How To Practice

Jeff Antoniuk's inDepth Jazz Clinic on How To Practice tackles a question every musician faces: how to make real progress with whatever time you have — whether that's 20 minutes a day or one hour a week. While a few specific techniques are aimed at sax and flute, the majority of this class offers excellent advice for all musicians, at every level.

What's covered

• How to structure your practice time — and Jeff's core principle: divide it 50% practice, 50% playing
• Why only playing tunes reinforces your bad habits along with the good — and why only drilling scales and patterns leaves you unable to play actual music
• Breaking practice into simple categories and checking that your routine hits each one
• What to practice, how to practice it, and what not to practice
• Balancing the nuts and bolts (scales, patterns, transcription) with musical context (tunes, blues, playing with a metronome or play-alongs)
• Avoiding overwhelm when you're told to do everything in all 12 keys on limited practice time

Jeff speaks from experience — as a student he could "play the hell out of the saxophone" but didn't know enough tunes to get hired, and his advice comes straight from that lesson. A practical class for beginners, returning players, and gigging musicians alike.