Jazz is about colors

You're hearing and listening to music all wrong. Don't focus your ear on listening mainly for the notes. Listen for the colors.

-Ron Eschete

The Difference Between Playing and Practicing

Article shared by Dr. Joe Jewell and taken from this site:
http://www.practicingmusician.com/2011/09/the-difference-between-playing-and-practicing/

One of the most important lessons a student can learn is that practicing music is a problem solving exercise. I read an article a few years back by classical guitarist and educator Scott Tennant that clearly defined the difference between playing and practicing. Those too words meant the same thing to me while growing up, but I now realize they are very different things.
Playing: This is when you enjoy the hard work you’ve put into practicing, that is, you just play. When you play you are really concerned with only one thing: the experience. You might pay small attention to technique and musicality but for the most part you are just ‘going for it’ and letting your musical training and inspiration run free. This is not really practicing. When you are playing you are not able to improve anything, you simply test out or try to execute the material.
Practicing: Practicing is when you are actually solving problems, that is, you are finding weaknesses and defects in your musicality that are either caused by technique, interpretation, reading, or how you envision the piece of music. You then set about fixing the problems and improving yourself as a musician. So the rule is that when you practice you identify a problem and set about fixing it. Clarity is key to good practice. Think about when a music teacher critiques a student, they have to clearly state what the problem is and then offer up a solution. You must be your own teacher when you practice.

Practicing takes a great deal more concentration than playing but it makes you improve more quickly and efficiently!

Things to consider

1. Have you isolated the problem you are working on?
2. Do you clearly understand the problem and can you describe it in words?
3. If yes, how will you solve it? If no, get advice from your teacher or do some research.
4. Research: how have others solved this issue? Did your teacher give you advice on the topic? Did you actually try out that advice for a few weeks or months? Can you find clues/tips in books, websites, by listening?
5. Look for role models. If five high level professionals play in a certain way on YouTube maybe you can experiment by following their example (technique, posture, musicality).
6. Are there any tools to help you such as metronome practice, technique exercises? Would practicing your scales be a faster way to improve the problem?

Keeping a practice journal
I never really gave much thought to practice journals until the problem solving issue really hit home with me. By writing down your goals and problems/solutions you’ll be making your practice session much more concrete as opposed to abstract. Music teachers do this once a week for their students and so you must as well. You can write a weekly set of goals but then clearly write down what your want to achieve for each individual practice session.
Be efficient (quality versus quantity)
Some of my best students are not the ones who practice the most hours, they are the ones who consistently practice well. Being efficient will not only make you a better musician it will also free up some time so you can have a life. Having a life is darn important, you don’t have to lock yourself away and be a musical hermit, you just have to get to the main point of practicing which is to improve. The famous classical guitarist John Williams, a flawless player, said that while growing up he only practiced 30mins a day! I bet that was a concentrated and quality 30min! You can see my other post on quality vs quantity for more tips.
All you need is love (love=technique and musicianship)
The late head of strings at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, Dr. Walter Mony, once told me that I should dedicate most of my time to technique, musicianship, and etudes. I was stressed by the amount of repertoire I had at the time but his suggestion made sense. In a way, practicing technique and etudes is like practicing all of your pieces at once. The goal is to be able to have as little in the way of problems as possible so nothing that comes up in your repertoire will throw you. Musicianship is things like practicing your rhythm using your body and voice, away from your instrument. If you understand the music and have a solid and versatile technique, you can play anything.

