THE WYNTON MARSALIS 12 RULES OF EFFECTIVE PRACTICE:

1. Seek out the best private instruction you can afford.
It is important to remember that every person knows just a bit of something. In music, experience is crucial but don’t stick with the same teacher for too long. Years is good, but no more than 4-5. Try to understand what makes the teacher passionate, and ask him/her to talk about that. Then steal it. It is the only case when stealing is good.

2. Write/work out a regular practice schedule.
This is probably the hardest one to put in practice. You have to be severe and pedantic with yourself. You are the guinea pig and the researcher at the same time. I found practical to do a weekly schedule and try to explore different areas of the playing. Like the sound, expression, mechanic, speed, tempo, repertoire and improvisation. I try to focus on no more than one thing per day.

3. Set realistic goals.
This goes in pairs with your results. You got to be tough with yourself, but not in advance. Be tough only if you’re not getting any improvement. That means you set a wrong goal, or you are not practicing properly. Try to move little steps to achieve big goals. For example, if you’re are studying a new song, practice first the melody, accurately, in different keys. Then practice the scale and arpeggios of the implant key and any other tonality, if any modulation is present. Then practice ii V I relative to the key and then iii VI ii V and so on.

4. Concentrate when practicing
There isn’t much to say here. Stay tuned every time you do something with music. Feel your body INTO the music.

5. Relax and practice slowly
Well, this is true, we all know. Even though there is an interesting theory conceived by the great famous Maestro Vitale – a classical piano teacher who taught Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Maria Tipo and other famous pianists – saying that is best to start practicing a fast tune at the real tempo, with both hands together. Maybe just one bar or even half bar at the time, but at the actual speed in order to achieve as soon as possible the true sound of the piece. Try that, is not a bad idea.

6. Practice what you can’t play. – (The hard parts.)
Again, this one is probably the most philosophical and important one. The Jazz history is disseminated by hundreds of quotes saying “play what isn’t there” or “play what you don’t know”. The concept is the same. Rather than focusing on something that you are good at, just stick to those passages that are problematic. You need to linger to those keys and meters that you are not familiar with. Once you become good with those things just add some difficulties (change the key, increase the speed) and make it hard again. This is one of the best way to achieve new goals.

7. Always play with maximum expression.
I love this one. This is the main difference between an amateur and a professional player. We spend too much time in trying to play hard scales and impossible substitutions, and we forget to practice how to play the same note in 20 different way. A good tip for this one is to try to play the same melody with different moods: happy, sad, excited, funky, sexy etc. we need to be able to express feelings with our instruments. If your mum is calling you on the phone and says “hallo” (one of the most common word) you know exactly the mood she is in. You can predict what the phone call will be about. And the phone speaker is really low-fi. That’s the power of expression and inflection.

8. Don’t be too hard on yourself.
This goes in pairs with number 3. Be tough with yourself, but not too much and not in advance. But if you feel you’re not doing well, don’t lie to yourself, just admit it and practice

9. Don’t show off.
Never. Whatever thing you are doing. Not only in music.

10. Think for yourself. – (Don’t rely on methods.)
Have you ever walked into a book store and felt lost and was impossible to choose a title because of too many options? This is the same situation. Some methods are really good, but music is something that develops inside us and is also a matter of sound, so it can’t be studied on a book.
I always suggest my student to create and write their own exercises. This improves our critical capabilities and a deep thinking on how to improve.

11. Be optimistic. – “Music washes away the dust of everyday life.”
Isn’t it always better to be positive?

12. Look for connections between your music and other things.
A musician is the product of all the life experiences he/she went through. All the possible connections between your music and your person are good. Music is what you are, not what you play. The books you read,the movies you watch, the people you meet the places you visit. All this together, with your personality is your music.

Here are the 12 tips by Wynton Marsalis on practicing. I will comment in another post all the 12 points. But this is good food for the brain:

THE WYNTON MARSALIS 12 RULES OF EFFECTIVE PRACTICE:

1. Seek out the best private instruction you can afford.

2. Write/work out a regular practice schedule.

3. Set realistic goals.

4. Concentrate when practicing

5. Relax and practice slowly

6. Practice what you can’t play. – (The hard parts.)

7. Always play with maximum expression.

8. Don’t be too hard on yourself.

9. Don’t show off.

10. Think for yourself. – (Don’t rely on methods.)

11. Be optimistic. – “Music washes away the dust of everyday life.”

12. Look for connections between your music and other things.

RIP PIERRE BOULEZ – Great article on BBC

French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez has died at the age of 90.

His family said the world-renowned musician died on Tuesday at his home in Baden-Baden, Germany.

“For all those who met him and were able to appreciate his creative energy, his artistic vigour… will remain alive and strong,” they said.

As well as being a world-famous composer and conductor he was a prolific writer and pianist and head of the music venue The Paris Philharmonic.

Boulez was also the founder and former director of the Paris based Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique and was famed for his work alongside leading experimental composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Olivier Messiaen.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls paid tribute to Boulez on Twitter: “Courage, innovation, creativity, this is what Pierre Boulez meant to the world of French music, of which he made a beacon of light throughout the world.”

French President Francois Hollande said in a statement: “Pierre Boulez made French music shine throughout the world. As a composer and conductor, he always wanted to reflect on the ages.”

Boulez had been considered one of the most influential voices in the contemporary music since the 1950s and, as a conductor, he was in demand on both sides of the Atlantic.

One of his particular trademarks as a conductor was that he shunned the baton, always choosing to conduct with his hands.

