Bill Evans' practice regimen?
Dean Parks
recording years and before?
-How often?
-How long per practice session?
-What kind of music/exercises
-Slow, fast, etc?
--
-dp-
wg
> Does anyone know about Bill Evans'(piano) practice regimen in his early
> recording years and before?
Excellent idea for new thread, hopefully somebody know practice regimens
of other pianists too.
Greetings
Wojtek
Tom Croft
known, but I do know that he played a lot of boogie woogie early on
(according to his Marian McPartland interview--available on CD--on the
NPR program "Piano Jazz"). He also had a solid grounding in the
classics (most likely Bach, Ravel, Debussy, Faure, Chopin, etc.).
Some of the that impressionistic influence shows clearly in his
playing. Bill also agreed with Marian when she asked him if he
thought it was better to play one song for 24 hours than to play 24
different songs for an hour each. That may provide a clue as to how
he practiced. I get the impression he explored a relatively small
number of tunes in great depth until he could spontaneously do just
about anything he wanted with them (reharmonization, rhythmic
variations, etc.). One thing I found very interesting in that
interview is that Bill said he and his trio hardly ever rehearsed.
They took a lot of risks on the bandstand and got away with it because
they were so integrated as a group and skilled individually as
musicians. Perhaps others can weigh in with further details.
Tom
On Sun, 28 Mar 1999 02:22:13 -0800, Dean Parks
<Dean...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Does anyone know about Bill Evans'(piano) practice regimen in his early
>recording years and before?
>
Ian Ring
12 hours per day in his youth. He had consummate technique and fingers of
steel long before he mastered jazz expression and style. It was said "he did
not play jazz, he played the piano" - but of course that all changed with
maturity, as his career illustrates.
Ian Ring
* * * * *
<aside> I do a not-so-rigourous routine of 1-3 hours a day, and most of that
is working on new tunes, not the scales and exercises as I should be
doing.</aside> I'm terribly lazy ...
Mattias Bryntesson
> Excellent idea for new thread, hopefully somebody know practice regimens
> of other pianists too.
Glenn Gould tried very hard to avoid playing anything "wrong" - also when
sitting practising by himself. If he was practising a tune and got stuck at
a difficult phrase, he would not just try it again, but instead stand up,
take a few steps backwards, focus on the phrase, perhaps sing it, and after
that try it again. He was concerned about not getting used to play "wrong",
I guess.
Is this applicable to jazz, you may ask. In jazz, nothing is necessarily
"wrong" from a neutral point of view. Even the unintended can be very good,
since it can inspire the performer and the ensemble. However, if you are
studying some special technical detail and keep on doing it wrong, then
perhaps you should think about it, and leavve it for tomorrow instead...
;-)
I like Gould's attitude about this, if I have understood it right, that is.
It has also made it easier for me to turn gig offers down! (Not that I ever
have had that many...:) Years ago, I accepted all kinds of gigs, just to
get to play. Nowadays I play my horn alone at home or mess with my home
studio rather than being at a not-so-promising-but-OK gig. Older? Yes.
Lazier? Yes. Wiser? Perhaps. At least, I'm much more comfortable with my
own playing.
Mattias
--
Mattias Bryntesson mailto:m...@home.se phone +46 8 302827
Torsgatan 71 2 tr, 113 37 Stockholm cellular +46 70 569 2017
Marc Sabatella
><aside> I do a not-so-rigourous routine of 1-3 hours a day, and most of that
>is working on new tunes, not the scales and exercises as I should be
>doing.</aside> I'm terribly lazy ...
Nonsense. I think 1-3 hours a day is fantastic - there has only been
one brief period of my life when I put in even close to that, and that
was playing classical music in high school. Furthermore, playing tunes
is *great* practice; much more important than scales and exercises.
--------------
Marc Sabatella
ma...@outsideshore.com
Check out my latest CD, "Second Course"
Available on Cadence Jazz Records
Also "A Jazz Improvisation Primer", Scores, & More:
http://www.outsideshore.com/
Calliotte/Horn
Bergman's outrageous regimen. He claimed to practice for 16 hours per day,
including doing things like playing for several hours at a time using only
unusual assortments of fingers (like pinky and third in right hand, index,
ring and pinky in left). Stuff like that.
Walter Horn
--
Please check out "Screwdriver!" at http://music.acmecity.com/acidrock/93/
wg wrote in message <1dpe1tx.1b4...@pppb5.krakow.tpnet.pl>...
>Dean Parks <Dean...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>> Does anyone know about Bill Evans'(piano) practice regimen in his early
>> recording years and before?
>
>Excellent idea for new thread, hopefully somebody know practice regimens
>of other pianists too.
