Practising Tunes in a Systematic Way

[frabarmus]

Just focus on one thing at a time. While playing is holistic, practice is reductionist and specific. (Kenny Barron discusses this dichotomy in some depth in his book Effortless Mastery)

Kenny Werner

[John A.]

I think I ought to continue to chipping away at the systematic baseline stuff that develops chops and hearing alongside developing the things that make solos sound like music. Both your answers seem like an either/or. I suppose I pondered on this topic just because sometimes in doing the exercises it's not immediately obvious how or whether they're beneficial. But to allude to what Cliff said, these things are like a necessary but not sufficient aspect of improvising jazz. A bit like the foundation of a house - inconspicuous and in and of itself not much use, except as a precondition of the house (the house being all the nice phrasing and articulation etc. that you mention, all the musical stuff).

I did not intend to say it in an either/or way. To put it differently, if you're not progressing to your satisfaction with the study/practice method you're following, mix things up a bit with other things. Make sure that you're not just doing exercise-y things. Also make sure to spend a decent amount of time just playing without systematic process. Don't overthink stuff. It's called "playing" music, after all.

But you're right that I am mostly dissatisfied with my playing, some proper gains recently notwithstanding. But I only really returned to playing jazz around June/July time and while I wasn't at that point a neophyte, I do think these can take time to develop. And there are deeper ways of practising systematically that PMB illustrated upthread that look really useful. It's all about formulating practice strategies that are balanced and work...

The flip side of that is that routine is comfortable and can be a trap.

[Christian Miller]

Kenny Werner

DOH! Yes. That Kenny,

People usually say Kenny Wheeler haha

[Christian Miller]

Perhaps a necessary but not sufficient condition?

Yes, definitely a precondition.

You do need to know other stuff.

[Strat-itis]

What are people's thoughts and opinions on doing this? I mean, I have always thought it was worth while to do. Something to keep ticking over. But at the same time, while it feels like a logical and necessary thing to do, I think it's might not be a great way of generating soloing ideas. Or it might be expecting a bit much of this way of practicing to produce a good solo. So is it just calisthenics? Obviously you want to combine this stuff with transcription and writing - you want to sound like music rather than an exercise. Perhaps I need to find some better exercises though...

Your system is good, just integrate other musical stuff based on your goals or weaknesses. There's nothing wrong with the rudimentary stuff, you just need to complete it with stuff that bridges it to full musicality. That's good that you're systematic. A lot of people aren't, when it increases improvement.