Practicing versus exercising and learning

As many of you know, I fill up my evenings and weekends with various jazz courses. While I think I've learned a lot by doing this and have certainly advanced my abilities, lately I've been feeling like I'm just rushing from one tune one course one day to another and I'm not focussing enough on the lessons or scales or even tunes that I need to be learning. Sure at the end of each session I can play the tunes, scat a chorus for each but I'm not sure I'm internalizing the knowledge.

I think I need a new approach to "practicing" and I think I need to rename it to "exercising" and "learning".  So rather than practising scales, I am going to start exercising my voice using scales, daily exercises. And rather than "having to practice" the tunes, I will "learn" the tunes by leaning the melody, learning the bass notes, learning the 3rds and 7ths (or 5ths and 9ths).

This session I'm reducing the course load that I'm taking and will spend more time on fewer tunes, really attempting to learn and internalize them.

Blues Songs to Learn

JVoice Facebook Group posted this list of Blues Songs to learn. I'm re-posting it here so that I can find it.

Singers, Teachers: The Blues Tunes List You Need

Jazz/ Blues- Most common to less common

Here is a list of jazz blues tunes you're almost certain to hear or play at jam sessions. Most of them are pretty simple. The common blues tunes below are "easy to call" at jams because musicians tend to know them well. memorize 10 of 'em ASAP!

Practicing Jazz

Saw this on a Facebook Comment and am copying it here so I can always find it:


here's the Jim Campilongo practice method, which I find is an excellent approach to deliberate practice:

The amount of time given to each category depends on strengths and weaknesses. This can be done over 1 hour or 8 hours.

1.) "Breakfast"...Warm up with arpeggios and scales. Apply the arpeggios to a song ( "Up a Lazy River", "Prelude to a Kiss","Tennessee Waltz", " How High The Moon", " Sleepwalk", "Giant Steps", "Mary had a Little Lamb" etc.) The song progression will prohibit you from playing on auto-pilot. This will hopefully "test" you and "awaken' you. In this context, tempo and meter aren't crucial. Apply scales to the song ( Major, natural minor, melodic minor, and harmonic minor). Try playing the appropriate scale ascending and descending, then play scales in thirds. While connecting the scales, arpeggios and chords, always strive for small intervallic jumps. Inspiration will most likely follow, but isn't necessarily a prerequisite.

2.) "Lunch"...... Learn a song and memorize the chord progression and melody ( otherwise you don't know the song!). Transpose it.

3.)"Dinner".....Make a tape of the song progression on a boom box or a simple recording setup. Do not get caught up in production. Play the melody and solo over the changes. Sometimes, I try a different approach over every chorus. Octaves,chord melody, steel guitar, "James Burton plays Jazz" etc etc. When you memorize the song , put it on a list of songs you know. Run through that list every few days, so you don't forget them.

4.) Now for "Dessert"......Play and improvise. Try and write something. Experiment with your tone. Play Blues in E. Whatever. Sometimes I learn solo's instead of songs, but I try to keep my practice sessions song oriented. This is for a number of reasons, here are a couple of them. 1.) A musician should know a lot of songs! 2.) Songs give me a challenging musical frame work to apply scales, arpeggio's and chord voicings. 3.) It allows me to see the history, structure and formula of other artists - giving me new perspectives and choices.

5.) Optional - "Snack" - noodle mindlessly while watching Columbo re-runs!