The Doug Largent Trio

The other day, I sat down to listen to a recording of my trio. I heard myself make tons of mistakes, and my time seemed to always be rushing ahead of the beat.

I wondered, “When am I going to be good? I’ve been practicing this stuff for seven years, and I’m still not there!”

I bet a lot of musicians listen to their gigs an think the same thing. But when you listen to a show, try to look at it from a couple of different perspectives.

1. Did people enjoy the show and get their money’s worth? In the case above where I was feeling critical of my own playing, we had a great show. We sold out of CD’s and got $160 in tips, which is pretty good for a jazz trio playing at a small club. Maybe I thought my playing sucked, but people really liked the band.

2. Jazz is not learned overnight. I watched a video of a great local keyboard player last night. He is a little younger than me, but his skill level is far beyond mine. I was browsing his website and I saw that he had been playing piano since age 4. That means he has been playing keyboards for probably around 35 years. DUH, that’s why he’s way better than me. In another 28(!!!) years, I still might not be as good has him, but I wager that I’ll be pretty dadgum good.

3. Listening to recordings of yourself play is important. When critiquing your own playing, make note of the things you’d like to work on or do differently. If you don’t like what you’re hearing, don’t let it get you down. Get excited about practicing to improve.

It takes a ton of practice to become a great magician. Great magicians often spend years in seclusion practicing magic tricks in order to get them perfect. It’s one of those careers that necessarily has to be about the love of the craft.

Music is similar to magic. Great musicians make performing look so easy that it might be hard to imagine how hard they had to work. But it’s not unusual to find a musician who started playing at age 2, and spent all of their high school and college years locked away in a practice room for many hours a day.

Whatever you are working on, no matter how small, obsess over it and perfect it as if you were mastering a difficult card trick. Don’t settle for anything less than perfection.

Timing is very important in music. It’s much more important than the harmonic content or the tone quality of a particular instrument.

I’ve seen pianists with a great time feel sit down at an cheap or out-of-tune piano and make it sound beautiful. I remember Brother Yusuf Salim coming to gigs back in the day with a cheap Casio keyboard. His performances always sounded excellent because of his time feel, which was confident and full of personality and jazz history. It’s been probably 15 years since I saw him, and he’s since passed away. I can’t remember any of the notes he played, but I remember that time feel as if it was yesterday.

If you’ve ever seen Ron Carter play a student’s bass at a college master class, you will immediately recognize his playing. His tone is certainly a part of the equation, but even on the worst sounding basses his unique time feel is evident.

I transcribed a very fast Cannonball solo from the album Cannonball & Coltrane. I believe it was from ‘Limehouse Blues’. After writing out the notes, there were several places where he was playing notes that seemed wrong on paper- but his time feel is so strong that anything he plays sounds right. Same with Miles, Herbie, etc.

You can work on your timing by practicing with a metronome or playing along with classic jazz recordings. I also think it’s very important to take a short video of yourself each day. Watch the video and be honest with yourself (but not mean!). What can be improved about your time feel?

Recently, I had a gig that was going to be four rehearsals and two shows. The music was easy, and I enjoyed being able to sight-read the material nearly perfectly on the first try. The band members were a bunch of my good friends.

Everything was cool, except for one thing: the band leader disliked me from the second that I walked into the room. She absolutely and completely hated my guts, even though we had never met before.

The more that I tried to be polite and considerate, the worse the situation got. After four rehearsals, she called me and told me I was fired from the gig. My immediate response was “Why? Was there a problem?” She just said a few vague (and pretty mean) things.

At this point, I made a split second decision to just let it go- so I said “Alright. Thanks for having me, take it easy,” and we hung up. The next day I returned the music, and they paid me for the four rehearsals I had done.

Let me turn this situation into a teaching moment. Here are the main points for musicians to consider:

1. No matter how great you are at music, and no matter how much your soul beams with beauty, there may be someone out there who totally can’t stand you.

2. After losing a gig, spend a short time objectively evaluating what happened. Why was your gig a disaster? Is there any reason to call or write to apologize (e.g., you arrived late, etc.)? What lessons can be learned? Don’t obsess or get emotional. Don’t get mad or sad or brood.

3. Is this the type of gig that you want to avoid taking in the future?

4. Don’t trash-talk the venue/bandleader etc. on social media. If the bandleader trashes you to others, remain silent and show them you’re an adult. If you feel like you’re owed a large sum of money, you may want to send them a short, courteous email informing them. If it’s not that much money, you might want to just drop it and move on.

5. Drop it and move on. Realize that you can’t win them all, and proceed with your life. The next day, make it a point to identify your strong areas in music, and spend time practicing them. As tough as it might be, don’t let a setback slow you down. Start practicing and rehearsing again the very next day.

It’s important to observe master musicians live and in person. You’ll learn things that are somehow impossible to latch onto by listening to recordings or watching videos.

I remember seeing Ron Carter play live for the first time in around 1997. It was before videos were widespread on the internet, so the only way I had ever experienced Ron’s playing was through classic jazz recordings and maybe the occasional concert photo.

It was amazing to see him play for the first time. I never anticipated how tall and confident he would look, and his sound and playing technique were very different than I imagined. After I left that gig, I felt like I had improved 25% as a player, just from having observed Ron Carter play.

I closely observe great keyboard players when they play, and I end up learning something new each and every time. My favorite light bulb moments are when I see someone easily doing something that I have trouble doing. Something about watching the person play with ease translates quickly into my own playing, almost as if by osmosis.

I procrastinate and get distracted very easily when I am faced with doing things that I kind of don’t want to do. Timing myself keeps me focused and helps me accomplish things quickly.

I challenge myself by using the countdown timer on my watch. For example, I don’t enjoy using my computer to write music, but I’ll set a timer for 5 minutes and tell myself, “Before this timer expires, I will have turned on my computer, started the music software, and I’ll have written eight measures of music.” This makes it fun. The hardest part is just getting a project started. By the time I’ve written eight measures, I have the momentum to finish the song.

Or, “In the next five minutes, I will have written an email to book gigs.” When I use a timer, I don’t procrastinate or surf the web- I just sit down and do the work. The timer is also great for writing blog posts. I want to succinctly express an idea, which shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes.

There are a multitude of ways to use a timer during practicing as well. If I only have an hour to practice a set of 10 songs, I might set my timer to practice each song for 6 minutes. During that time, I’ll try to identify the one or two most difficult places in each piece and work them out.