The Two Minute Practice Method

paulmcevoy75 · November 2

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/123495#Comment_123495

yeah there were some basic ideas that I didn't get about jazz. It is a bit painful to think about because I think I wasted years and years being frustrated. The Lego like nature of plugging in ii V or other sort of licks into tunes seemed uncreative to me and I thought there must be some other better way but really it's pretty elementary to be able to do that. CVH has been super helpful, that's a big part of his stuff is different ways to plug in different licks on different chord progressions. But I could have gotten that from a lot of people, it was mostly my own pre-conceived ideas that screwed me up.

Oh well, I'm glad I learned sometime....

Buco · November 2

It really surprises me but I know people, good musicians too, who think, at least the way I understand it, that if they learn the phrases to use in the improvising context, it's not improvised any more. I'm like, well you have to have some sort of building blocks, whether they're learned phrases or triadic shapes or scales or...and then practice them over and over. How else is it going to happen? By divine intervention? No, it won't. However once you have those building blocks truly mastered, you can get creative with them on the spot and not repeat them by rote.

I did hear people like Jimmy Bruno say, I just choose colors I want to use from the 12 notes available. Ok fine, he's at that level but there's no way to get to that level by starting there. You have to walk the path. Then Tim Lerch, he said, oh I just play what I hear. Same thing, that's not what he did his entire life. You have to get there step by step. It's like belts in martial arts, you have to earn each color to eventually get to the black belt and continue further.

paulmcevoy75 · November 2

https://www.djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/123498#Comment_123498

Yeah I think that stuff is unhelpful and damaging. You hear stuff because you practiced it probably a million times.

It's like I'm going to France and I want to learn French and someone is like well I just make words out of the alphabet and I say what I feel.

billyshakes · November 4

I remember watching the wonder in my son's face as he learned how to open a basic door knob. What previously was closed to him suddenly was able to be opened at whim. He spent a half hour or so just closing the door and then proving to himself that he could open it again at any time. I remember being struck by this and how the world is full of similar wonders that I've learned and summarily forgotten the "wonder" of them. Now, I doubt any of us think twice about the mechanism when we twist the knob to let ourselves in (or out!).

So it is I think with some of these musicians. Maybe they don't remember a time when they heard something but didn't know how to play it or didn't hear "colors." They've been playing so long and playing a certain way so long (with the ability to either know or instinctively know how to play what they hear), that they might as well just be opening door knobs. They are speaking a language over which they have absolute fluency.