The Road to Confident Music: Learning to Focus

As we've all experienced, one of the cornerstones of good playing is clear, consistent focus. It's much easier said than done! Although it's an ever-present and always improving effort, I thought I'd share a few tips that have helped me in this important process. With practice and an awareness of some of these ideas, you will start to see a marked improvement in the quality of your playing, and you'll feel a great deal of confidence in your music! As you read, think about how you've already worked with these ideas, and how they already affect your playing.

Have a Clear Idea!

In other words, say only what you mean to say! For most of us, that will start with simplification. We are often convinced that we need to search for complex, interesting ideas, but this usually leads to over-complexity, which clouds our original intention. Instead, play something simpler, something clear and concise. Even if it's short, and even if it seems "too simple," you'll be absolutely certain that you're playing exactly what you intended, and it will come across as much more musical. The defining characteristic of every great player is that they are never overreaching their technical ability, and never playing anything accidentally or incidentally. Every choice they make is a conscious musical decision. Of course, in our musical youth, our technical proficiency is limited, but that's what time and practice are for! Use the tools you have to be musical--don't use them to be "impressive." Make conscious, musically responsible decisions, and your playing will achieve an impressive degree of maturity.

Simple ideas often seem to lack validity: they can sound rudimentary if they're used in the wrong way. It can seem tough to validate a simple musical idea in the moment! The clearest illustration of a "musically valid" idea is a lick: that's a pre-cooked musical idea, one that many people are familiar with. Licks are "pre-cooked" because they start out with some musical validity--they came from some other tune, or some other solo, one that has already been judged to be of high quality. But pre-packaged ideas lack the substance of an idea created in the moment, for the moment. So how can we create original material and have it considered valid? The answer is as simple as repetition, or (in more musical terms) motivic development. That's the process of taking a simple idea and using it as the melodic framework for a solo. Once you have a very simple, even a seemingly skeletal idea for a lick, start adding to it, little by little. Turns, approach notes, transpositions and planing... With these tools, a simple, skeletal idea can be fleshed out into a beautifully developed solo, or even an entire composition! Moreover, it will be a solo over which you always have control, and one that you genuinely believe in--because it's uniquely yours!

Maintain Your Focus!

This is possibly the most difficult of all topics to address, and one of the most difficult to practice. An inability to focus can completely sink a solo line, a comping line, or even a familiar melody. I've heard of a variety of ways to work on this, from meditation to deliberate distraction, but neither of these really worked for me, at least not yet. For my money, the most effective method of focus is not mental isolation, but rather an acute awareness of everything. Being aware of all my surroundings--both musical and extra-musical--allows me to be in control of any potential distractions, and also allows me to react to any changes in the musical environment. Whatever your method, the idea is to be aware of as much as possible. Although I might go into greater detail in the future, I'll acknowledge three levels of musical focus: formulaic, intra-musical, and extra-musical.

First and foremost, focus on the music! This is the formulaic part: knowing exactly where you're headed, at all times. Using simple ideas will help you maintain an awareness of the form of your tune. Memorizing the chords, form, and melody (and lyrics!) of your tune will help you understand the logical placement of these ideas. Having one or two different reference recordings will give you a springboard for ideas, and guide you toward a specific sound.

After you have the formula for a tune, you'll need to work on being aware of all the music that's happening in the moment. The most unique aspect of jazz is its ability to change instantaneously. Although our generation has access to some fantastic tools--iRealb, Aebersolds, Band-in-a-Box, GarageBand--even the most advanced of these cannot react to your playing the way a real player can, nor can they make the same unusual musical decisions a real player might. Reacting appropriately to musicians in a true performance setting is an invaluable skill, but one that can only be honed in the heat of a live performance. Play with as many musicians as you can, regardless of what the ensemble ends up becoming! Duo, trio, rhythm section or no, the experience you'll gain in holding together a tune with other musicians will be of great benefit. 
  

A side-note: this is where it can be tempting to over-think things: not all musical situations require adaptive feedback from every musician. The majority of music we listen to, and most of the popular music around today, follows a through-composed formula. In these cases, the musical necessity might actually be great simplicity, and maybe a bit of redundancy. That's okay, if it's the musically appropriate thing to do! You need to be able to adapt either way. But whether you're working with a heavily interactive jazz trio or a rock-solid funk band, you need to maintain your focus enough that you are always playing your part with intention and contributing to the groove of the music, rather than forcing the music and your fellow bandmembers to carry your weight. Everything you play as an active, confident contributor adds huge levels of depth to the music, and makes it immensely more enjoyable for your bandmates and for the audience!

Lastly, once you have the ability to focus on these "intra-musical" ideas, you'll need to begin developing an awareness of the outside world, on all levels. Remember, it's when things are most distracting--when you have a lot on your mind, when you're feeling under the weather, when an inebriated audience member decides to heckle--that you'll need to focus most intently. This doesn't mean shutting out the outside world by ignoring it: trying to blot out distractions outright actually gives those potential distractions more power, and if they break through, it will cause a larger hiccup in the music. By the same token, you don't want to have to fall back on licks you know: in most instances, this actually means you're spacing out on the music, instead of focusing in, and will often result in a meaningless gesture, one that simply eats up time instead of adding to the composition. In order to maintain control over my music, I have found that there is a fine line between ignoring distractions and actually being swayed by them--that's where we need to be! Aware of all our distractions, but mature enough to set them aside. You'll have time to deal with those things after the music has been made, but when you're in the moment, the music is all-important--everything else can wait.

How can we practice this? In the short term, it's simple: lock yourself in the practice room and stay focused on your work as you play! The next step can be as simple as moving to a new area to play through a piece, one where you're not isolated from all other distractions. Always keep your mind focused on the task at hand: the chord progression, the form, simple melodic ideas. It's a great effort, certainly, but your music will sound worlds better as you practice it. Live performance, at a jam session or sitting in on a gig, is the last phase, where you subject yourself to your nerves, the band, and the people listening. Remember, developing impenetrable focus is a years-long effort, but it gets easier and easier with time!

The Result!

Getting these two ideas together is part of a larger goal: building confidence in your playing! You need to be aware of the things that are happening around you in order to react to them appropriately, and you should always stay well within your "wheelhouse" when you're in the moment, always playing simple licks and ideas that you are certain you have a grasp of. As you practice more, you'll expand your technical ability to include more complex ideas, and you'll learn to maintain your focus longer to accommodate larger ideas, but it's perfectly okay to start simple, as long as you have constant control over yourself and your music. Build that confidence early, and it will grow with you as your technique improves!

Just getting a grasp on these two concepts is a tough task, but I'll be covering more on the process of improvisation in coming weeks. Thanks for reading, keep up the practice, and I look forward to hearing from you!

Visit www.ajcjazz.com for downloadable materials, transcriptions, and info on lessons, as well as where to see me playing around town!