Practising Tunes in a Systematic Way

[James W]

When I practice a tune, it's in a systematic way. To start, I'll put the metronome on 2 and 4 and grab the chords of the tune I'm practising on beats 1 and 3, starting with drop 2 chords on the highest string set in one area of the neck before moving up the neck and so on before moving onto the next string set and on other days, drop 3 and drop 2 and 4. Probably ought to spend more time on shell voicings.

Then I'll play continuous arpeggio type of exercises, starting with quarter notes, then eighth notes - 'continuous' because smoothly connected in whatever direction you're going, rather than jumping back to the root for each chord. I then do the exact same thing with scales, which, like the arpeggios, I'll do in a particular position from CAGED. I might then choose to sequence a particular interval from the scales through the changes. It's quite difficult - possibly more so for guitarists, since I got the idea from the pianist Mark Levine...

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 practising 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...

[pawlowski6132]

i’m in no position to tell anybody how to practice but I don’t think it could hurt and I’m sure it’s useful. But most standards have basically the same similar progressions so I think if you do this on a couple songs you’re set for the rest of the songs. So, no reason to do this on every song.

[BreckerFan]

I think it's a good thing to practice but not the only thing to practice. I've had periods where I would do continuous 8ths with a metronome and it was really helpful for learning how connect things and clearly outline changes. I did it slowly over Giant Steps, 26-2, and Satellite which really helped gain clarity in lines by requiring me to identify how to transition between keys smoothly.

But like you said this kind of practice shouldn't be confused with making music. It's a tool to target a weakness, not the end goal. Beyond harmonic command in lines, rhythmic variation and motivic playing are also essential elements of good solos which require different practice strategies.

[rpjazzguitar]

Sounds perfectly reasonable.

Whatever you practice a lot is likely to show up in your playing. So, the continuous nature of the exercises helps avoid being root bound; excellent idea.

Practicing to tunes using the notes in the scales/arps in an order determined by your mind generating melody seems like it would be worthwhile.

I think practicing to a backing track with harmony may allow you to hear jazz sounds that won't be apparent to just a metronome.

[charlieparker]

When I practice a tune, it's in a systematic way. To start, I'll put the metronome on 2 and 4 and grab the chords of the tune I'm practising on beats 1 and 3, starting with drop 2 chords on the highest string set in one area of the neck before moving up the neck and so on before moving onto the next string set and on other days, drop 3 and drop 2 and 4. Probably ought to spend more time on shell voicings.

Then I'll play continuous arpeggio type of exercises, starting with quarter notes, then eighth notes - 'continuous' because smoothly connected in whatever direction you're going, rather than jumping back to the root for each chord. I then do the exact same thing with scales, which, like the arpeggios, I'll do in a particular position from CAGED. I might then choose to sequence a particular interval from the scales through the changes. It's quite difficult - possibly more so for guitarists, since I got the idea from the pianist Mark Levine...

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 practising 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...

That seems pretty close to what Dirk's book on jazz blues has you do on Blues for Alice. The one thing I might add is to mix in sequences like the Coltrane/Bergonzi 1235 patterns and maybe alternate between arpeggio and scale or pattern each measure for more variety.

[PMB]

James, your first move - playing the chords for the tune - really should come after listening to a bunch of different versions, learning the lyrics (if it's a vocal standard) and playing the melody in at least two different positions and octaves if possible. I'd recommend filling things from the outside in. Add the roots notes in the bass on the lower strings and then guide tones on the inner strings.

As for long scale/arpeggio exercises, they can be useful to mark out the territory but as 'BreckerFan' pointed out, you don't want to confuse the map with travelling. The difficult transitional stage to making music from raw materials is something I've thought a lot about as a teacher of 30+ years. Sometime ago, I created a substantial lesson for my students on playing over Autumn Leaves that attempts to bridge the gap.

In this extended lesson, apart from incorporating the kinds of melodic patterns and textural alterations mentioned by 'charlieparker', I also most importantly bring in right from the start fundamental 'jazz' rhythmic units that interact with the melodic statements via systematical displacement. We so often defer dealing with rhythm and articulation when first practising tunes. Imagine learning a foreign language, acquiring all the vocabulary and rules but only concerning ourselves with the accent and delivery required way down the track. These aspects are interdependent and should be always treated as such.

Here are a couple of sample pages from the lesson. PM me if you're keen on a Zoom session where we can delve more deeply into this process. We could take a different tune besides Autumn Leaves but its harmonic and melodic simplicity makes it an ideal candidate for these explorations.

[CliffR]

FWIW, I only started practicing scales in earnest a few months ago. Now I'll take a tune I'm working on, focus on one chord moving into another as part of that tune, then work on the scale of the first chord. (Next day is the next pair of chords.) I play it up and down, then again in thirds. Then as triads, with an enclosure on each root, then the third, then the fifth. Then I work on 4-note arpeggios with a chromatic leading note, and then again with a pivot. Maybe one day some of this will show up in my playing . At the very least, I've found the conscious scale practice and enclosures has given me knowledge of the fretboard and a little more freedom. I don't do the continuous scale/arpeggio practice, although I probably should. But there's only so much time!

