Practicing

Hey guys,

I’m Rupert Lo, and I’m really happy to be part of the faculty here. I’m a vibraphonist, percussionist, and composer based in New York City. I’ll be sharing some of the things I’ve learned along the way—practice concepts, creative approaches, and hopefully some inspiration for your own playing. I also keep a few private lesson spots open each month for students of all ages and levels. My email is below, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you’d like to connect!

This was a nice discussion about Practicing. 

We had a great talk at our coffee hang last sunday. We talked about practicing.

One of the partipants Richard Schwagerl sent over some interesting docs he uses and created for teaching. Here they are. 2 docs didn't come over well, I'll add them later, but one is good and I'll post it here. 

The Art and Science of Musical Practice

I am always working with students on their hands. Quite a few have problems and bad habits. Well for that matter we all at some level usually have a problem or two and a bad habit or two! 

You HAVE to get your hands together and working well if you're going to play more interesting and complex music. 

i.e. Donna Lee is much more complex technically then Blue Boss or One Note Samba. 

Just some stuff to think about with double sticking as well as a way to practice double sticking. 

i do feel that we want to do as much alternate sticking as we can. I know some disagree including David Friedman. So take it for what it's worth to you. But I give you some ways to work on double sticking.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhbfGYiAFwxEZkOG10R8-_ZUIS8KtLK4j&si=Ja1iv4U04V7HMwCS

This playlist has Freidman 14 and a slow solo that Tony recorded for my lessons on Donna Lee. My job was to transcribe in Ab then transpose to C from memory. It was a tough one!

Here's a second part to the other lesson titled "A Way To Practice Soloing and Comping Together".  
I took a couple other examples about how to practice this. Ultimately, you just do it and try to make music. I know for some of you it won't sound great in the beginning. I always think that if you keep doing it and doing it, eventually you play something good and recognize it and learn from it. Know what I mean???? 

I was inspired by Tony to practice Stablemates. This is a QDV of a brief practice session. I'm working on playing the head with chords and then playing lines over the changes. I feel pretty good about the former, but it's difficult for me to play one or more choruses without losing the time or otherwise messing up (as you can hear multiple times). Any suggestions on how to improve at this are appreciated!

-Tristan

Ok, this is a little artsie fartsie as they say, but it might be helpful. What do you think?