Better Jazz Practice
How do you practice jazz? Are you a noodler? I am.
When I work on jazz improvisation, I mostly noodle, running through several tunes aimlessly with a play-along track: “There Will Never Be Another You,” “Joy Spring,” “I’ll Close My Eyes,” etc. It’s fun, but there’s no focus, and I tend not to get much better this way.
Noodling is not a very efficient use of practice time, and it needs to go.
In one lesson, Bobby gave me a copy of his article “Chops and Changes,” which describes the systematic process he recommends for learning new tunes. I’m going to use this approach to focus my jazz practice and learn a jazz standard I’ve never really learned: “All the Things You Are.”
