The official Warm up-and-Practising thread

[Jimmy Smith]

How is it that Graham and I get along so well...
Maybe it's the language of jazz.

The language of mad. :P

[kris]

I've been taking lessons with him every 2 weeks for the past year.

Thanks

[kris]

The language of mad. :P

Hahaha
I removed the word 'Mad' from my thread.
I guess it's a symptom of my madness.

[pauln]

I practice for about 90 minutes once or twice each day. I don't do exercises; I just play tunes, parts of tunes, variations on tunes... always focused on tunes. I like Wes' description of what he practiced:

"I don't practice anything I wouldn't play in performance."

His wording was very careful not to imply that performance was comprised of only practiced content, more that the foundation, technique, and vocabulary from which one draws in performance should be composed of (and restricted to) things appropriate for actual performance. I think that was one of the most profound insights ever - only practice what (not the same things, but the same type of things) you want to play in performance. This is the real inside meaning of "learn the tunes" - learn them with a focus on performance.

[Jimmy Smith]

Well my practice approach has been turned upside down. I had always thought there was only ear and theory on how to improve your playing. Reg kept talking about technical skills and I realized duh that's the main thing I need to be working and that I've neglected, especially for organ. Practice tunes repetitively and make up exercises I can practice repetitively, apply to the tunes, and build muscle memory and technique. My ear and theory are not bad.

[kris]

Isn't it that all those who aspire to be a jazz musician should first learn to play an instrument...?
After that, it's just constant work with technical exercises.
This applies to all musicians, regardless of whether they can hear well and know the theory well.
Systematic work since a small child.
My wife/pianist-classical music/ has been practicing scales since she was 6 years old.
She reads sight from sheet music incredibly easily.
I can't do that.

[John A.]

I practice for about 90 minutes once or twice each day. I don't do exercises; I just play tunes, parts of tunes, variations on tunes... always focused on tunes. I like Wes' description of what he practiced:

"I don't practice anything I wouldn't play in performance."

The only quote from him about practicing I’ve seen is

“I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case & throw in a piece of raw meat.”

[Christian Miller]

The only quote from him about practicing I’ve seen is

“I never practice my guitar. From time to time I just open the case & throw in a piece of raw meat.”

there’s probably someone somewhere who’s actually tried that…

[kris]

"Kurt Rosenwinkel Workshop
Things I learned from his recent workshop at the Berklee Performance Center:

1. When he came to Berklee, he only knew the major scale. So whenever he found a weird chord, he used a major scale that fit the chord as best as possible. He also noted that later on he did make himself learn the melodic minor modes (he used a lydian b7 scale as an example.) He practiced improvising over one chord for hours using a looper set on infinite repeat.
2. His warmup routine is:
-major scales (whole range of the guitar) all twelve keys starting on G and through the cycle of 5ths.
-major scales via sequences through the same procedure.
-major pentatonic scale – same procedure
-after a while, he starts changing scales in the middle of the line (keeping the same direction -up or down but voiceled to the next scale tone of the next scale).
-later on he sings along with him playing the scale.
3. To combine chord work and lines, he “uses the other remaining fingers to grab whatever chord he can.”

[CliffR]

In the course of learning Yesterdays, I've been spending a lot of time practicing arpeggios across and up and down the neck for E7, A7, D7, G7, C7 and F7. I've been doing this for an hour or so per day for several weeks, and it's going fine. However, my next practice step is to play four notes from E7, then voice-leading into the nearest not of A7 etc etc. I vary the starting note on E, and the direction, just to make sure the pattern isn't the same every time.

For some reason I find this extremely difficult. I have to pick my way through slowly, too slowly to use a metronome, and I keep forgetting which chord comes next. It almost seems as if, although I know all the arpeggios from their roots, if I voice lead into an arpeggio at non-root node, I've suddenly forgotten the arpeggio pattern. I guess it'll come with time, but it really surprises me how much more difficult this is compared with learning the arpeggios themselves.

Anybody else remember experiencing this?

[John A.]

there’s probably someone somewhere who’s actually tried that…

Dry-aged beef in the case is part of the Gibson's "Murphy Lab" relic'ing process. Then when they're done they sell the steaks with special premium nitro-outgassed BBQ rub.

