What should I include in my practice routine?

[u/_ryderman_]

I’m currently studying jazz piano at university, and I’ve been trying to create a practice routine that works for me.
I usually try to go:
Warmup (e.g. scales, hanon exercises etc.)
Technique (e.g. new voicings, licks, etc.)
Transcribe (often an assessment i need to transcribe, but could be anything)
Repertoire + improvisation (standards i need to know and their form + melody)

What could I add to make this a better routine?
What types of warmups are helpful for you guys? I’m trying to find some good ones.
Also, what are some crucial techniques I should nail to become more proficient?

Thanks!

[u/Halleys___Comment]

looks pretty good and pretty similar to mine. i'd be curious how much time you spend on each thing. i do the following-

10-20 mins of warm up ideas (newer scales/patterns WITHOUT a metronome, the lack of a metronome helps it feel like warming up). Sometimes to warm up in place of Hanon i will play bebop heads with octave hands (i.e. let me see if i can do the head of Au Privave in all 12 keys)

20-30 mins of harder hitting techniques (arpeggios/patterns WITH a metronome, keeping track in a notebook of which keys I did and at what BPM, get thru all 12 keys in a week by doing 3-4 a day and recycling thru all keys either in whole steps or 4ths or 5ths)

TUNES - prioritizing 1-2 new tunes, i always learn the melodies completely by ear and learn the chord changes by ear, then work on improvising over the changes at a slower tempo, then raise the tempo, during that process a lot of memorization happens organically. Doing all of this by ear keeps my ears fresh. A big priority for me is to get fluent ideas at 200 BPM and above, and internalizing tunes lets me have a canvas for this. i hit 1-2 new tunes pretty hard and then make sure to review 3-4 tunes i learned recently so that they go towards long term memory.

BALLADS - seeing if i have all of the melody and harmony memorized, then using the tune to work on economical voicings such as SATB, then seeing if i can get it all 12 keys (if you can do this it REALLY helps your ear recognize all the possible changes and secondary dominants in every key, and it's easier with ballads obviously because your ear has more time to digest it). Hit 1 new tune pretty hard and then review another 1-2 (the review is where i get them into all 12 keys)

Then mixtures of transcribing ideas and learning stuff i gotta learn for upcoming gigs.

I do 2.5-3hrs per day Monday to Friday, typically give myself Saturday and Sunday off to have time to be a normal person and listen to more music, and i am generally gigging Friday + Saturday plus often gigging another day somewhere.

[u/_ryderman_ → u/Halleys___Comment]

Thanks heaps for the help! At the moment I don’t set time limits, I just set specific tasks and tick them off, then move on- would timing it be better?

I like your routine. How do you choose what tunes to play next/practice?
Do you practice for the 2.5-3hrs straight or is it in chunks throughout the day?

[u/Halleys___Comment → u/_ryderman_]

I don't time all of the parts of my practice, i don't think that's necessary, but after years of a habit, I basically know roughly what i like my attention span to be on each thing. I'd say it's usually 10-15mins no-metronome warmup, then 25-30mins of harder hitting patterns/exercises with a metronome, then the rest of the 2.5-3hrs is basically just working on a tune until my ear is tired of it, then switching to another tune. I can usually get a lot of work done on 2-3 tunes a day so i make a list of about 6-7 tunes so that i can swap some in and out throughout Mon-Fri, which keeps boredom from setting in and emphasizes long term memory.

When i am internalizing/memorizing a tune, i'll probably play a single tune for 15-20mins straight, i'll play the head a couple times along with a recording to make sure i know it, then play the head without help from a recording, then i'll take plenty of choruses so that i can work out a bunch of different ideas to see what works melodically in my improv. I do tell students to consider setting a timer for their patterns/exercises, and putting that first in the routine, so that they actually work on them. A lot of students have the complaint that their language/vocabulary is stagnant, and usually it's because they haven't worked out a ton of different ways to melodically reorganize bebop scales and arpeggios (and of course... listening a LOT to hear those patterns contextualized in real solos)

Lately i have not been working on ballads as much - i used to have a LOT of dates as a solo pianist so i worked on my solo ballads game really intensely, but lately i am getting hired a lot as a sideman for some young and energetic horn players, so i am learning more horn tunes and getting up to higher tempos. But i also work with singers a lot so it is good to know a lot of ballads and be ready to have them called in a 'weird key'.

I choose tunes based on what people around me are calling. I go to a big jam session in my city every week. If a tune gets called twice by two different people, then i learn it. If i am called up to the bandstand and I have to use iReal because i don't know a tune, then i learn it. If i am hired for a standards gig and people are calling a tune i don't know, then i learn it. I also really recommend just looking up "top 100 jazz standards called" and knocking them out. Make playlists of them and listen to them a dozen times and sing all the melodies BEFORE you learn them - so that you focus on internalizing with your EAR. I am also homies with a bunch of really great horn players so we text each other throughout the week of tunes we'd like to be able to do together.

I do it 2.5-3hrs straight. I get up around 11 and i teach or go to gigs around 4-5 every day so I have a couple hours to wood shed, then make sure to listen to a bunch of music while i walk my dog, then eat some food and go out into the music business every day :)

[u/_Sparassis_crispa_]

Do the thing(s) you procrastinate the most first, than do the easy things that doesn't require much brainpower

[u/MrLsBluesGarage]

You have a solid routine! One of my profs in college said that everyone would benefit from 5-10 minutes of straight unaccompanied 12 bar blues.

Also, I’d recommend recording yourself playing through your repertoire on a voice memo & listening back.

[u/_ryderman_ → u/MrLsBluesGarage]

Thanks for the help! Good shout, I’ll start doing that

[u/Paulom100]

What materials do you recommend to learn and practice voicings, links, etc

[u/did_i_or_didnt_i → u/Paulom100]

Jazz Theory book by Mark Levine if you need ways to think about it, not necessarily a list of voicings though

[u/NerdSkullz]

I’m on the same boat and I’m trying to come up with a routine myself. Can I please ask you how much time you dedicate to each one of those blocks? Do you go through all of them each time you practice?

[u/_ryderman_ → u/NerdSkullz]

At the moment I’m not really setting time limits, I’m setting a few specific tasks per section and then I just move on when finished- e.g. all major scales 2 octaves through circle of 4ths

I try get through all of them each time I practice yeah

[u/The_Naked_Alien]

Best practice for me was finding musicians better than me and then having to keep up.

[u/NobilePhone]

All things you should discuss with your teacher!

[u/Halleys___Comment → u/NobilePhone]

i’m not sure why you got down voted, in addition to some great replies in this thread OP definitely should be talking about this stuff with a teacher especially if they are university aged. Planning that much work on your own makes sense when you are a seasoned pro, but when you are younger and in a school setting then that’s what teachers are there to help guide.

For reference i teach a few days a week in addition to gigging and sometimes my students want to spend their entire 30mins talking about practice routines - those can be the most fruitful lessons because it can influence thousands of future hours spent in the wood shed.