As a composer, Boulez’s work was noted for its difficulty, with one of his most celebrated works, Le Marteau Sans Maitre, being inspired by the complexity and lack of formal artistic structure of surrealist poetry.

Born in the Loire region of France in 1925, Boulez began his musical career at the Conservatoire in Paris, one of the world’s most celebrated music schools.

He graduated in 1945 and, still only 21, became musical director of the theatre company of Jean-Louis Barrault and Madeleine Renaud.

During this period he composed violent early pieces such as his first two piano sonatas and Livre Pour Quatuor for string quartet.

Analysis by arts editor Will Gompertz

Pierre Boulez was a truly great artist who ranks – in my book – alongside the likes of Marcel Duchamp, Jean Prouve and Albert Camus as an epoch-defining 20th Century French intellectual. He was not easy. He could be enormously charming and utterly horrible – sometimes to the same person in the same conversation.

Music was his art form, agitation his style. He had no time for the status quo, and even less for the days of yore. He was a modernist – a man who sought to make some sense of the absurdities of the world in which he lived through the medium of music. It was a new age with new problems that he believed demanded a new sound.

The flowery, romantic classical cannon didn’t resonate in his mechanised Parisian infrastructure full of hard edges and cold steel. Something sharper, less melodic and altogether more complex was required.

He championed the original modernist avant-garde of Stravinsky, Bartok, Berg and Messiaen (his tutor), while also supporting pioneering peers such as Ligeti, Birtwistle and Stockhausen.

His own compositions, which were relatively few in number, have come to be highly regarded. If I were to choose one work it would be Notations, his 12 pieces for piano. It is spiky, difficult, unpredictable, poetic, and unsurpassable. Just like the man himself.

Great demand

Boulez’s career as a conductor took off in the 1950s, during which time he performed with the Sudwestfunk (South-West German Radio).

He also began acting as guest conductor for some of Europe’s leading orchestras and festivals.

Boulez’s talent led him to be more and more in demand and he was appearing widely as a conductor by the 1960s.

He led the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1971-75 and from 1971-77 was also music director of the New York Philharmonic, where he championed contemporary works – a contrast from his acclaimed predecessor Leonard Bernstein.

Increasingly, Boulez became exasperated with what he considered to be the suffocating conservatism of the French musical world, prompting him to make his home in Baden-Baden.

Multiple honours

His rebellious nature also led to him once being briefly detained by Swiss police on suspicion of being linked to terrorist activities in the period of heightened security soon after the 11 September US terror attacks.

Swiss authorities confiscated his passport in the town of Basle, where he had been conducting at a music festival, after discovering he had said in the 1960s opera houses should be blown up and therefore considered him a potential security threat.

Alongside his conducting, Boulez’s creative output flourished as the director of the experimental music studio, the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), where he had access to the latest computer technology.

But he stepped down from this position in 1991 to devote more time to conducting.

In 2009, he joined with fellow conductor Daniel Barenboim to conduct the complete symphonies of Gustav Mahler at Carnegie Hall, New York.

Overall Boulez won 26 Grammys and multiple other honours, including Sweden’s Polar Music Prize, Japan’s Praemium Imperiale and France’s Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

He was also inducted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame in 2012.

BBC Radio 3 Music Matters and Proms presenter Tom Service said Boulez leaves “one of the most resonant legacies of any composer of the post-war period”.

“The scale of Boulez’s achievements across the whole of musical culture means that he will never truly disappear into the past tense. As listeners, performers, and composers, we will all be living out his legacy for generations to come.”

Just leaving you with a bit of a mystery….stay tuned!

Just interesting to note how “mad” was our dear friend Glenn with the concept of practicing.

What is more is that he is practicing by heart, singing, whispering the flux of the music. And also, watch how he moves his body while playing. Isn’t that a kind of internal swing movement?

Now, few questions for the good students (myself included):

1. Are you dedicated in the same way while practicing?

2. Are you “mad” about practicing? Do you feel a physical need to do it?

3. Do you practice by heart?

4. Can you keep the concentration at that level where here is only you and your instrument, serving the music?

5. How well do you know the music you’re going to play?

It is a good inspiration for a nice discussion around practicing.

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A new album by Triodegradable has been released!

If you want to have a preview and eventually buy it you can do it here:

It is unmissable. You have been warned!

Kenny Wheeler

from http://thebluemoment.com/2014/08/14/a-benefit-for-kenny-wheeler/

Few important musicians have made more noise with less fuss than the trumpeter, flugelhornist, composer and bandleader Kenny Wheeler. A vital figure on the British scene since his arrival in London from his native Canada in 1952 at the age of 22, he emerged from early employment with dance bands to create a reputation that flourished despite a temperament for which such words as “modest” and “retiring” seem entirely inadequate.

Problems with his own and his wife’s health have meant that, at the age of 84, Kenny has been unable to play for some months. For his benefit, his old friend and colleague Evan Parker has organised a concert tomorrow night — Friday, August 15 — at a place called Epic, 13-15 Stoke Newington Road, London N16 8BH (admission £12-£10). A stone’s throw from the Vortex and Cafe Oto, the gig will feature the altoist Ray Warleigh’s quartet, a group with Parker, Steve Beresford, Olie Brice and Mark Sanders, the Alison Blunt Ensemble (including the violinists Dylan Bates and Phil Wachsmann), and Reuben Fowler’s big band playing some of Kenny’s charts.

For the benefit of kenny wheeler an amazing talent and gentle man:

Now you can donate at this Paypal address that was created by Kenny’s son and Evan Parker:
The PayPal email address is for Kenny Wheeler donations – 
friendsofkennywheeler@gmail.com