[James W]

In the course of learning Yesterdays, I've been spending a lot of time practicing arpeggios across and up and down the neck for E7, A7, D7, G7, C7 and F7. I've been doing this for an hour or so per day for several weeks, and it's going fine. However, my next practice step is to play four notes from E7, then voice-leading into the nearest not of A7 etc etc. I vary the starting note on E, and the direction, just to make sure the pattern isn't the same every time.

For some reason I find this extremely difficult. I have to pick my way through slowly, too slowly to use a metronome, and I keep forgetting which chord comes next. It almost seems as if, although I know all the arpeggios from their roots, if I voice lead into an arpeggio at non-root node, I've suddenly forgotten the arpeggio pattern. I guess it'll come with time, but it really surprises me how much more difficult this is compared with learning the arpeggios themselves.

Anybody else remember experiencing this?

Like a continuous arpeggio exercise you mean? I've been doing that for some time, it's one of those things that you have to just keep ticking over. I alternate five minutes of doing it rubato, then five minutes with a metronome, then do the same thing in a different position. The next twenty minutes I spend doing all of that with continuous scale exercises, then I spend some time coming up with licks over that tune. That and practising various voicings is the main way I practice a tune, with the metronome on 2 & 4 of course...

[CliffR]

Yes, a continuous arpeggio. I think it may have been you who mentioned this a few weeks ago, and I thought, oh Jens Larsen said it was a good idea to do that, and I've been too lazy to do it. So I've only started recently, but am hoping it's going to open up more options. I'll look into scales once I get the arpeggios under control .

I like composing licks to go over the tune, too. Very satisfying. As for voicings, I really need to put more work into that. So many things to work on!

[rpjazzguitar]

In the course of learning Yesterdays, I've been spending a lot of time practicing arpeggios across and up and down the neck for E7, A7, D7, G7, C7 and F7. I've been doing this for an hour or so per day for several weeks, and it's going fine. However, my next practice step is to play four notes from E7, then voice-leading into the nearest not of A7 etc etc. I vary the starting note on E, and the direction, just to make sure the pattern isn't the same every time.

For some reason I find this extremely difficult. I have to pick my way through slowly, too slowly to use a metronome, and I keep forgetting which chord comes next. It almost seems as if, although I know all the arpeggios from their roots, if I voice lead into an arpeggio at non-root node, I've suddenly forgotten the arpeggio pattern. I guess it'll come with time, but it really surprises me how much more difficult this is compared with learning the arpeggios themselves.

Anybody else remember experiencing this?

I could never do it that way and gave up.

The idea would be to memorize fingering patterns. A book or article would have a dots-on-grid diagram and you were supposed to memorize that. A Cmajor scale and its modes -- at least 7 patterns which you need to keep straight in 12 keys and a few enharmonic equivalents. Then melodic minor, harmonic minor, dim, WT, each with modes. And then onto arpeggios.

And, you had to know every one of them well enough to start on any note within it.

I couldn't begin to do any of that.

But, I realized I knew the notes in a Cmajor scale and, because I can read, I knew where they all are. I could solo in Cmajor (Ionian) without any difficulty, even though I wasn't using a pattern. And, I could do it pretty well in the common keys, maybe up to 4 sharps or flats. So, I started drilling myself on the rest. And then I started making sure I knew all the chord tones in the chords I was using.

There are pros and cons to this. I didn't feel I had the ability to do it the pattern-based way, so I gave up on that. I couldn't think of a better way given my inability to employ patterns.

To get to more exotic scales/modes/arps I tend to think about which note is changed from the stuff I already know. So, for example, if I see Cmaj7#11, I know to raise the F to F#. I might think "now I'm playing in Gmajor" or "I'm playing in Cmaj but I'm going to raise the Fs".

[AllanAllen]

In the course of learning Yesterdays, I've been spending a lot of time practicing arpeggios across and up and down the neck for E7, A7, D7, G7, C7 and F7. I've been doing this for an hour or so per day for several weeks, and it's going fine. However, my next practice step is to play four notes from E7, then voice-leading into the nearest not of A7 etc etc. I vary the starting note on E, and the direction, just to make sure the pattern isn't the same every time.