>
>Greetings
>Wojtek
DHoff56012
>one brief period of my life when I put in even close to that, and that
>was playing classical music in high school. Furthermore, playing tunes
>is *great* practice; much more important than scales and exercises.
>
>
Yes, 1 to 3 hours a day can take you pretty far, especially if it's very
focused practice. And learning tunes is great. My favorite way to practice
Calliotte/Horn
Mattias Bryntesson wrote in message <36FFF3B7...@home.se>...
>Glenn Gould tried very hard to avoid playing anything "wrong" - also when
>sitting practising by himself. If he was practising a tune and got stuck at
>a difficult phrase, he would not just try it again, but instead stand up,
>take a few steps backwards, focus on the phrase, perhaps sing it, and after
>that try it again.
Sounds kind of like backing away from the line after a missed free throw.
JS Willans
> A couple years ago there was a piece in "Keyboard" magazine on Borah
> Bergman's outrageous regimen. He claimed to practice for 16 hours per day,
> including doing things like playing for several hours at a time using only
> unusual assortments of fingers (like pinky and third in right hand, index,
> ring and pinky in left). Stuff like that.
If someone needs to practise 16 hours a day, then they must be very
bad at practicing. Really, there is a big distinction between
practicing and playing. Like one of the previous posters mentioned
Glenn Gould was concerned with practicing the music, learning the
notes and skill necessary to execute the music well. In view of
the amount of concentration required to practice in this way, I
doubt that he could really practice for 16 hours, maybe play for
that amount of time (although I'm sure the music will become very
unmusical towards the end of such a session).
I know many pianists both Classical and Jazz. The Jazz pianists
coming from a Classical background tend to practice in the way
described above, I suspect the Bill Evans would also have practiced
in this way (as I'm sure Michel Petrucciani did, and others from
that school). The Jazz trained pianists, who are equally as good
tend to focus less on the practice and more and the playing. That
is, there practice would be analysis and appreciation of recordings
by other artists (that is not to say that the Classical-Jazz
pianists did not).
James
Tom Walls
>
I'd like to line up with those who say that a small amount of daily practise
will suffice, but I'm reminded that there are notable musicians(John Coltrane,
Eric Dolphy) who practised almost constantly, and the results are obvious.
Fathom
> Glenn Gould tried very hard to avoid playing anything "wrong" - also when
> sitting practising by himself. If he was practising a tune and got stuck at
> a difficult phrase, he would not just try it again, but instead stand up,
> take a few steps backwards, focus on the phrase, perhaps sing it, and after
> that try it again. He was concerned about not getting used to play "wrong",
> I guess.
Ah! That explains all his singing on his recordings...unfortunately, he
got used to *singing* it right...!
Perhaps that's Keith Jarrett's discipline, as well.
--
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Howard Peirce
I think when you're talking about players practicing 8-16 hours a day, odds are
that these guys really *enjoy* practicing. I've known musicians who derived far
more pleasure from practicing than from performing--performance becomes a way to
pay bills that allows for more practice time.
I've known great "practicers" who weren't particularly good at it. I've practiced
up to 6 hrs/day for short periods, averaged 3-4 hours through college, and today
hardly at all (1-3 hours/week, which is not nearly enough).
HP
David Kenderian
always seems to be between 5 to 10 hrs a day,every day for years.I
would'nt be suprised if Bill Evans practiced 40 to 60 hrs a week when he
was still learning his instrument.
Chris Metzler
In article <19990330035413...@ng-fi1.aol.com>,
I'm just beginning to learn an instrument for the first time -- but it
seems to me that, like physical exercise, the best practice is whatever
practice you'll actually *do*. If you enjoy working out new tunes --
enjoy it enough to spend a lot of time playing each day -- then that seems
to me to be much better than working through exercises you find boring
as hell and cutting back your practice time as a result.
-c
--
Chris Metzler Work Address: Loomis Laboratory of Physics
217-333-1065 (office) University of Illinois
met...@snip-me.uiuc.edu 1110 W. Green Street
(remove "snip-me." to email, of course) Champaign, IL 61801-3080 USA
Barney must be destroyed.
Jim Smitherman
pianists. One of Goulds practice routines, at least so he claimed, was that
he learned the complete piano music of Arnold Schoenberg while having a
radio playing. I do believe I read that on the liner notes to his recording
of that music. A fairly wacky thing to do, if you ask me, but apparently it
worked for him.
A more useful array of tips can be found in the book _the pianists problems_
by William S. Newman, with topics such as 'making the most of scales and
other drills' and 'creating exercises out of actual situations.'
A useful tip he passes on, courtesy of Lizt, is the use of the trill as an
exercise. He recommends a mirror image two handed practicing, trilling
between each fingers, with increasing speed, using a certian wrist rotation.
He praises this highly, and it would seem to offer in a single exercise what
dubious value all of hanon offers in three volumes.
