How to Practice Away from Your Instrument (to Improve Your Jazz Playing)

One thing I hear all the time is "I don't have time to practice". I got a day job, I got to commute to work every day. I got kids and a family when I get home or I've got school.

There are always things in life that stop us from practicing and improving as jazz musicians on our instrument. And I totally get that, I'm busy as well.

But I want to go over 3 things that you can practice today without even being around your instrument at all.

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Further reading:

[corvandermey]

I improvise a lot in my head on jazz standards. For me this is helpful to find new stuff. It's a lot of fun, sometimes I hear that my idea was off key. So this helps me to find the right stuff.

[sebastianhurtado]

Look the numbers from the car plates and sing the intervals from the car plate you see, great exercise for ear training.

[jorze]

Great tips, thanks! When i'm on the bus i mentally do: I IV vii iii vi ii V in all keys

[alford]

I like to think of new tunes I'm learning--right now it is "Canadian Sunset." I do have to learn it first off of the written page but after I have it memorized I think of it in my mind and start replacing the chord names with the Roman Numerals. When I do that I immediately start keying in on other songs that have that same pattern. Then, when I get back to our Music Room, I will play those songs together in a row.

[AmeeliaK]

For me it's playing mentally (piano), either runs or songs that I play by heart that's most efficient. Especially practical during boring meetings because it makes you look totally concentrated :-) And I use the Functional Ear Trainer app that has a listening mode that I can use e.g. during house work.

[KMerrells]

There's a time game I like to do. I get a metronome beat going in my ears, something really slow like 40-50 bpm, and I tap out or sing subdivisions up to 8, two bars of each. 1, 1,  1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4... etc. (I don't actually count - I use "da-ga", or something similar). A harder version has you switch up the order.

[bubba-rhhz]

Great information Brent and thank you.

[wojciechgrochowski]

Great tips as always! When it comes to me, I pick up ear training plus rhythm training apps while being away from my guitar, they are great! I use them on a daily basis since a year and I can admit that I have improved both enormously. Need to add your last point to my daily routines :) cheers!

[lifeontheledgerlines]

A sort of related tangent story:
So I was in New York City for a weekend for a music thingy and anyways, I hear this van's alarm going off at an Ab (yes, I have... _that thing that people with this thing brag about_). Anyways, it keeps going off, and I get kind of bored walking around getting back to my hotel, and I start humming (quietly, I was in public, but it was super noisy and nobody would've heard anyways) a jazz scat solo to myself. I went on for about 2 or 3 minutes and then the alarm turned off.
Moral of story: Everything is music (ambient noise and stuff, John Cage's 4'33 anybody?), and New York City never shuts up. Also, people with perfect pitch really do let you know in about 5 minutes of knowing them.
End of tangent. Have a nice day guys!

[FyoungK]

Useful thing is to visualize melodies and chords not only on your instrument, but on piano, for example, or on a guitar(I'm a bassist), or on paper. That makes it much more familiar.

[lifeontheledgerlines]

When I'm bored in class, you might find me tapping out a polyrhythm, or practicing piano on my desk. It's a little weird, but I try and be discreet (or discrete?) with it so my teachers don't think I've lost my sanity. Or I audiate chord progressions.
Don't worry, this is during the classes in which we do absolutely nothing. Better I do something productive with my time rather than scroll through YouTube while it's been 15 minutes since the bell rung and the teacher is still taking attendance...

[robinbalean]

I often take a short lick and practise the trumpet fingerings in all keys going round the cycle or chromatically or in whole steps etc. It really helps.

[EricHempler]

If you want to work on it bad enough you'll get it done. Sometimes you might have to just rotate through what you work on.

[steve]

Excellent lesson thank you....if you can sing it, you can play it....

[PugnaxSax]

Often times when waiting at a red light in stop-and-go traffic, I bust out the ear training app!