Dave Liebman Practicing Philosophy

8/12/2019 Dave Liebman Practicing Philosophy

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Practicing Philosophy PRACTICING PHILOSOPHY by DAVID LIEBMAN

The following includes two different expositions of how to

practice. Of course some material is duplicated but it is

always useful to see multiple explanations of a subject as

broad as how to practice.

ARTICLE ONEThe following is basically (with some edits) the lecture I gave at theJamey Aebersold Summer Workshop in Louisville, Kentucky at the end of

my one day visit there in July, 2005. There is a two set DVD availablethrough Caris Music (“David Liebman Teaches and Plays”) with thislecture in addition to another on saxophone expressive techniques. It alsoincludes a concert featuring Rufus Reid, Dave Hazeltine, John Riley andSteve Davis. But for those who want a freebie, here’s the rap onpracticing. Of course some of this material appears elsewhere in mywritings over the years, but it is always good to revisit it every so often.

Now What?

The purpose of coming to a workshop like this is to learn, to improve inthe pursuit of this particular music. If at the end of five days, you are notcompletely confused, something is wrong. If you are not slightlyfrustrated, something is really wrong….now what? The nature of the weekis intense, more than what could ever be absorbed. This is not justlearning facts and repeating them. This must be applied to yourinstrument. Without reinforcement it has no meaning. There are too manybooks in the music store that all say the same thing. The knowledge hasbeen told, there are only so many ways to say the same thing.

You must try to see through the forest. Make a list on paper of the thingsyou learned this week. This should be about ten or twenty pages, fromvery complex to very simple. Do this while it is fresh in your mind.Separate this list into categories-ranging from the five year plan to whatyou may be able to accomplish in a few concentrated hours in the nextweek or two so that they become natural, without having to think aboutit. Look at in an objective way; what can I get right now?

In English, we have the conditional tense which doesn’t exist in manyother languages. Conditional is should, would, could…it’s all about doing,IF, IF, IF. You don’t want to be in the conditional sense in regard to yourpracticing. You know what it is; just look at the list and find three to fivethings you can do on the next month. Don’t worry about what you can’t



do. It’s the old cliché again: the glass half empty or half full analogy---

well it is half full in this case. That’s the way to get something of value outof this week.

Ritual

Some of the material demands rote practicing, day after day until it ispart of you. Scales, learning tunes, transcribing, they are timeconsuming. The most important thing about practicing is ritual. Allreligions that try to inculcate someone into their beliefs have as a basicpast of what they do entwined in ritual. There’s a reason for this, becausewhen you do something enough times, it starts to take hold. If you aregoing to learn something new on your instrument, it must be done everyday for a certain amount of time. I can’t tell you what the time is unlessyou came directly to me. That’s what your teacher’s job is, to prioritize

and to tell you how long to work on a particular technique. Until it’s doneevery day, you are wasting time. When you cram for a test, you don’tremember anything after. It hasn’t been absorbed enough.

Be realistic, eight hours a day is probably not going to happen, notnecessarily because of your desire, but life in general takes over. Youhave to look at your schedule realistically whether you are forty five yearsold or ten. If you’re serious about what you have to do, then yourealistically have x amount of time. Not just holidays, not the weekend,not waiting till the house is empty. Ask yourself what you can realistically

do Monday through Saturday with my life the way it is (Let’s be optimisticabout it and say we have four to six hours a day.) If you can stick to atleast two to three hours a day, for a minimum of six days a week, thenyou have a shot. (The other day go out in the woods!!) If you can staywith that you are on your way to good practicing. Some things take 6-9months depending upon the difficulty of what you are trying to learn andyour personal abilities in relation to that; but if it is just a new scale, thenmaybe a few weeks, etc. If you put your time in, it WILL happen.

Organizing Time

The next thing is quite important, about priorities-how to organize yourtime with no distractions. The ideal scene: no one can hear you, not yourmother, not your brother, not your friend, not your lady---nobody shouldhear you practicing. You can say “I don’t care” but the vibe is in the airand it affects you. If you can’t be alone do the best you can. This is yourtime, it’s a meditation. It’s work, it’s real work which means a lot ofmental calories and it has to be done without distraction.

