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What do you practice to strengthen your playing?

T

thawk1979

Guest
Jan 7, 2012
47
3
#1
Hi,

I've been playing in R & B groups for about 13 years. I am some what stuck in my comfort zone. My song writing has become stagnit and my lines are are somewhat sounding the same. What would you fellow TBers suggest I work on to get out of this slump?

Interested topics:
Theory
Chords/Arpeggios
What Scales to work on?
What do you work on from a day to day basis to improve your chops?
How to work on Soloing.

I'm interested in what you guys have to say on said topics.:)
Thanks:hyper:
 
#3
fearceol said:
Try listening to and playing along to a different type of music...soul, funk, jazz etc. Even if you are not particularly keen on it to start with.
Click to expand...

This. A C-major triad has the same notes in whether you're playing R&B, Baroque, punk rock, or post-Cold-War-Siberian-Death-Metal. At a certain point (provided you continue to hone your chops through scales and arpeggios), it comes down to digging in deep to different styles and players. Check out some old-school country music, the Bach cello suites, some '50s hard-bop Blue Note-label albums, etc...
 
#6
yup, playin upright gives you much needed insight into things, for sure.

Sometimes just jammin with a different bunch of folks can inspire me to do new things.

Play with a different piano player, and alternate between following their left hand, and then playing notes in between their left hand. I've learned so many fun things by doing that. Like 2 verses of following the hand, then 1 verse playing the passing notes, etc etc.

It's a lot of fun.
 
#7
Music appreciation! Listen to as much music as you can from many different styles and genres. There's nothing new under the sun and it behooves us as musicians to have deep roots.

Transcribe other people's music and let other people choose those songs (hmmmm....?) - it'll do wonders for ya.
 
#11
Listening is more of a skill than playing. I find most people don't listen to songs enough, so tthey are too limited. Not to offend anybody. But, when you sit in an office where it is quiet all day, and the only songs you here are the ones on your commute home, then you must be narrow minded. Thankfully, there is music all the time at my job. Listen, listen, listen to all types of music, all types of instuments. This I also, learned from a Derek Trucks interview. He claims it's better to listen to different instruments than your own. Like listen to piano songs, or sitar, or horn songs, etc.. Expand your mind, your brain, your ear.
 
#13
This may have already been said, but to really open up yourself to becoming a better musician you need to listen to and transpose other types of instruments. I’m currently working on Sax solo’s and it has totally helped improve my phrasing.
 
#14
What do you practice to strengthen your playing?
Once we have accomplished how to play our instrument, I think practicing then moves to how to improve our playing of this specific song.

For me it's listening to the song. I get the fake chord on the songs we will play Sunday sometime before Wednesday night and find that calling up a video of the song from the Internet and then playing along with the video helps me get ready for Sunday.

Listening and making notations on the fake chord sheet music - like let this note ring, or quickly move to the next line in the verse at this point of the song - things like that help me as much, if not more, than actually playing the music.

It's six new songs each week, so listening to how others play that specific song - and then playing along with the Internet video seem to strengthen my playing the most.
 
#15
Picking up another instrument can help, especially if it's something like piano or trombone, where there's no fretboard.

Muscle memory is a huge, huge part in everything sounding the same: the fingers do all the thinking, while it is the ears who should be doing all that thinking. When you get rid of the muscle memory by trying a new instrument, you're bound to find new and interesting things about phrasing, chords and groove.
 

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