Here’s one for the teachers. This is an approach I’ve found helpful with students having difficulties with coordination on written patterns in jazz and Latin, and a good alternative/supplement to the usual solution of “slowing […]
Category: practice
The great Jeff Berlin metronome controversy
This has been floating around for some time. His observations are mostly good, but I don’t happen to agree with his conclusion. Watch the video, and I’ll give a few thoughts about it: His major […]
Talent and practice
I guess the “Gen Y Entrepreneur and Investor” author of this piece Why natural talent is overrated knows this stuff from reading a book, but there are some good things in here about practice. Maybe […]
Bill Evans speaks
Here’s a nice, timely (given the last post) find from Ted at Trap’d: pianist Bill Evans talking at length about music:
You must hack
That imperative comes from Running Linux, a classic manual on the use of the Linux computer operating system. What it meant in context is that to take advantage of the full power of the OS, […]
Things I like: drum writing
Here’s a new feature: things I like about things. Today we’ll talk about something I’m seeing a lot of currently: practice materials. 1. Things that fit on a single page. It’s nice aesthetically. Give me […]
Cherished notions bite the dust
I need a bushier goatee for this gig. I’ve been experiencing all kinds of growth with my playing in recent years, which I attribute partly to me forgetting things I for years thought were really […]
Pad practice survival
When I first started I used to practice the rudiments while watching TV, I found it boring so TV helped distract me. –Jack Dejohnette One of the harder things for me to master was the […]
Todd’s Methods, Pt. 2: triplet partials in Syncopation
The second in a series of quick, sketchily-outlined demonstrations of my practice methods. Here I give a couple of my variations on common ways of using Ted Reed’s Syncopation. If you’ve worked with that book […]
Joey Baron master class, part 4: I Didn’t Go To Music School, I Went To Berklee
Joey Baron master class at the New School, 1994: part 4 PRACTICING: [W]hen I started to practice, I would like put my ear- since I didn’t have people to sit and watch close up, I […]