At Jerry Kalaf's Christmas Party this year, bassist Larry Steen and pianist Rich Ruttenberg got into a discussion about how they practice and stay inspired as soloists. Here are a couple of methods I've gotten mileage out of lately:
It's possible to practice silently -- doing everything you would do with your hands but not pressing down on the piano keys, plucking strings, etc. It's a way to stay warm between pieces of music and prepare for piece you're about to play. A few years ago I started doing this and started seeing some unexpected benefits -- Hey, it also means that when someone is making a windy speech you can be soloing on "Moment's Notice"...
Playing soundlessly (on piano) means much smaller motions than usual. I had always wasted energy before -- lifting higher than necessary off the keys. As I got into this kind of practicing -- there was a steady gig I was doing with classical accompanying, and lengthy pauses between the pieces-- my hand and finger motion became much more efficient.
I took it further and got into playing so that my fingers would seldom lose contact with the tops of the keys -- the vertical motion became really minimal. As I was doing this I was also practicing leaping accurately up and down the keyboard without looking at the keys. Looking down at the keys interferes with sight-reading, watching a conductor or soloist, etc. So I got more control of my vertical and horizontal hand motion through this kind of practicing.
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I got one of the 80-gig ipods a couple of years ago. I started doing what everyone does -- uploading CDs I owned or borrowed and buying music on itunes. It really improved the quality of my listening -- I had access to a lot of great music at any time.
OK, I have insomnia. At some point watching TV or reading at night evolved into searching for jazz or ethnic music on the internet with youtube, pandora, and allmusic.com. I started listening more intently -- not using the music as background, but listening pretty intently, often playing tunes several times, focusing on one instrument at a time. I would sometimes finger a small keyboard with the sound turned off while listening. I got more into music (and less into NPR) when driving.
Through "active" listening, one "gets better" at musical concentration... I got into a whole phase of listening to great drumset players, checking out the vocabulary and the endless possibilities... Lately listening has become a big part of the evolution of my soloing. I'm getting interested in, or evolving in areas I hadn't considered before... (Yeah, OK, like counting to 8...)
It also seems that there is something to be said for listening or working on music before being "fully awake". It seems as though the whole "what-the-notes-are-for-and where-they're-going" thing can burn in deeper before starting the "words-sentences-and-decisions" part of the day... It's also nice to spend time with just-plain-excellent, "Swiss-pharmaceutical-laboratory" music -- I mean, if you're going to make yourself deaf, it might as well be with late Coltrane, Fauré's song-cycles,Teddy Wilson, Kenny Barron, Bulgarian folk, Palestrina, John Abercrombie, Joao Gilberto, Bartok's quartets, kna'meann?
I'd like to hear how other players practice, especially for memorizing tunes, which can be hard for me. Comment-ses, anyone?
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