I then have a group of licks I've taken from Bird and George Benson that I mutate to fit the chords I'm working on. Then I have some lick-generating ideas I use to compose some lines over them. (I find Jens Larsen's videos particularly good at providing ideas for composing licks).

[Christian Miller]

I think practicing things systematically is good. Controversial take I know, but come at me.

One thing I have come to realise slowly in my thick brain is that you really want two things in your practice
- measurable outcomes
- not too practice to many things at the same time

This comes back to having a really clear idea of what you are working on at any given time and what your criteria for success are.

I suspect the majority don’t have this in mind when they practice. This is the single most important thing, IMO, to getting through the dreaded intermediate plateau where simple time on the instrument does not guarantee progress.

Your enemies are impatience with the process and yourself, and hyper fixating on one thing for hours on end. Little and often, and forming good habits are key.

So in theory at least I’d probably want to separate out things like these into specific practice exercises
- knowing where the notes are on a tune
- working through different harmonic exercises
- improvising or composing good sounding lines
- working on accurate time and articulation
- playing moto perpetuo in 8th notes on a tune
Etc

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)

The best way I’ve ever found for mapping the changes of a tune is the Barry Harris scale outline exercise:

This sounds extremely boring but it does teach you the notes and outlines the harmony strongly - the latter being something that the continuous scale exercise does not do


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[James W]

James, your first move - playing the chords for the tune - really should come after listening to a bunch of different versions, learning the lyrics (if it's a vocal standard) and playing the melody in at least two different positions and octaves if possible. I'd recommend filling things from the outside in. Add the roots notes in the bass on the lower strings and then guide tones on the inner strings.

You're right - I suppose I was taking it for granted that I'd checked out different versions of the tune, and learnt to play the melody. I should probably learn the lyrics of the standards I do know, if they have them of course. That's a good idea regarding playing the root notes and guide tones.

As for long scale/arpeggio exercises, they can be useful to mark out the territory but as 'BreckerFan' pointed out, you don't want to confuse the map with travelling. The difficult transitional stage to making music from raw materials is something I've thought a lot about as a teacher of 30+ years. Sometime ago, I created a substantial lesson for my students on playing over Autumn Leaves that attempts to bridge the gap.

In this extended lesson, apart from incorporating the kinds of melodic patterns and textural alterations mentioned by 'charlieparker', I also most importantly bring in right from the start fundamental 'jazz' rhythmic units that interact with the melodic statements via systematical displacement. We so often defer dealing with rhythm and articulation when first practising tunes. Imagine learning a foreign language, acquiring all the vocabulary and rules but only concerning ourselves with the accent and delivery required way down the track. These aspects are interdependent and should be always treated as such.

Here are a couple of sample pages from the lesson. PM me if you're keen on a Zoom session where we can delve more deeply into this process. We could take a different tune besides Autumn Leaves but its harmonic and melodic simplicity makes it an ideal candidate for these explorations.

Thanks for this. What you describe sounds very intriguing. I may take you up on the offer of a lesson - it'll have to be after Christmas though for I am currently skint. (I am quite the promiscuous guitar student - you'll be my fourth guitar teacher just on this site alone, the number is more if we include teachers not on this site and even more if we include non-jazz guitar teachers!)

[James W]

I think practicing things systematically is good. Controversial take I know, but come at me.

One thing I have come to realise slowly in my thick brain is that you really want two things in your practice
- measurable outcomes
- not too practice to many things at the same time

This comes back to having a really clear idea of what you are working on at any given time and what your criteria for success are.

I suspect the majority don’t have this in mind when they practice. This is the single most important thing, IMO, to getting through the dreaded intermediate plateau where simple time on the instrument does not guarantee progress.

Your enemies are impatience with the process and yourself, and hyper fixating on one thing for hours on end. Little and often, and forming good habits are key.

So in theory at least I’d probably want to specific out things like these into specific practice exercises
- knowing where the notes are on a tune
- working through different harmonic exercises
- improvising or composing good sounding lines
- working on accurate time and articulation
- playing moto perpetuo in 8th notes on a tune
Etc

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)

The best way I’ve ever found for mapping the changes of a tune is the Barry Harris scale outline exercise:

This sounds extremely boring but it does teach you the notes and outlines the harmony strongly - the latter being something that the continuous scale exercise does not do


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for this. You make some good points, including all-important psychological hurdles to overcome. The Barry Harris exercise is good...

[GuyBoden]

Personally, I don't think it's much different than learning a Pop or Rock song.

Listen to the song repeatedly until you can hear the Melody, Bass and Chords.

[James W]

Personally, I don't think it's much different than learning a Pop or Rock song.

Listen to the song repeatedly until you can hear the Melody, Bass and Chords.

You really can't tell the difference between jazz and pop or rock?

