LJS 01: 4 Habits For Better Practicing

Welcome to our very first episode of the LJS Podcast, where today we are talking about 4 Habits For Better Practicing. As jazz musicians, practicing is one of the most important things we can talk about. Listen in as NYC based jazz guitarist and LJS blogger Brent Vaartstra walks us through these important practicing habits.
Listen to episode 1




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In this episode

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Set goals and write them down.

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Eliminate distractions.

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Practice what's ailing you not what you are already good at.

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Be consistent.


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Read the TranscriptEpisode 1


[00:00:07] Hey everybody this is Brent from learn Jazz Standards and you're listening to the Learn Jazz Standards podcast. On our very first episode, we're going to go ahead and give this a try... and we want to hear from you if this is the kind of content that you want to see us do more of, if you enjoy this, if listening is a little better to you than reading... then we want to hear from you. Leave us a comment in our comments section below and give us some feedback! So today I want to talk about a very important topic and this is 4 habits to better practicing. As a musician, practicing is the most important thing... I think we can all agree that if we're not practicing, if we're not striving to get better, then we just simply won't get better. So practicing is such an important thing and one thing that I always tell my students, is as a teacher it's more important that I teach them how to practice well, than actually give them more information. [1:08.5]
[00:01:16] Sometimes information is just information until you can actually apply it and work it and make it turn into something fruitful and useful.
[00:01:27] And so that's why I think talking about practicing is incredibly important.
[00:01:31] And by the way a lot of these points that I'm making today you can also find in our free e-book a Jazz Guide to Practicing. You can sign up to get that eBook by subscribing to our newsletter. Go to www.learnjazzstandards.com/newsletter or you'll see in the right hand column an opt in form to sign up for our newsletter there. So without further ado, let's go ahead and talk about the four habits to better practicing.
[00:02:11] Number one. This is a very important one. Set goals and write them down. Now it's no secret there have been lots of studies done about the success rate of those that that not only set goals for themselves but write them down. They tend to be much more successful than those that A.) don't set goals at all and then B.) don't write them down. Now why is setting goals so important for a jazz musician. As jazz musicians were expected to do so much: we're expected to play at a very high level, have a great understanding of music theory, play it a virtuosic level.
[00:03:02] And so, it's important for us to start with this very first step and if there's one thing I want you to take from this podcast today... is this first habit: write goals... set goals and write them down. This is the most important thing you can do and I can't stress this enough.