Practice Ideas for Aspiring Jazz Musicians
How Do Aspiring Jazz Musicians Develop Their Skills
Aspiring jazz musicians of any age often find it quite overwhelming to develop their improvisation abilities. They have a sound in their mind, often from a favorite player or recording, and they cannot seem to recreate it on their instruments. As it takes years of study, practicing, playing and performance to achieve a certain level of mastery in any field, jazz musicians have developed a number of great strategies to speed up the process.
Here is a way to "plan your work" and "work your plan" as a jazz musician:
The first idea is break down your practice time on your instrument into blocks. Plan to spend a certain amount of time just playing and improvising. But realize that gains will be made also when you devote some of your available time to actually practicing specific tasks like scales and/or exercises, doing some focused 
ear training, and listening to great players and recordings. These can be accomplished by focusing your effort on studying the musical concepts outlined here:
- JAZZ THEORY: Spend some time exploring the fundamental theoretical basis for jazz including chords (tones & tensions), chord scales, modes and diatonic relationships [major, melodic and harmonic minor], harmonic analysis, forms (blues [12-bar, 24-bar], rhythm changes [based on Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm"], 32-bar AABA song forms, and through-composed tunes, etc.). These represent the palette of your note, chord, and song choices as you play.
- IMPROVISATION STRATEGIES is essentially the application of jazz theory to the creation of spontaneous solos. You can learn ways to approach improvisation through transcription studies, where you learn another musician's solo note for note. Your short-term goals include pattern-breaking- changing things that you always play that have grown perhaps "stale", and to develop a facility on your instrument in all 12-keys. The THREE PRINCIPAL APPROACHES of improvisation would be: a) ear/fixed system - playing entirely be ear; b) chord scales - playing the underlying scale of the harmony; and c) chord tones (12-notes) - which is a modern approach to improvisation based on playing the underlying arpeggio (broken chord) as 'target' notes using 'approach' notes which can give you access to all chromatic pitches.
- PRACTICE TECHNIQUES & PERFORMANCE ISSUES. This is a focus on various concepts designed to help you improve your practicing time, and increase your performance application efficiency. All of these topics work for a musician's self-study regimen, or one working with a teacher/mentor. It also helps to keep a practice log to document goals and progress.
The TOP three fundamental goals for aspiring players in jazz improvisation should be the
development of:
- a good sound/tone
- a solid time feel and 'deep' sense of swing
- a deeper sense of hearing, listening, ear training (melodic/harmonic/ensemble hearing)
The goal here, to quote the great jazz pianist Kenny Werner is, “effortless mastery”. You want to develop your ability to play without thinking. You study these things to add them to your understanding, and then you let go and just play and improvise. GOOD PRACTICING!
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Comments
This is a really great article. Obviously you know your subject. Our son is a professional jazz double bassist so I found this really interesting. Great stuff!
Thank you, JudyE!
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