By Lawrence Russel
Probably one of the most common things I have discovered in students of all skill levels and playing styles are that the concepts of "playing" and "practicing" are often confused and do not have a clear definition in how they are thought of and approached. Time and time again, as a guitar teacher, and specifically in jazz education, when the focus of improvisation may lend a hand in the ambiguity within these two terms, a pupil may have a hard time separating them, resulting in their progress becoming stunted and their musical vocabulary getting stale.
Many times in which I've asked a student "what are you working on?" or "how are you practicing that?" I get a response involving simply just playing passively without concentration of a given concept, or without clearly defining what they are working on to begin with. To this, I outline what I feel practicing should be, and how it differs from just playing. While this may be somewhat selective to improvised music, this definition can be adjusted and applied to whatever styles, levels, etc
Many times in which I've asked a student "what are you working on?" or "how are you practicing that?" I get a response involving simply just playing passively without concentration of a given concept, or without clearly defining what they are working on to begin with. To this, I outline what I feel practicing should be, and how it differs from just playing. While this may be somewhat selective to improvised music, this definition can be adjusted and applied to whatever styles, levels, etc
This is the idea that practicing is like in baseball, warming up with a weight on your bat, so when you take it off the bat is light, easy to swing, and you have much more power and control than you previously had. In musical terms, it is limitation. Practicing should be the (or a given form of practicing should be) giving the student clearly defined exercises, or concepts or ideas, that are compartmentalized to work very specific areas of overall musicianship.
Take this for example: Assigning a pattern to use for a scale getting it to a specific BPM within several keys can be seen as the "weight on the bat". When they have completed this, it is the now the time to "get up to bat" where they will utilize the exercise within a real musical context. Here, I could have the student improvise using the scale and pattern, and now by me having gave them such a limitation with concrete, outlined terms, them now using this concept can have a feeling of being natural as well as musical far more than it had been previously and the student will have "taken the weight off the baseball bat"
Now to define what "playing" or "performing" is, which will be done as a separate entity of "practicing" as well as performing live, in my eyes is playing an instrument while removing the conscious, analytical part of the mind; and simply "playing in the moment". This is where everything that had been practiced at home, will be left at home. Many times when playing, the moment can be lost while trying to force in practice material or ideas, into the music, immediately resulting in taking you or the student out of the moment and out of the real-time performa
Take this for example: Assigning a pattern to use for a scale getting it to a specific BPM within several keys can be seen as the "weight on the bat". When they have completed this, it is the now the time to "get up to bat" where they will utilize the exercise within a real musical context. Here, I could have the student improvise using the scale and pattern, and now by me having gave them such a limitation with concrete, outlined terms, them now using this concept can have a feeling of being natural as well as musical far more than it had been previously and the student will have "taken the weight off the baseball bat"
Now to define what "playing" or "performing" is, which will be done as a separate entity of "practicing" as well as performing live, in my eyes is playing an instrument while removing the conscious, analytical part of the mind; and simply "playing in the moment". This is where everything that had been practiced at home, will be left at home. Many times when playing, the moment can be lost while trying to force in practice material or ideas, into the music, immediately resulting in taking you or the student out of the moment and out of the real-time performa
Take this for example: Assigning a pattern to use for a scale getting it to a specific BPM within several keys can be seen as the "weight on the bat". When they have completed this, it is the now the time to "get up to bat" where they will utilize the exercise within a real musical context. Here, I could have the student improvise using the scale and pattern, and now by me having gave them such a limitation with concrete, outlined terms, them now using this concept can have a feeling of being natural as well as musical far more than it had been previously and the student will have "taken the weight off the baseball bat"
Now to define what "playing" or "performing" is, which will be done as a separate entity of "practicing" as well as performing live, in my eyes is playing an instrument while removing the conscious, analytical part of the mind; and simply "playing in the moment". This is where everything that had been practiced at home, will be left at home. Many times when playing, the moment can be lost while trying to force in practice material or ideas, into the music, immediately resulting in taking you or the student out of the moment and out of the real-time performance, and building a barrier between the mind, the hand, and the ear ultimately leaving the music to suffer
This definition and analogy of "practicing" as opposed to and related to "playing", could be looked at as fairly simple in these terms, but being conscious about it and clarifying this in the big picture, can provide huge growth opportunities for a student, and can result in exponential room for success in the practice room and on stage.
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Now to define what "playing" or "performing" is, which will be done as a separate entity of "practicing" as well as performing live, in my eyes is playing an instrument while removing the conscious, analytical part of the mind; and simply "playing in the moment". This is where everything that had been practiced at home, will be left at home. Many times when playing, the moment can be lost while trying to force in practice material or ideas, into the music, immediately resulting in taking you or the student out of the moment and out of the real-time performance, and building a barrier between the mind, the hand, and the ear ultimately leaving the music to suffer
This definition and analogy of "practicing" as opposed to and related to "playing", could be looked at as fairly simple in these terms, but being conscious about it and clarifying this in the big picture, can provide huge growth opportunities for a student, and can result in exponential room for success in the practice room and on stage.
About the Author:
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