment usually. But in performance I improvise over the changes - I don't play the song as a classical arrangement. It is more like running scales over a circle of fifths exercise, only I use the specific song chord changes as the vehicle for variety. Usually I do not play this type of "absent-minded" exercise with sheet music in front of me, but rather just playing tunes I know.
My practice time usually is spent playing tunes or composing originals using Sibelius. My technique is something I have worked on for a long time since I started classical guitar lessons at eleven or twelve. I play enough daily (often more than two hours a day) to keep the technique honed, but it is fun to throw in some variety. Just another way to obsess with music....
Jay
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Agreed, get your chops together separately and when it comes time to play the tune, it'll come out automatically. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Yes, it does. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
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Fair enough. Thought experiment. If you're practicing an étude over the changes to Dolphin Dance are you actually practicing the tune? Maybe. What about if you're practicing an étude over the changes to Honeysuckle Rose, or Indiana, or How High the Moon? Are you practicing those tunes or one of the contrafacts written over its changes? What about if you're writing an étude over a blues in F or Rhythm Changes in Bb? At that point can you really say youre practicing Billies Bounce or Oleo or a generic set of changes that could be applied to any one of a billion tunes and doesn't serve to make the tune unique? Anyway... maybe this particular difference of opinion is just a matter of perspective but I just don't think that shedding an étude on the changes of All the Things and working on a transcription of a solo over that tune really qualifies as learning a tune. There are things that to me stay separate. Learning the melody in every key all over the neck and playing guide tones and exploring chord relationships doesn't really feel like it's a focused expansion of my technique. I don't really feel like working an étude over chord changes really qualifies as an exploration of the tune and what makes it unique either. Originally Posted by Jonzo
to each his own I suppose!
as for targuit.. My apologies - I wasn't referring to any specific post - just my thoughts on the premise in general!
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No apologies necessary, Peter. We all have our opinions on things and that is likely what makes us come together here to discuss stuff.
I often sit down to read the forum with guitar in hand to play while I peruse the threads. So I naturally started playing through All the things you are as I sit here thinking about your points. The first things I did was play through the first sixteen bars of the song as written in the key of Db. Then I start 'deconstructing' the tune a bit, playing just on the top four strings or the bottom five, just for experimentation looking at the voice leading. Playing with the melody. Then I explored different keys. To me all that is working on the tune and the technique in that it is an exploration of the elements of the song - melody, harmony, chord progression.
Btw, as a classically trained guy, I appreciate the term "etude", though for my own explorations of the tune I probably would not dignify it with the term. But I find playing through the chord progression in chord melody style in various keys is a way to explore the tune and avoid boredom.
Jay
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Tommy doesn't count. He is not from this world!!
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I'd say that in jazz, more than any other genre, playing over the changes is often considered playing the tune. Maybe because the changes are complex enough to have a life of their own? Personally, I like to hear the head at some point. I'd like to have a reference point for the tune, but there are plenty of great players who don't even touch it at times. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
In terms of études, there are also a lot of performances where a player works a motif or an idea almost like a study. I don't know where you draw the line or if it's even necessary. It kind of gets philosophical at some point.
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I think you're being too literal, which seems to be a common thing around these parts lately. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
When somebody says "play tunes" as practice, you can't take that to mean "exclusively." You can't take that to mean "if you can't already play, stuff will just fall into place." Nobody's saying that. Maybe people are lazy in their speak and should parce things out better, I don't know. Maybe I'm weird because I rarely take anything at face value, when it comes to one sentence "wisdoms."
It's just like when some folks say "transcribe" and they don't necessarily mean "write everything down."
Tommy's a great player, too, no doubt, but he does have this "everyman, aw shucks" kind of personality he keeps up in interviews...it's charming, and I can't help but feel if I met Tommy in person I'd have a great time picking a few tunes, maybe having a few beers...but he's not exactly someone I'd go to to whip me into playing shape. The world still needs some a-holes who are gonna tell you like it is for that
As far as what constitutes working on a tune--this is jazz. The whole idea is to take the tune on a trip. Etudes that address tunes, or heck, even a few bars of a tune, are working on a tune--without a doubt.
Working on tunes, in a way, means work on ideas in CONTEXT.
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Well I am being fairly literal. I feel that - of course - technical practice should be musical. Of course working on a tune can be done in a technically challenging way. So when someone says "practice is playing tunes" ... My reaction is "suuuuure it is - but how well are you practicing?" ... I don't think technical practice "in context" is technical practice. Maybe it's personal but I don't feel like I can really give serious attention to my hands when I'm working on getting a lot of notes. I'm a big deconstructer when I practice. I try really hard to practice one thing at a time before I start putting it all together. So I probably do a lot of the things that other people do when they say they're applying technical practice to tunes but I try to be very aware of what I'm practicing and in that situation I say "okay so I'm getting this stuff into a practical place but changes and lines are diverting my attention from that picking I was working on so am I really sure that I spent enough time with that technique by itself?" Maybe I did. Maybe I didnt. Maybe the time has come that my brain needs to be active so I move on regardless. I just think being aware of everything you're tackling is a big part of being efficient or effective or whatever.
the conclusion I draw is that were probably mostly into the same things here but are differing on a matter of perspective
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