For some reason I find this extremely difficult. I have to pick my way through slowly, too slowly to use a metronome, and I keep forgetting which chord comes next. It almost seems as if, although I know all the arpeggios from their roots, if I voice lead into an arpeggio at non-root node, I've suddenly forgotten the arpeggio pattern. I guess it'll come with time, but it really surprises me how much more difficult this is compared with learning the arpeggios themselves.

Anybody else remember experiencing this?

I remember it well, almost like I was working on this same thing a month ago, same song too. Maybe it was 2 months ago, hard to keep track.

[mjo]

In the course of learning Yesterdays, I've been spending a lot of time practicing arpeggios across and up and down the neck for E7, A7, D7, G7, C7 and F7. I've been doing this for an hour or so per day for several weeks, and it's going fine. However, my next practice step is to play four notes from E7, then voice-leading into the nearest not of A7 etc etc. I vary the starting note on E, and the direction, just to make sure the pattern isn't the same every time.

For some reason I find this extremely difficult. I have to pick my way through slowly, too slowly to use a metronome, and I keep forgetting which chord comes next. It almost seems as if, although I know all the arpeggios from their roots, if I voice lead into an arpeggio at non-root node, I've suddenly forgotten the arpeggio pattern. I guess it'll come with time, but it really surprises me how much more difficult this is compared with learning the arpeggios themselves.

Anybody else remember experiencing this?

Yes
What I do is break those arpeggios down to smaller patterns, maybe 3 strings and they'll relate directly to a chord voicing (grip).
So, if you're doing E7-A7 you can start at the 5th fret, for instance, get your chord grips down and play the arps right there. Practice moving from one chord to the next. ...... I know you won't get all four notes of the chord on 3 strings, this is actually part of the exercise for me. You can use four strings if you like, but I'll actually take this down to 2 strings. ...haven't done 1 string yet
You can move this down to the next set of strings, then the next and so on. Then practice the next change, A7-D7 in this case. Then all 3 chords, then add the next chord ..etc..
You can do this all in position, that's a fine exercise. I tend to gravitate to the chord voicings I'm likely to use first.

I use this exercise to recognize things like: degrees of the chord, intervals and notes. The progression looks like cycle four, you can also learn to recognize that on the fretboard. There's actually a number of things I've learned to recognize doing this, such as: #5's and b9's can sound great in the right places, I don't care about scales in this case, it's all about those simple moves.

I hope this makes sense and is helpful !

-best,
Mike

[James Haze]

Sax on the beach

[CliffR]

Thanks James, rpjazzguitar, Allan and mjo: very thoughtful and thought-provoking replies. I hope it doesn't turn out I'm spending too much time on an exercise that may turn out not to be too important. I'm around three years into trying to play jazz, and so far I've focussed mostly on arpeggios, with the thought of worrying about scales later down the line. I like to think in terms of arpeggios, extensions and/or adjustments to same, and enclosures, and that seems great for composing a wide variety of lines.

[Jimmy Smith]

^ Arps, scales, intervals, and chromatics is the complete set of raw theory material to use for melody. Practice them individually and combine them creatively.

[kris]

^ Arps, scales, intervals, and chromatics is the complete set of raw theory material to use for melody. Practice them individually and combine them creatively.

I don't really think about theory when I practice everything/arps,scales etc/.
.I watch TV and practise.

[Jimmy Smith]

Ok well that's still the most accurate way to get from raw theory to authentic melody if you add musicality.

[kris]

Ok well that's still the most accurate way to get from raw theory to authentic melody if you add musicality.

That's exactly right. First the improvement in technical efficiency... then music and concentration.
Mastering the scales and passages is not theory but hard work.It can be compared to the exercises of classical musicians - technical skills .
how will you play the tune in fast tempo?
studying theory?
funny

[Jimmy Smith]

Ok well I don't see why it's necessary to reply to an unrelated topic that I was discussing with someone else, create disagreement, and then strawman me.

[kris]

Ok well I don't see why it's necessary to reply to an unrelated topic that I was discussing with someone else, create disagreement, and then strawman me.

Don't write it off.

[Jimmy Smith]

Meaning your point? I'm not writing it off. You were the one who created the unnecessary disagreement not me remember? A few posts ago?