http://www.voxamps.com/artists/isaiah-sharkey/

artists » Isaiah Sharkey

Releasing his first album at age 16, showing the focus, chops and maturity of a seasoned player, Isaiah Sharkey is the rare modern guitarist who draws from so many contemporary and classic musical styles that you can’t simply call what he does “Jazz” or “R & B.” That would be missing the point of this versatile and extremely talented player who just recently turned all of 24 years old.
Isaiah’s distinctive style includes elements of inspiration from Wes Montgomery, Pat Metheny and Steely Dan, with equal parts funk (classic and modern) and neo-soul. While fronting his own band, Isaiah’s tremendous musical vocabulary and distinct phrasing have also brought him some pretty high profile gigs. Isaiah recently took some time to chat with us during a break on the road supporting R&B legend D’Angelo’s amazing comeback tour.
VOX: What started you playing music?
Isaiah Sharkey: I would have to say my family. My father was a great versatile musician as well as his brothers and sisters. They had a family band back in the 60’s-80’s called The Fugitives. So I would listen to their records and of course other great records of legends and it inspired me. As far back as I can remember I always had an interest in guitar and a love for music.
VOX: Who were some of your earliest influences as a guitarist (or songwriter, etc.)?
Isaiah Sharkey: My father (Michael Sharkey), Wes Montgomery, George Benson, Keith Jarrett, Chalmers Spanky Alford, Steely Dan, Pat Metheny, Frank Gambale, Paul Jackson Jr., Joe Pass, Yellowjackets, Toto and many more from just about every major genre.
VOX: How did your band with your father and brothers come about?
Isaiah Sharkey: We always played music as a family, whether in church or just at home. And they’re all great musicians and singers as well, so we were always kind of playing as a band. Back in 2004, my father and I went to a flea market to check out some stuff. While we were there, we met a man name John McGlasson selling guitars. So I picked one up and started playing. After playing for about a minute or so, John asked me if I would be interested in doing some recording. Of course we said yes! So from that my dad, brothers and I went into the studio to record the Skyliner album. When we finished the album we followed up with some shows to promote it and that’s how we became Isaiah Sharkey and the Family Tree.
VOX: What was it like to work with your father and have to rise to a much higher level than many players at a young age?
Isaiah Sharkey: Working with my father was a great challenge. Again, he was a great musician and he always pushed me to listen to everything I could, learn from it and then make it my own. We would have sessions that went on for hours at a time with him teaching different things about music and the theory behind it. With him being the great musician that he was, I really had to rise up to his level to keep up. So, at a young age I was already hip to a lot of music and information.
VOX: Your first album, Skyliner, came out when you were just 16 years old. Can you explain a little bit about how your approach to writing and recording has changed over time?
Isaiah Sharkey: Since Skyliner came out I’ve had the pleasure of working with so many recording with so many different artists. Each recording session has been a wonderful opportunity to watch and learn from their writing and recording processes. I must say, I’ve learned a lot from just doing more and more recording. I’ve learned the importance of tone, placement choices in playing and how to take a vision for the song and really bring it to life.
VOX: Tell us about how you started playing VOX guitars.
Isaiah Sharkey: Well, I’ve recently been on tour with the great artist D’Angelo. One day in rehearsal my guitar tech Tim Wright and I were talking about different guitar and amp companies and VOX came up. Tim was telling me about their guitar line and I was interested. So we got in contact with VOX and met Rich Lasner (VP of Guitar Development) who lent us a guitar to try out. The first time I played the Virage DC, I instantly fell in love with it; what a versatile instrument! I could quickly switch from a warm, humbucker tone to a more single coil pickup type of sound, which was everything I could look for and more in one guitar.
VOX: What are some of the features of your VOX guitar that you feel allow you greater expression than the typical instrument?
Isaiah Sharkey: The feel of the neck is thin and easier to play than the average semi-hollow body guitar. Being so light in weight, it’s easy to play long gigs with. The pickups are great because I can quickly switch the tone of my guitar, getting crunch, lead and clean tone all in one. And of course they’re great looking guitars, as well.
VOX: How does your VOX Bruno amp help you develop your individual tone?
Isaiah Sharkey: The Bruno has its own individual tone. It has a warm clean tone that still cuts through which I love. And unlike a lot of amps, when I want to rock out on some overdrive or distortion, the tone of the amp doesn’t get lost or break up. So, overall I would say it’s pretty much the perfect amp.
VOX: You are playing an awful lot of live gigs this year. Do you see the music changing as you and the band reinvent the tunes each night?

Isaiah Sharkey: Yes. Every night is different for several reasons. The first thing is that I’m playing in a band with great musicians like Pino Palladino, Chris Dave, Cleo Samples and Jesse Johnson. So, in this band we are constantly trying to push the envelope to create something fresh, new and different without taking away from the music. Also, each show has a different crowd; the vibe and energy from the audience can take the music to a different place.
VOX: You play some massive festivals and shows, but also more intimate gigs in smaller venues. Does your approach vary when your audience is 20,000 or 200 people?
Isaiah Sharkey: My approach would be the same. I always try to play with the same energy and intensity every show, no matter the number of people.
VOX: What do you have coming up in the near future?
Isaiah Sharkey: I’m working on projects with D’Angelo, Ronald Isley and a few other artists. Also, I’m in the process of writing and producing my own project. I just want to make good music with great musicians. And using VOX gear, of course!

