LJS 124: The Only Big 3 Things You Need to Be Practicing as a Jazz Musician

Welcome to episode 124 of the LJS Podcast where today we are talking about the Big 3 things you need to be practicing in order to improve as a jazz musician. This episode piggy-backs off of last week's episode where we talked about focused, goal-oriented practicing. Learn what to practice so you don't get overwhelmed and how to do it. Listen in!
Listen to episode 124







What's great about the internet is that you can type in any question and immediately find blog posts, podcasts, and videos telling you the answer and teaching you how to do stuff.
The bad thing about the internet is it is so cluttered and so distracting that often times we don't know where to start or how to apply the information we learn. As it applies to musicians, we can get completely lost and confused about what to learn, how to learn it, and when to learn it.
That's why we need a focused, goal-oriented approach to our musicianship, which we talked about in last week's episode 123.
But once we have goals and once we understand that we need this kind of practice, what stuff should we actually be working on? How do we know which things will help us make quick and efficient improvement as jazz musicians?
In comes what I like to call, my Big 3. These are three things that if we just hone in on these categories, we can cover a multitude of skills that we need to develop as jazz musicians.
Here's a little bit of what I cover in this episode:
1. A recap of why we need focused, goal-oriented practicing with an action plan.
2. Why we need to boil things down and get rid of the clutter.
3. Technique, why it's important, and what to work on.
4. Jazz repertoire, why it's important, and what to work on.
5. Jazz language, why it's important, and what to work on.
I hope you start thinking about the Big 3 and how you can start creating an action plan for achieving your jazz performance goals. I especially want to invite you to sign up to receive the Accelerate Your Jazz Skills free mini-course where I go into further depth on all of this.
Important Links
Accelerate Your Jazz Skills free mini-course
30 Steps to Better Jazz Playing
Episode 123