Musicians' quotes on practice

bbwood_98

John Coltrane to Miles:

Man - how do you get those rests in there?

Miles:

Take the horn out your mouth.

@Buco - I was listening to Russel Malone talk about playing and he says to just go with it, deep, and deeper (further and further outside) until the audience really starts to notice, and then look for a resolution . . .

Buco

@bbwood_98 I didn't listen to Russel a whole lot (though I love his playing and have listened to him at one point) but he is one of the best thinkers in jazz today. A lot of stuff I heard him say resonated with me. It must be a wonderful place to be when you can weave you musical trip as you play and guide it where you want it to go and change direction on the fly. It reminds me of when I ski, my second life passion, i l love just looking down the mountain and changing my line on a dime.

Lango-Django

One thing nobody has mentioned is imagination... imagining what you want to sound like, and then trying to make it happen.

I love the feeling (when i succeed!) at just imagining a little phrase or melody and then picking up my guitar and trying to play it on the spot... an important skill for an improviser!

In the past, I have encountered frustration in my attempts to duplicate the wonderful phrases of Django, Duved, Stochelo and other guitarists whose music I have studied... because before you can make their wonderful music come out your fingers, you’ve got to have it firmly lodged in your head... and that’s not always easy, even with the great modern advantages of fully tabbed-out transcriptions and SoundSlice... it should be, but it isn’t!

...but when I play my own phrases, I get to skip all that hard work and go straight to the fun part!

This half-ass practice method is probably the reason why I will never be a real whiz as a GJ player, but my answer to that is... who says I need be a real whiz ?

Certainly not my wife, who has zero interest in listening to me practise for hours and hours every day!

I just want to play well enough to have fun, it’s not like it’s ever gonna be a career or anything!

That said, I take my hat off to all you devout practicers, busily training like athletes... I would join you for your marathon run up to the top of the mountain, except I’m way too lazy...

Happy new year to all my music buddies all around the world, the devout and the lazy alike!

Will

Buco

That's a great write-up Will. A few of my observations on that. Neither will any of those players will be able to sound like their counterparts. One might ask why would they, they have their own voice? Well that's the answer at the same time. You can practice and study all of them but what comes out when you play is your music vision, your voice. Even Duved, his tone and accents may be dead on Django like, but his lines are his own and unique to him. I heard Joscho said that when he was young and still developing, he was actually trying to sound like Stochelo. And he released his first album thinking he managed to sound like Stochelo. Then he read reviews, favorable, but no one mentioned that. And he said he was a little disappointed at first. Only then he said was when he realized that he has his sound.

And it's ok to say this isn't going to be my career or I'm never going to as good as -insert name-. And this isn't an argument to you. Just in general I don't like it when people say that, it bothers me a little. If your goal is to be a causal player that's good and fine. But a lot of people are never realizing their potential with that thinking, even when in the back of their mind they wish that in their own accomplishments they are closer to their heroes . They usually say well I'm just being realistic. And that may be. But it can also be very demotivating without person saying it even realizing.

I played guitar most of my life. But never worked on it with the goal of pushing and improving myself. I didn't say never practiced because practice is many things. I certainly played a lot at times. It was only in recent years (turned 50 a couple of months ago) that I felt I'm ready to push myself as far as I'll go. And I'm enjoying the woodshed a lot at this point. It's somehow comforting, it can be very meditative and very rewarding. I kinda developed my own simple system that's stress free and brings results (I'm writing a short essay about it and hopefully will find time to finish soon). Where will that take me? Maybe nowhere and I try to remove expectations, but I'm sure not gonna be telling myself anything that would prevent me from being in a position where it could lead to something.

Lango-Django

Yeah, I hear you, Buco... I try to expect a lot of myself too, and I don't want to make it sound like I don't think that is a good thing for everybody to do, too. I have just found that I just don't get anywhere by some types of practise is all...

However...

For some reason, lately I've been making some strides with my "other" instrument, the plectrum banjo.

I will share some tracks at some point in the future so anybody here who actually wants to hear my banjo playing (?) can hear for themself, but I think it is safe to say that I am the only guy in the known world who plays in this particular style I have invented which I call "wacko glissando"... and that is really satisfying to me, even if nobody else gives a $#@!.

I look forward to your upcoming article.

And I thank you for your many years of thoughtful contributions to this blog, and look forward to many more years!

Will

Twang

Lately my main goal as a guitarist is to enjoy myself. This hasn't been easy as some of can testify from my angst ridden posts. But it is easy, I just have to stop worrying about progressing. I pick up my guitar now and play whatever I like. It might be a new lick or learning a head or chord solo and when I feel like it I play something else without worrying whether I have mastered the previous idea. I know I'm progressing cos I play my guitar regularly. I'm just not worrying about it. The only time to worry is when I'm not picking up my guitar.

Christian V H said in a recent youtube vid that 90% of your practice time is wasted but that's ok, you still need to go through the process. He was talking about what you retain regarding licks. I took a great deal of encouragement from this which is what has brought me to my current state of "enlightenment" 😌.

richter4208

I've heard many of you guys play in posts here over the years and always notice folks getting better, some dramatically so.

Here's to lots of hard work with hopefully some reward.

billyshakes

Nice post, Will!

I hear you on the sometimes difficulty of learning phrases from others. Like the CVH comment that Twang reported, I think it is ok and part of the process. I've learned some of those licks from various artists. But then, I somehow feel phony for playing them as I know that it is like "this one is from Stochelo, this from Robin Nolan, etc.--where's me?" But as I work with them, and learn to understand why they work and what notes are what, I find myself saying, "Well, what if I target the b5 to end on, etc." And in doing so, I create my own subtly different version. Then I make little song melodies. Sure, I know that most of it is inspired by those "copped licks", but it becomes my own (a synthesis of my learning) and more fun to play for me. That is the fun part that you speak of! But I'd never have ended there had I not had some help on the journey. All music recorded through time has been inspired by something that has come before it. There are only so many combinations of notes we can make....but the personal journey to get to there is the enjoyment and why we do it...whether that is hours a day or minutes! Just enjoy the moment and share your passion with others. I said similar on another post, but music in general (and this genre specifically) is a social activity. The joy is in playing and sharing with others...any individual practice required is just to amplify the joy you will get when you get to join with others. If there is one thing I've realized in this whole quarantine, it is exactly that. How much I miss playing with my friends, and how much I look forward to the new music we will create when we all emerge from our respective woodsheds.

littlemark

I've been trying to at least warm up everyday. Even if I don't get a practise or noodle session in. Some days are better than others.

But I just want to take this opportunity to thank @MichaelHorowitz I'm using the open string part of the gypsy picking book as my warmup. Then either the licks from that book or gypsy fire.

dennis

“Jump skip to DiJ 2018. Of course I didn't touch the song since the year prior, just not a popular tune in the States. Angelo is the star instructor. He was holding a question- answer workshop and of course I go. Towards the end he tells Dennis who was the host and interpreter, to play a few tunes. After a few Angelo asks Dennis to play, guess what...the Windows of Moscow. Dennis says "oh I don't know that one, how about somebody from the audience?”

That doesn’t seem right lol. Not only do I know this song, I recorded it and played it so many times . I haven’t played it in a while so may be rusty in a few parts but if someone played the chords just once , I’d have it down. I don’t remember exactly what happened but I do remember wanting to let the audience play