artists/isaiah-sharkey/

Nir Felder :http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129601883

"I listen to everything that comes my way — suggestions from friends and the music of my peers," Felder says. "But also the music I grew up with. I draw a lot of inspiration from classic rock, blues and soul. There's really a lot of material to be explored in that music. It comes from an emotional place."

http://jazztimes.com/articles/54055-before-after-with-guitarist-adam-rogers

ADAM ROGERS

Wes is probably my main and most important influence as a guitarist. As a young developing player, I had a cassette recording that was an important resource for me. I’d listen to the radio and press the “record” button when something interested me and then push “stop” when it stopped interesting me. So I’d have fragments of tunes, and I got this piece of Wes playing with a big band—just his solo and a bit of the big band playing the head out. I had one or two cassettes that I recorded this way. I didn’t know who any of these players were because they weren’t announced. It turned out that it was a lot of Wes and Wayne Shorter, Pat Martino, stuff from Joe Henderson’s Inner Urge, but I had no idea who anybody was. I was just starting my jazz studies, basically. And this one thing of Wes’ just blew me away.

Quotes

AdamRogers: Giora, that was one of my first really professional gigs, it was my first touring gig, and I got it from my studying and knowing how to play classical guitar. He plays Klezmer music, Jewish folk music, with a classical approach. That was an amazing experience. He's got one of the most incredible sounds on the clarinet and he's a phenomenal musician. He can play pianissimo (quiet) with such intensity that it's mind- blowing. He taught me a great deal about music. When the bassist and I would be asked to play your average Jewish folk rhythm, he would stop us and say, "You have to approach playing that rhythm, which is on the surface quite simple; with the same intensity you would approach playing Mozart. A very heavy concept. What he was saying was one of the most profound things. First of all, never play on automatic pilot, always really mean what you're doing, and also choose your approach. You don't just play music without thinking about it. This is also a guy who doesn't improvise, he interprets melodies. It was a very helpful lesson to somebody who's trying to be a jazz musician.

http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/how-many-hours-a-day-should-you-practice/

How Many Hours a Day Should You Practice?

by Dr. Noa Kageyama · 254 comments

2 hours? 4 hours? 8 hours? 12 hours?
How much is enough?
Is there such a thing as practicing too much?
Is there an optimal number of hours that one should practice?

What Do Performers Say?

Some of the great artists of the 20th century have shared their thoughts on these questions. I seem to recall reading an interview with Rubinstein years ago, in which he stated that nobody should have to practice more than four hours a day, explaining that if you needed to practice more than four hours a day, you probably weren’t doing it right.
Other great artists have expressed similar sentiments. Violinist Nathan Milstein is said to have once asked his teacher Leopold Auer how many hours a day he should be practicing. Auer responded by saying “Practice with your fingers and you need all day. Practice with your mind and you will do as much in 1 1/2 hours.”
Heifetz also indicated that he never believed in practicing too much, and that excessive practice is “just as bad as practicing too little!” He claimed that he practiced no more than three hours per day on average, and that he didn’t practice at all on Sundays. You know, this is not a bad idea – one of my own teachers, Donald Weilerstein, once suggested that I establish a 24-hour period of time every week where I was not allowed to pick up my instrument.

What Do Psychologists Say?

When it comes to understanding expertise and expert performance, psychologist Dr. K. Anders Ericsson is perhaps the world’s leading authority. His research is the basis for the “ten-year rule” and “10,000-hour rule” which suggest that it requires at least ten years and/or 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to achieve an expert level of performance in any given domain – and in the case of musicians, often closer to 25 years in order to attain an elite international level. Note that the real key here is not the amount of practice required but the type of practice required to attain an expert level of performance. In other words, just practicing any old way doesn’t cut it.

Mindless Practice

Have you ever listened to someone practice? Have you ever listened to yourself practice, for that matter? Tape yourself practicing for an hour, take a walk through the practice room area at school and eavesdrop on your fellow students, or ask your students to pretend they are at home and watch them practice during a lesson. What do you notice?
You’ll notice that the majority of folks practice rather mindlessly, either engaging in mere repetition (“practice this passage 10 times” or “practice this piece for 30 minutes”) or practicing on autopilot (that’s when we play through the piece until we hear something we don’t like, stop, repeat the passage again until it sounds better, and resume playing through the piece until we hear the next thing we aren’t satisfied with, at which point we begin this whole process over again).
There are three major problems with the mindless method of practicing.