Objectivity

One of my teachers (Charles Lloyd) said to me (paraphrased): “You’re notbeing objective; you’re getting TOO into it all the time. You’re over the



top. You should be practicing but you think you are performing. I’ll betyou stand in front of the mirror and see how pretty you look with thatshiny horn!” There’s no emotion about practicing—objectivity, notsubjectivity. There shouldn’t be: “Yes, this is good; no, this is bad.” Youshould feel nothing! It’s practice-save the emotion for the bandstand and

when you want to impress someone. When you are practicing there’snobody there but “you and the night and the music” (great tune). There’sno opinion about it. If you do it like that, you are going to gain a lot frompracticing. This is not fun-it’s work-just do it. Have fun when you go outand play. When someone says you sound good, there will be a feeling of joy and accomplishment that is real and right to feel. Not because yourpractice went good or bad-be objective!

Journal

Keep a practice journal; short notes on what needs work, the metronomesetting, etc. This will be great reinforcement when you look back. And itwill remind you of things you might’ve forgotten. Ways to check your ownprogress-be you own teacher. The only thing a teacher should do besidesmotivation is give you a program and check its progress. It’s up to you todo it in a critical, objective fashion-every day with a schedule andcognizant of your weaknesses and strengths. You all know what yourweakest points are. Be specific; is it time problems, what do you mean-doyou drag; do you rush; is it stilted or choppy, etc? You have to define inyour mind’s eye what the problem is so you can tackle it heads on. The

teacher can help direct exercises to help the SPECIFIC situation. Put thisat the top of your list—go for your weaknesses first. Forget theconditional tense; what you can do now that will make you better in theshort term, followed by the long term.

Self Reinforcement

Reward yourself by listening to how you played six months ago. YOU AREBETTER!! At least in those things you were practicing. Anything you studywill have to get better, unless you are brain dead!! Especially if you are a

novice, things change rapidly. Six months to a year is great—you’ve gotto be better and again it’s the glass half empty /half full. Instead of “I’llnever be good enough; he is better; she is so good; I’m not…I can’t,etc.,” you will feel positive for a change. Of course there are

some things you may not be able to accomplish now or ever maybe, butthere are a lot you can. Look at the pictures of the great cats around youon the wall here in the hall. They are not there just for fun-these are guyswho did what I am saying.

Genius or Work?



In my opinion the only pure genius in music was Mozart. He was differentfrom day one, he had it hooked up. EVERYBODY ELSE WORKED THEIRASS OFF!! EVERYBODY!! Bird worked, Trane worked, Bill Evans worked,even Miles in his way worked-I can tell you that. Of course each personhas their own way of practicing and their own goals but it is not about

genius or incredible talent only (of course you have to have some degreeof that). It’s about commitment—I can do this, I can get better, I can beat least as good as that guy over there. Everybody in this room can getbetter. If you really wish to get better, whether you are a professional, anaspiring student or play for a hobby. Whichever way, it is the same.Whatever level you are on, it doesn’t matter; you can be better than youthink if you put time in and are serious about it. It’s how you organizeyour time that is crucial.

Relax but Practice, Don't "Play"

There is nothing wrong with putting the ax down once in awhile. It’s cooland necessary. When you go back it is fresh again. That’s a stage thatcan go on for a few weeks even. Take it in stride. Maybe you areexpecting too much and being too critical. Maybe you are scattering yourenergy over many hours rather than focusing. One good hour is betterthan four with ho focus. (Of course, if this “slump” goes on too long, youhave a motivation problem and maybe should become a plumber!!)

I teach Doctoral students and ask them what they practiced yesterday.

They say this or that book, patterns, etc., and then they just played.What do they mean by “played?” That isn’t practice, that’s playing. OK,once you get the basics down (scales, chords, licks, etc.) what do you do?More tunes? You see jazz is not like classical where the agenda isobvious: learn this piece until it is perfect and then on to the next. Yougot every marking of nuance to follow, tempos, everything. Learn what ison the page and then MAYBE you can be yourself in the interpretation—but of course only at the highest level. I envy these guys-they have it allmapped out. In the case of jazz, how do you measure how well you knowyour scales? Because they are played fast in your woodshed? Or

because you can run them on a chord change in a tune? We don’t havethe same discrete measurements that they have in classical so it isimperative that you are objective and use your time wisely. Be realisticand not so hard on yourself that you create a minefield. But of course bevigilant.

The Real Deal - Practicing Playing

So how do you practice playing? Well, you can’t-it is a misnomer. Sure,you can learn tunes and play through the stuff, but you can’t practice thefeeling of interacting and spontaneity and all the things that go into atypical jazz performance. There is a period to play and not to play.Sometimes I have guys who are always looking for sessions to strut their



ARTICLE TWO-concise summary of practice routinePRACTICING

Probably the most important skill in learning is knowing how to practice.

