Bulletproof Practicing - How Focusing on Weaknesses will Lead to Musical Growth
Have you ever thought to yourself “Why aren’t I getting any better at this?” or “I have no idea what I’m going to practice today”? Well, chances are you are not alone. In fact, I’d wager that the majority of players out there are suffering from a real lack of direction when it comes to practicing and moreover their actual Practice as a whole (that’s Practice with a capital “P”, but that is for another post!).
One of the biggest things we can all do to move our playing in the right direction is to identify our weaknesses. When we take accountability for our own playing and come up with several aspects of our playing that we can get better at, then we can finally start to get better. But, we need a plan
These weaknesses will usually fall into a few buckets:
Things we want to be able to do (Hello Chris Potter!)
Things we need to do (music for an upcoming gig or audition)
Things we should be doing (long tones, scales etc)
Ok, let’s do something really quick… write down things you like about your playing, now make a column next to it and write down things you think or know(!) you need to work on. Be honest! If you can’t be honest with yourself then your chances of achieving real musical growth are going to suffer.
These things oftentimes are things that deep down, we know we absolutely need to tackle. They are usually difficult and humbling aspects of our playing that we don’t want to spend time on because they’re usually hard to do and the mere fact that we’re not good at them or as good as we wished we were will lead us to avoiding addressing them at all cost. These are the aspects of our playing that we must focus on!
By taking a few minutes to be honest with ourselves and having a serious look at our playing we step outside of our normal patterns and actually are taking one more step towards true progress. This takes time to get accustomed to so be patient with yourself.
Real, measured growth in your playing will come from shifting the amount of time you spend practicing. Instead of spending the majority of your practice time on what you’re good at, try flipping that model and spend the majority of your practice time focusing on your weaknesses. You’ll be amazed at the progress you can make but this one little adjustment. Because look, we’ll always be able to play our “stuff” or our “licks” so we really don’t need to spend any more time playing that material. If the bridge to “Have You Met Miss Jones” or the eight measures of “Stella By Starlight” keep tripping you up on gigs or sessions then don’t “practice” the whole song. Instead, isolate and focus on those eight bar sections. But I digress. 🙂
Ok, now that you’ve written down your list of weaknesses (yes, written down!) it is time to prioritize this list based on the three buckets up top. I’ll rearrange those buckets slightly to help you out:
Things we should be doing
Things we need to do
Things we want to be able to do
Now all three of these “things” can be super important to you and they should be. When you organize your list in this order you will be able to see the importance of spending more time on those things that you should be doing and need to do over those things you want to be able to do. I promise you that over time you will be able to do more of what you want to be able to do by working on what you should be doing.
Now what these things are will vary person to person and sure, our own personal priorities are different but that is ok. It is ok to come into this concept with some flexibility and most importantly, an open mind. If we approach this type of practicing with a rigid mindset, we’re probably not going to enjoy it. We will probably just go back to playing 20 choruses on “All The Things You Are” and calling that “practice”.
It is highly likely that your list will be anywhere from 5 -25 things so if you are the type of person that can’t stop finding weaknesses in your playing, take a break and pick 10 because the other variable we need to have a plan for is how much time we have to practice.
The “TIME” element of Practicing
Budgeting your time when it comes to your list is going to lay down the foundation for growth over the long haul. For example, here is a sample list:
I want to be able to shred on “Cherokee” at 300 bpm
I need to learn “Insert Tune Here”
I want to have better overall technique
I should be transcribing more Charlie Parker
I need to improve my intonation in the upper register
Ok, this is a pretty typical list that I’ve seen with students of mine over the years. The names and tunes will vary from player to player but these general concepts typically stay the same. We all want to be able to play fast and have incredible technique and be ready to slay. Now that we have our list it’s time to re-order that list in order of importance. Notice what changed…
I need to improve my intonation in the upper register
I need to learn “Insert Tune Here”
I should be transcribing more Charlie Parker
I want to have better overall technique
I want to be able to shred on “Cherokee” at 300 bpm
Next step after rearranging your list is to budget your time based on how much time you’re going to be able to set aside to practice on a given day. Now I’m going to go one step further - you should be mapping out your practice schedule one to two weeks out at a time. Planning out when you are going to shed can literally be the difference between shedding or not shedding at all. Life is happening all around us and will continue to happen so taking the initiative to plan out when and where you are going to practice is tremendously important.
Ok, so say you’ve done that last part and the average practice time you have over a one week period is about 90 minutes. It’s time to start budgeting!
Long tones & Overtones - 20 min
Learning/Memorizing Tunes - 30min
Taking triads/7th chords thru changes (all inversions and directions)
Taking licks or melodies thru changes
Transposing the key of the song (in all 12 keys)
Charlie Parker “Ko Ko” Transcription - 30 min
Pick a Bird line and shed in all 12 keys - 10 min
Now please keep this in mind - this is just an example but hopefully you get the overall idea that we are sharing with you. Before you know it, those 90 min are going to FLY by. You will also notice over time that by spending 30 min a day transcribing Bird on “Ko Ko”, you’ll be in a better spot to shred on “Cherokee” at the next jam session like you want to be able to do and in the process be organically developing better technique. That’s a practice of “bundling” or, feeding multiple birds (things to practice) with one scone (a certain amount of time or a practice session) With “bundling”, you should be able to learn a tune (think standard or whatever) while working on technique (think scales and chords) and developing your sound (play it slowly and softly) for example.
If you have more time to shed - great! Just adjust accordingly. If you have to break up your practicing over different times throughout the day - no problem! You’ve got a plan and are building this into your daily schedule.
One last suggestion - keep a practice journal. Keeping a practice journal can play a HUGE factor in staying on track with your progress because as mentioned earlier, time will FLY by and you won’t be able to get through all 12 keys on a particular day session to session for example, so write down how far you got that day and pick up where you left off the next day. Over time, your consistency is what will truly pay off and provide you with noticeable musical gains and growth.
Go slow, be patient and I promise you that you will grow and develop into a much stronger and confident player by using this method of practicing.
Happy Shedding!
GV