1. It is a waste of time

Why? For one, very little productive learning takes place when we practice this way. This is how we can practice a piece for hours, days, or weeks, and still not feel that we’ve improved all that much. Even worse, you are actually digging yourself a hole by practicing this way, because what this model of practicing does do is strengthen undesirable habits and errors, literally making it more likely that you will screw up more consistently in the future. This makes it more difficult to correct these habits in the future – so you are actually adding to the amount of future practice time you will need in order to eliminate these bad habits and tendencies. I once worked with a saxophone professor who was fond of reminding his students that “Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent.”

2. It makes you less confident

In addition, practicing this way actually hurts your confidence, as there is a part of you that realizes you don’t really know how to consistently produce the results you are looking for. Even if you establish a fairly high success rate in the most difficult passages via mindless practice, and find that you can nail it 3 or 4 out of every 5 attempts, your confidence won’t grow much from this. Real on-stage confidence comes from (a) being able to nail it 10 out of 10 tries, (b) knowing that this isn’t a coincidence but that you can do it the correct way on demand, because most importantly (c) you know precisely why you nail it or miss it – i.e. you know exactly what you need to do from a technique standpoint in order to play the passage perfectly every time.
You may not be able to play it perfectly every time at first, but this is what repetition is for – to reinforce the correct habits until they are stronger than the bad habits. It’s a little like trying to grow a nice looking lawn. Instead of fighting a never-ending battle against the weeds, your time is better spent trying to cultivate the grass so that over time the grass crowds out the weeds.
And here’s the biggie. We tend to practice unconsciously, and then end up trying to perform consciously – not a great formula for success. Recall from this article that you have a tendency to shift over into hyper-analytical left brain mode when you walk out on stage. Well, if you have done most of your practicing unconsciously, you really don’t know how to play your piece perfectly on demand. When your brain suddenly goes into full-conscious mode, you end up freaking out, because you don’t know what instructions to give your brain.

3. It is tedious and boring

Practicing mindlessly is a chore. Music may be one of the only skill-based activities where practice goals are measured in units of time. We’ve all had teachers who tell us to go home and practice a certain passage x number of times, or to practice x number of hours, right? What we really need are more specific outcome goals – such as, practice this passage until it sounds like _____, or practice this passage until you can figure out how to make it sound like _____.
After all, it doesn’t really matter how much time we spend practicing something – only that we know how to produce the results we want, and can do so consistently, on demand.

Deliberate Practice

So what is deliberate, or mindful practice? Deliberate practice is a systematic and highly structured activity, which is, for lack of a better word, scientific. Instead of mindless trial and error, it is an active and thoughtful process of experimentation with clear goals and hypotheses. Violinist Paul Kantor once said that the practice room should be like a laboratory, where one can freely tinker with different ideas, both musical and technical, to see what combination of ingredients produces the result you are looking for.
Deliberate practice is often slow, and involves repetition of small and very specific sections of your repertoire instead of just playing through (e.g. working on just the opening note of your solo to make sure that it “speaks” exactly the way you want, instead of playing the entire opening phrase).
Deliberate practice involves monitoring one’s performance (in real-time, but also via recordings), continually looking for new ways to improve. This means really listening to what happens, so that you can tell yourself exactly what went wrong. For instance, was the first note note sharp? Flat? Too loud? Too soft? Too harsh? Too short? Too long?
Let’s say that the note was too sharp and too long with not enough of an attack to begin the note. Well, how sharp was it? A little? A lot? How much longer was the note than you wanted it to be? How much more of an attack did you want?
Ok, the note was a little sharp, just a hair too long, and required a much clearer attack in order to be consistent with the marked articulation and dynamics. So, why was the note sharp? What did you do? What do you need to do to make sure the note is perfectly in tune every time? How do you ensure that the length is just as you want it to be, and how do you get a consistently clean and clear attack to begin the note so it begins in the right character?
Now, let’s imagine you recorded all of this and could listen to how this last attempt sounded. Does that combination of ingredients give you the desired result? In other words, does that combination of ingredients convey the mood or character you want to communicate to the listener as effectively as you thought it would?
Few musicians take the time to stop, analyze what went wrong, why it happened, and how they can correct the error permanently.