[Christian Miller]

Personally, I don't think it's much different than learning a Pop or Rock song.

Listen to the song repeatedly until you can hear the Melody, Bass and Chords.

Songs are songs, true

Most ‘jazz tunes’ aren’t jazz tunes


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[Ukena]

Songs are songs, true[...]

Years ago I was engaged to rehearse and perform the tenor part of Ned Rorem's Four Dialogues – for soprano, tenor, and two pianos.

As I looked through the music, I wondered how I would ever memorize (let alone learn) something like that: the vocal lines have almost nothing to do with the parts the two pianos are playing, except that they work together musically. It seemed to me that phrase-starting pitches had to be plucked out of thin air.

Fairly quickly, I realized that there was a melody to be learned, that existed on its own. It wasn't the kind of melody I was used to learning, with a background in Broadway and folk music. But it was a melody, nonetheless, and it wasn't actually that hard to learn.

Just hard to sing.

[GuyBoden]

Personally, I don't think it's much different than learning a Pop or Rock song.

Listen to the song repeatedly until you can hear the Melody, Bass and Chords.

You really can't tell the difference between jazz and pop or rock?

Songs are songs, true
Most ‘jazz tunes’ aren’t jazz tunes

The learning process is the same for me, whatever the genre of music.

Listen very carefully to the song repeatedly until you can hear the Melody, Bass and Chords.

[James W]

The learning process is the same for me, whatever the genre of music.

Listen very carefully to the song repeatedly until you can hear the Melody, Bass and Chords.

And this magically will teach you how to improvise on the song?

[GuyBoden]

And this magically will teach you how to improvise on the song?

Well, after repeated listening and playing the chords/melody, you should to able to hear the changes to the song, if you have listened carefully enough.

Then you'll hear phrases (you already know) that will fit the changes.

I admit, I'm presuming you already have a large bag of fav Jazz phrases you can play on almost any Jazz song.

This is my approach, obviously, you don't seem to like the approach. But, that's ok.

[charlieparker]

The learning process is the same for me, whatever the genre of music.

Listen very carefully to the song repeatedly until you can hear the Melody, Bass and Chords.

I like the approach but I find this a lot harder to do on jazz songs. Especially Bebop tunes. I find the bass often muddled and the chords hard to distinguish.

[John A.]

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.

I think this sort of systematic approach is useful for developing chops and hearing changes, but it omits the things that make solos sound like music (e.g., phrasing, articulation, dynamics, motivic development, the overall shape of a solo, etc.). Once you get past a fairly minimal baseline level of chops and vocabulary, you have to focus on things other than developing that baseline.

Or it might be expecting a bit much of this way of practising 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...

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. How does your music sound to you? Does doing the same thing again and again yield progress toward the goal of making real music? If yes, then you're good. If no, then do something else.

[Christian Miller]

And this magically will teach you how to improvise on the song?

Well it certainly seems to help more than not being able to hear melody, bass and chords of a song.

[CliffR]

Does doing the same thing again and again yield progress toward the goal of making real music? If yes, then you're good. If no, then do something else.

The problem here is that we often hear that it can take months before a piece of practice 'shows up' in our playing. This does seem to make it difficult to judge whether any given thing we're spending time on is actually useful. No doubt the advice of a teacher is helpful for this kind of thing.

[CliffR]

Well it certainly seems to help more than not being able to hear melody, bass and chords of a song.

Perhaps a necessary but not sufficient condition?

[GuyBoden]

Perhaps a necessary but not sufficient condition?

IMHO, we need to learn stock Jazz phrases and hear how they fit over changes.

If you listen to the great Jazz players, they use similar phrases in different songs.

I don't think most Jazz phrases are difficult to learn, but it takes a long time. Endlessly, repeatedly, playing the same Jazz phrases over songs, every day, month, year. But then, adding new Jazz phrases when you find a phrase you like.

Don't make Jazz complex.

Edit: If you played Rock, you learned Rock licks. This is Jazz, so you learn Jazz phrases.

[James W]

I think this sort of systematic approach is useful for developing chops and hearing changes, but it omits the things that make solos sound like music (e.g., phrasing, articulation, dynamics, motivic development, the overall shape of a solo, etc.). Once you get past a fairly minimal baseline level of chops and vocabulary, you have to focus on things other than developing that baseline.


The proof of the pudding is in the eating. How does your music sound to you? Does doing the same thing again and again yield progress toward the goal of making real music? If yes, then you're good. If no, then do something else.

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).

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...

[John A.]

The problem here is that we often hear that it can take months before a piece of practice 'shows up' in our playing. This does seem to make it difficult to judge whether any given thing we're spending time on is actually useful. No doubt the advice of a teacher is helpful for this kind of thing.

Different people progress at different rates. But I'd say that if you're sticking with some specific practice routine for a significant amount of time (to you), and you you don't feel like you're improving when you play actual music you should consider making some changes in your practice routine. But I also think that the most important element in making progress with this music is playing with other people, and getting better at that is the true test of whether what you're working on is beneficial.