Practicing

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? 

A great tool for practicing hard lines.

Check out all the edits in this video! Just the idea of thinking about playing accurately messes me up! But target notes are important. Classical mallet players use them all the time. 

A really difficult tune by Lennie Tristano. Been practicing the head for a few weeks so here it is warts an all. Now for the rest of it 

Hope you enjoy!