How Many Hours a Day Should I Practice?

You will find that deliberate practice is very draining, given the tremendous amount of energy required to keep one’s full attentional resources on the task at hand. Practicing more than one hour at a time is likely to be unproductive and in all honesty, probably not even mentally or emotionally possible. Even the most dedicated individuals will find it difficult to practice more than four hours a day.
Studies have varied the length of daily practice from 1 hour to 8 hours, and the results suggest that there is often little benefit from practicing more than 4 hours per day, and that gains actually begin to decline after the 2-hour mark.  The key is to keep tabs on the level of concentration you are able to sustain.

5 Keys For More Effective Practice

1. Duration

Keep practice sessions limited to a duration that allows you to stay focused. This may be as short as 10-20 minutes for younger students, and as long as 45-60 minutes for older individuals.

2. Timing

Keep track of times during the day when you tend to have the most energy. This may be first thing in the morning, or right before lunch, etc. Try to do your practicing during these naturally productive periods as these are the times at which you will be able to focus and think most clearly.

3. Goals

Try using a practice notebook. Keep track of your practice goals and what you discover during your practice sessions. The key to getting into the “zone” when practicing is to be constantly striving to have clarity of intention. In other words, to have a clear idea of the sound you want to produce, or particular phrasing you’d like to try, or specific articulation, intonation, etc. that you’d like to be able to execute consistently.
When you figure something out, write it down. As I practiced more mindfully, I began learning so much during practice sessions that if I didn’t write everything down, I’d forget.

4. Smarter, not harder

Sometimes if a particular passage is not coming out the way we want it to, it just means we need to practice more. There are also times, however, when we don’t need to practice harder, but need an altogether different strategy or technique.
I remember struggling with the left-hand pizzicato variation in Paganini’s 24th Caprice. I was getting frustrated and kept trying harder and harder to make the notes speak, but all I got was sore fingers, a couple of which actually started to bleed. I realized that there had to be a smarter, more effective way to accomplish my goal.
Instead of stubbornly keeping at a strategy or technique that wasn’t working for me, I forced myself to stop practicing this section altogether. I tried to brainstorm different solutions to the problem for a day or so, and wrote down ideas to try as they occurred to me. When I felt that I came up with some promising solutions, I just started experimenting. I eventually came up with a solution that I worked on over the next week or so, and when I played the caprice for my teacher, he actually asked me how I made the notes speak so clearly!

5. Problem-solving model

Consider this 6-step general problem-solving model summarized below (adapted from various problem solving processes online).

1. Define the problem (what do I want this note/phrase to sound like?)
2. Analyze the problem (what is causing it to sound like this?)
3. Identify potential solutions (what can I tweak to make it sound more like I want?)
4. Test the potential solutions to select the most effective one (what tweaks seem to work best?)
5. Implement the best solution (make these changes permanent)
6. Monitor implementation (do these changes continue to produce the results I’m looking for?)

Or simpler yet, check out this model from Daniel Coyle’s book The Talent Code.

1. Pick a target
2. Reach for it
3. Evaluate the gap between the target and the reach
4. Return to step one

It doesn’t matter if we are talking about perfecting technique, or experimenting with different musical ideas. Any model which encourages smarter, more systematic, active thought, and clearly articulated goals will help cut down on wasted, ineffective practice time.
After all, who wants to spend all day in the practice room? Get in, get stuff done, and get out!

UPDATE: Think all of this only relates to classical music? Jazz aficionados, check out this post on practicing effectively written by acclaimed jazz violinist Christian Howes for a helpful perspective and tips on practicing in jazz. Funnily enough, we were in Suzuki together back in Columbus, OH as kids.

UPDATE #2: Came across this thoughtful post on deliberate practice written by an astute young cellist at Northwestern University.

UPDATE #3: And an excellent, thought-provoking piece on deliberate practice for folks in business and other non-musical fields (and a fascinating blog besides).

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You might also find these helpful:

1. The Best Time of Day to Practice
2. Should One Practice Very Much on the Day of a Concert?
3. Does Mental Practice Work?
4. Yes Practice? No Practice? Why You Must Decide
5. What to Practice When You Practice