Once an individual forms his own way of achieving results it can berepeated for life. I divide practicing into three main areas. First is theinstrument and the need to develop the necessary virtuosity. Tone,technique, finger dexterity, etc., are all part of the mastery of aninstrument. Without high skills on an instrument, a student is at a seriousdisadvantage no matter how fertile his imagination is. The second area isthe music: the vocabulary and rules of improvisation. This large subjectincludes transcription, repertoire, chords, composition, keyboardknowledge, everything connected with learning the vocabulary itself. Thethird area is aesthetics meaning in this case one’s development as an

artist with a thorough understanding of the history of his chosen art form,a cultured and sophisticated understanding of the arts in general andsome sense of self. Here we delve into matters of philosophy, wisdom,spirituality and more. This is the life area of study.

The goal of any practicing is to instill new or changed behavior viarepetition towards habitualizing the activity until it becomes instinctiveand can be accomplished without conscious thought. Specifically in musicit is the auditory cortex of the brain which becomes physiologicallyconnected to the brain’s motor area of cells in order to bring about thedesired action. Repetition solders this connection. The success of thepractice process is dependent upon the clarity and difficulty of the desiredgoal in combination with the individual’s makeup. There are severalguidelines to good practicing.

1-Ritual: The basis of all religious indoctrination is ritual, repetitivechanting and in some cases exercises of meditation. It is the same withtrying to change or instill new behavior in music. Whatever the task itmust be done everyday for at least enough period of time to take root. Topractice a lot one day and little the next is not effective. It has to be thesame thing over and over again for a new action to have a chance to

become instinctive.

2-Organization of time: It is crucial that the student organize the hours(s)he realistically has on a daily basis (at least five times a week andthree hours for minimum improvement) into units. A basic unit would beone hour per practice item before moving on to the next. This is the areawhere a teacher should be of help in focusing the student’s unitseffectively.

3-Priority: The question becomes where do I begin with so much that

there is to do. I urge the student to make a list of his strengths andweaknesses on a page, or subtitle the page “should do,” “would do,”



“could do.” Objectively judge the strengths which need to be reinforced atthe present time or perpetually (as in instrumental warm-ups forexample) and those that can be put on a back burner for the time being.Then looking at the weaknesses begin the practicing for the next fewweeks with the most glaring deficiency that by its improvement will make

a significant difference. Start with the most necessary items on your listand hopefully in a lifetime you will work through most of it!! All seriousartists have a long list of what they would do if they could but there isnever enough time. We do the best we can in this regard.

4-Singularity: When practicing one activity do it with one main objectivein mind and possibly a minor one. Be clear as to the objectives. Forexample if you are doing long tones, is it for breath control, clarity oftone, evenness of sound, attacks and decays, etc? It shouldn’t be all atonce. The focus should be clear for each unit to get the most benefit.

5-Objectivity: Serious practice at the level I am describing is not fun, noris it drudgery. IT JUST IS!! One should cultivate a feeling of neutralityrather than feeling good or bad every day about the practice session. It isobjective, self improvement type of work. Save the emotion forperforming.

6-Attitude: Being positive, patient and consistent with total concentrationis what real practice is about. Anything less means you are indulging inbusy work with minimal gains to be had. If this isn’t for you, then admit it

and do something else.

7-Practical hints: Try to practice at the same time of day, maybe splittingthe program into two parts. Do the rote stuff like long tones, technicalexercises, etc in the morning possibly saving the creative part ofrepertoire, listening, transcription, composition, etc., for later in the day.Saturated listening, meaning the concentrated and repeated listening tocertain tracks for specific pedagogical reasons should be done in theevening. Find a practice space that is if possible completely private withno one within listening range. Obviously there should be no phone or any

distractions and take a break every hour or so. This is business and itshould be treated that way.

Serious practice is easy to find time for when one is young. Those whoare in school think that they have little time but in the real world mattersof making a living, performing, personal life and so on intrude. I hope thatat some point every serious student can set aside at least four to sixmonths for a daily eight to ten hours of practice. This will have an effectf or the rest of that person’s life. Keep a journal of thoughts about yourpractice. Jot down how things are going. This is good for review and alsoreinforcement to see how far you have advanced

Dave Liebman Practicing Philosophy

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