Quality Practicing Jazz – Part I

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One of the most difficult issues for a jazz artist’s development is prioritizing their practice time. “How should I best invest my time?”

University students never have time to think about things like this because they are always given piles and piles of work to do in keeping up with their grades.

In today’s world, there is a saturation of  methods of “how to” do this and that. This can be overwhelming to the point of frustration for the serious jazz musicians seeking guidance on how to best spend their time.

My inspiration for making this video series comes from the many questions that my students have asked me over the years of teaching.

Questions like: “how can I obtain better ears” or “how can I get better time” just to name a couple.

I will say up front that the content on this video is not traditional nor is it chock filled with numerous technical exercises. It is rather filled with my personal take and belief on how to best develop the tools needed to grow as a jazz player.

It is geared, like all my videos, toward personal development in a non-dogmatic manner. It is a video of tips and suggestions that point toward inner self-development, rather than how to “fit in” with the crowd, so to speak. It has multiple segments and chapters, each in response to the most FAQs I have encountered over my many years of teaching.

I started out thinking I could achieve this in one 90 minute video, but once I began, I soon realized it was a bigger project than I thought.

I certainly did not want to skimp or cram things in, or worse yet, leave out things that need to be said. “Quality Practicing Jazz” Part I is already over 100 minutes long.

I believe every jazz musician will benefit from this series in some way. Even the seasoned players will get a kick out of how some  “untouched” subject matter such as “does a jazz musician with perfect pitch have an advantage over one who does not?” get addressed in a fresh way that is common-sense oriented and sometimes humorous.

Steve Giordano