The other day, I shared a series on my Instagram account about how I’m preparing for a really difficult gig. We all, once in a while, come upon musical mountains that seem impossible to scale. For many people, the “mountain” is singing and playing an instrument at the same time. For me, this week’s mountain is a Kenny Wheeler clinic at the International Society of Jazz Arrangers and Composers symposium at Vanderbilt. The music is extremely difficult for me, and there is a LOT of it. Since I often discuss practice strategies with my students, I wanted to share my approach here, while I have a concrete example of how I have to employ these strategies myself!

Start listening as early as possible.

The number one most effective strategy I have is to introduce my brain to the music as early as possible. Ideally, I should listen to and read through the music the day I receive it. Did I do that this time around? Of course not. But it would have helped!

My brain needs time to process things in the background. One listen/read-through a month before the gig does more for me than an hour long practice session the day before. Consistent practice is the best option, of course, but when time is limited and I have to prioritize, a little practice early on is always preferable for me.

Separate the layers.

Music has many layers, and each one presents different challenges. For my ukulele students, the layers are usually playing chords with the left hand, strumming a rhythm with the right hand, singing the melody, and singing lyrics. For the music I’m learning right now, there’s the unfamiliar groove (7/4 makes it harder for me to instinctively feel the downbeat without counting); there’s the rangy melody; there’s the rhythm of the melody; there’s counting long stretches of instrumental music to make sure I enter at the right time; there are meter changes; there are counter-melodies from the rest of the band, and I have to know how my starting note relates to them.

Whatever the challenge is, I like to separate the layers and practice 1 or 2 at a time. Log lots of practice strumming your right hand rhythm without worrying about the left hand chords or the melody. Log lots of practice doing your left hand chord changes with just one right hand strum per measure. For my own gig this week, I’ve practiced the melody “out of time” (disregarding rhythms, but practicing unfamiliar intervals); I’ve tapped and spoken the rhythm without pitch; I’ve done active listening to the bass and drums on the reference recording in order to internalize the unfamiliar groove. After some practice, I can start combining elements—singing the pitch and rhythm of the melody at a slower tempo, for example.

Slow down and slice thin.

On that note, slowing down is a crucial part of any practice. Sometimes playing a difficult passage slowly is actually more difficult than playing it at tempo! Regardless, slowing down allows you to focus on more details and aim for more precision. A metronome is your friend in this practice!! Many find metronomes to be demotivating, so another tool I recommend is the app DrumGenius. It allows you to download actual drum grooves to practice along with, which is often much more fun than practicing with a metronome, AND it helps you hear the subdivision of the beat.

Slowing down isn’t enough, though. You also have to ‘slice thin’, or zoom in on the challenging areas. If I need to practice a section with 32 measures, I will not learn much from playing those 32 measures slowly if I’m still making mistakes when I practice. Instead, I start practicing those measures slowly until I make a mistake. Then I pause and practice the few measures before and after my mistake. A good rule of thumb is to drill those measures until I can execute them correctly 3 times in a row. Then keep moving on. Soon, I will make another mistake. Repeat the process. Once I can execute the 32 measures without consistent stumbles on any particular passage, I can bump up the tempo a bit. I usually choose 5 or 10 BPM increments.

Tragic MIDI Demos (trademark pending).

One of my favorite tools for practicing difficult music is the Tragic MIDI Demo (trademark pending). I go into my DAW, LogicPro—you can use GarageBand or any other recording software—and create a bare-bones mockup of the section I’m practicing. I call it tragic because it’s such a pathetic shadow of the real music, but it gets the job done!

A few months ago, I was practicing a really difficult tune by Jazzmeia Horn called “Searchin’”. For that song, I had access to a lead sheet with the chords, so my TMD included a drum track, a bass track (playing only bass notes, not a walking bass line), and a track playing the melody. I copy and pasted these parts at several different tempi, so at the end I had a few minutes of audio that repeated this section at slow, medium, and fast paces. I then export that audio and e-mail it to myself so I can listen ad nauseam in the car or on a walk.

This time, I do not have access to the chord changes; I only have reference recordings and sheet music for my vocal line, so my TMD consists of a percussion track and a track for the vocal melody. I made sure to try and mimic the groove in my percussion track, since the 7/4 time signature is part of what is challenging for me. Again, I have this section repeated at 5 different tempi ranging from 135 to 180.

One important note: because this challenging section segues into a more approachable section in 12/8, I have included 1 extra measure in my practice track to practice the starting note of the next section. In the past, I have failed to include transitions in my practice and what might have been an easy section becomes very difficult because I haven’t practiced getting into it!

An added benefit of the Tragic MIDI Demo is that in order to make it, I have to be able to play my melody on the keyboard! As a vocalist, I don’t have buttons to press; most of the muscles involved in my instrument are hidden away where I can’t see if they’re behaving correctly. I have to get the music into my body and mind in a different way. Playing the melody with my hands is a massive help in internalizing the music, and basic keyboard skills are an essential tool for reasons just like this.

I also have the option to quantize rhythms, which I have done in this case. Real live music doesn’t occur perfectly “on the grid” like my TMD, but I would rather listen to and practice a mathematically correct rhythm (which can then be imbued with human interpretation in rehearsal) rather than the other way around.

Approach from all angles.

I said in my Instagram series that I think of “the problem” or the musical challenge as the center of a sphere. I need to approach the center of the sphere from as many external points as possible. I want to be as prepared as possible; I want to be prepared to hold steady if someone else in the band makes a mistake. I can’t just “know’ the music well enough to sing along with the recording. I need to understand the form of the song, I need to be aware of patterns and repetitions in the music. I need to know where my cues are coming from.

There are endless ways to approach learning music. A few strategies that I find myself recommending frequently:

-Tap out the rhythm while listening to a reference recording.

-Make a recording of yourself strumming, then sing along with it so you can hear how the instrument and the melody interact, but you don’t have to play and sing at the same time yet.

-Create a practice track in iReal Pro and play or sing along in different keys, with different grooves, with different instruments muted (I often practice singing with bass only), or at a different tempo.

-Practice the melody while playing bass notes on the piano.

-Play the chord and sing your melody out of time so you can really feel how each note interacts with the chord.

-Take a video of yourself practicing in order to trigger nerves and get experience moving through and past the nerves.

-Active listening: listen to the reference recording and focus on the part you’re trying to learn (ie the vocal, in my case). Then listen again, focusing on a different instrument. Listen again, and focus on a different instrument. I often find hidden layers I wasn’t aware of because I was so focused on my own part. As I focus on different instruments, I’m still taking in my vocal part, but I’m becoming aware of it in relation to the piece as a whole. That is a very beneficial, deep level of understanding!

I’m sure there’s a lot more that could be said, and I hope to share updates as I receive feedback and ideas from other musicians! For now, I’m off to get my last few hours of practice in before rehearsal.