Fathom <no-...@sonic.net> wrote in message
news:no-spam-3003...@d38.pm8.sonic.net...
Jim Smitherman
piano. this was divided up for about 4 hours individual work, a couple
rehearsing with a singer, a few more with the jazz band i was with, and
often at night a gig. The problem with high hours like that, I found, is
tendinitis, and other assorted ills.
That said, and a long tale hangs thereby but nevermind, i'd say that there
needs to be at least a significant period of woodshedding, to get various
skills down. I spent about a decade seldom doing less that 4 hours daily,
but after that I found I could play well if I spent just half an hour or so
on scales and arppegios.
Howard Peirce <howard...@sdrc.com> wrote in message
news:370154AF...@sdrc.com...
Greg Evans
Jim Smitherman <jt...@iamerica.net> wrote in message
news:B89N2.1106$_U2.84...@dca1-nnrp1.news.digex.net...
> One of Goulds practice routines, at least so he claimed, was that
> he learned the complete piano music of Arnold Schoenberg while having a
> radio playing.
I've heard that Thelonius Monk had a radio on top of his piano blaring
country music as he composed. The only explanation *I* can come up with is
that the radio-music occupied the left-brain while the right-brain dealt
with the piece of music being learned/composed....or vice versa....
Greg
Fathom
<gr...@larkbooks.com> wrote:
> I've heard that Thelonius Monk had a radio on top of his piano blaring
> country music as he composed. The only explanation *I* can come up with is
> that the radio-music occupied the left-brain while the right-brain dealt
> with the piece of music being learned/composed....or vice versa....
That sounds extremely unlikely. Maybe a long-time NYC resident can tell us
whether there even was any readio station there that played country music
in the 40's and 50's, when Monk did most of his composing...? ;-0
Zapbailey
>That sounds extremely unlikely. Maybe a long-time NYC resident can tell us
>whether there even was any readio station there that played country music
>in the 40's and 50's, when Monk did most of his composing...? ;-0
My uncle had a country band in NYC and had a radio spot for awhile in the
early 40's. Wow- Monk could've been checking out my uncle! Or using him for
interference.....
Art
--
Howard Peirce
> I enjoy practicing, while an undergrad often spent ten hours daily at the
> piano. this was divided up for about 4 hours individual work, a couple
> rehearsing with a singer, a few more with the jazz band i was with, and
> often at night a gig. The problem with high hours like that, I found, is
> tendinitis, and other assorted ills.
Ah, so you're including rehearsal time in the practice equation. I was thinking
of the strictly solitary exercise. If you add in rehearsal time, then I've
spend a lot more time practicing than I let on. Can I count the time I spend at
the piano or the computer (working with BiaB and notation software) as
practice?
I spend maybe 1-3 hours a week alone with my trumpet, but probably 15-20 hours
a week (excluding gigs) working on music. Still not enough.
HP
Jim Smitherman
quite count as 'practice' time. I was mainly thinking of the wear and tear,
because that does count. Tendinitis is a bitch. But, anyway, I would say
rehearsal time counts 'more' as practice time than does gigging, which isn't
practice at all.
Howard Peirce <howard...@sdrc.com> wrote in message
news:37092B6B...@sdrc.com...
Howard Peirce
> I understand your point, and probably strictly speaking rehearsal doesn't
> quite count as 'practice' time. I was mainly thinking of the wear and tear,
> because that does count. Tendinitis is a bitch. But, anyway, I would say
> rehearsal time counts 'more' as practice time than does gigging, which isn't
> practice at all.
Yeah. A bassist friend of mine had to cut way back on practice and performing,
just as his career was taking off, because of hand and wrist pain. I tend to
get TMJ-like symptoms in my jaw after a long gig, but so far it hasn't affected
my ability or schedule.
But for me, I find that practice/rehearsal is much less physically taxing than
performance. In practice, I have the luxury of listening to my body, not
working past pain, and paying attention to a lot of the physical aspects.
Whereas when I'm performing, I'm more focussed on the product than the process,
and of course, the show must go on. There've been gigs where I had to tell
myself "You never *have* to play again," just to get through it.
HP
Jim Smitherman
been having problems for some time, then at one particular hard playing gig,
something in my right hand sort of gave way, and things weren't the same
after that. As you say, the show must go on, but that was one show that
probably shouldn't have. Anyway, I kept playing even for months after that,
until finally it all got to the point where I couldn't play for more than 15
minutes. Only stopping almost all playing for several years, and a good bit
of PT got it all back together. It's seems ok now, and all the worst of it
was well over a decade ago, but it isn't something you can put out of your
mind.
Howard Peirce <howard...@sdrc.com> wrote in message
news:370CD74E...@sdrc.com...