Jazz Practice Routine: A Tune A Week

Been doing this for a few weeks now and if I can offer any advice, its just simply to make sure you take Monday as seriously as the rest of the days (its tempting to slack on Monday listening, cuz it feels like an off day). If you reallllly drill that melody and those lyrics in your head on Monday, it reallly makes the transposing days go much smoother. If you just think "Oh I've heard the song a bunch of times in the past, no biggie" but the lyrics and ALL sections of the melody aren't drilled into ur head, then transposing will be much more frustrating and time consuming....I love this tune a week formula!

I must say, no matter how complicated practicing gets, if i just come back to this I feel so much more grounded and at ease with my routine. Thank you for this!

Thank you! I love your attitude towards music. ❤

Say it over and over again - COLTRANE AND Michael Pedicin jr.

This is the best answer I've found on how to practise 💯❤️🔥

Hi Aimee. I know this is an old video, but I’ve got a question on day two. When we approach chords with extensions (D7#11 on A train, etc.) would you add those extensions in the right hand when accompanying yourself while singing?

Good concepts but shouldn't most people learn a new tune in at least a month of time of practicing it.

Do not choose "JOY SPRING" , cause you're gonna suffer on tuesday hahahhha.... :c I really want to master that standard, but I don't know If I could do it in a single week.
GREAT VIDEO! THANK YOU Aimee

Thank you for this, Aimee. I'm afraid I am so lazy, but your advice to practise six days and just play for fun on one day is very inspiring. How I wish you were my teacher. Although in a sense you already are because I love learning from your wonderful you tube videos! God bless you and your talented family.

Aimee: Your ability to sing whatever you play is a fantastic talent. Most instramentalists don't or can't do this. A great video

Thank you, Ms. Aimee Nolte! This is bracingly pragmatic and practical, given a certain level of commitment and determination. The effect, especially given one's own observation, thought, and analysis, will be progressive and cumulative in perpetuity. For anyone immediately intimidated by how much work this seems to represent, please remember the truth, which Life demonstrates continually anew, that what you do and continue to do with attention, becomes familiar/habitual to you, and you begin to craft your own individual creative responses to this new set of challenges. You may even become quite enthusiastic about this "work." Six months of continuous application of the outlined approach should yield a currently-unimaginable bounty of musical skill-set development! And, like Aimee points out, if nothing else, you've got twenty-six (potentially all NEW!) tunes that you've become pretty darned intimate and (presumably) expressive with!

You're awesome! Thank you for sharing your routine 🙏🏿

Thats it, perfect, just PERFECT !!! This the best method of all !!!
Need to play malody
Need to know lyrics
Need to know chords
Needs to improvise
100%

Thanks Aimee! I love your videos, Rick Beato's video on greatest solo of all time got my turned onto you and I"m SO glad he did. After spending awhile on your open voicing 101 video I'm going to try this. May start with taking longer than a week per tune (intimidated by transposition Tuesdays already) but I'm gonna give it a good try. you're unlocking so many things I've struggled with for a long time. Keep up the great work and I"ll keep watching :)

This is a great system!

Is that okay if i do it on a Monday in 2021, a Tuesday in 2022, a Wednesday in 2025, and so on...? 😂😭

Thanks for some fantastic practice tips Aimee!! For Thursdays, do you recommend taking the tune through all keys with a metronome, or some kind of musical context? How well do you have to be able to play it before you can call it a day?

Much love from Sweden

What do you use for a play-along? And what do you during practice time besides the 1 tune a week?

You're simply the best. Thank you. You were able to resolve my perennial problem.

I got so many songs in my head that I know in one key and I have arranged the solo and that's the only solo I can play and they're all stuck in my muscle memory and every time I learn a new one I forget one. I think I've maxed out. So this looks positively painful, but just imagine a year from now when I can whizz thru all the keys, it'll be awesome

Viraal

Thank you so much for this, the past few months I've been drilling scales, arpeggios, voicings etc so much that I sometimes forget that the goal of my practice is to create MUSIC!! This incorporates all the skills a musician really needs. And I also appreciate the day off, a lot of the time I feel guilty for resting but it really is necessary for practice and for your brain to rest.

what would be your advice for melody-instruments (Sax or trumpet) for day 3 & 4? Arpeggios and Guidelines?
Love your videos! :)

Teacher I never met, the teacher I always needed!

Pretty good. I wonder why you don't have as many subscribers as Rick Beato. Your content is really good.

The tune based approach IS DE WAY!

Coltrane did not take Sundays off! -)

the grates jazz lesson video Ive ever seen

A Tuna Week! I’ll have some mayo with that.

Good idea...I’m kind of jumping from one tune to another on the same day. Not a good way to practice I must admit.

how would you translate this to a horn/bass or other single line instrument? for someone that doesn’t have access to a piano?

Could you give me your top 10
standards I should know. I need a list to start with. Thanks!

Im curious how many hours a day do people / Aimee practice?

Hi Aimee, I'm a classical pianist trying to learn the jazz piano. The instructions seem unclear to me with Friday's practice routine. Do you practice with the same chords that you used on previous days? What do you need to memorize the tune for when you're only practicing scales and patterns over chords? There are so many scales, which scales should I practice? I am so confused.

Advice for bebop tunes

And Aimee might note agree but it works for me haha:

Make sure to be able to sing and play the heads in both hands (separately and together) in all 12 keys. Be able to comp in your right hand and play the heads in your left hand.

Like Bud Powell and sonny Clark, as jazz pianists Adam Manness and Peter Martin recommend, also be able to play shell voicings for the changes. While these aren’t fully functional in modern settings, they still work.

For playing the heads in all 12 keys, do 3-4 a day and review as you go. Learn the standard intros, interludes, and outros bc old school cats will cut you if you don’t (I have experience with that haha)

Watch Aimee’s video playlist on bebop!

It’s a testimony to Aimee’s excellence as a teacher that someone at my late-beginner level can get so much from her lessons. But I agree with an earlier comment that just step two would take me, essentially, forever, even with a song I know really well. When I get to Wednesday, my skill level is so weak that my frustration level suddenly soars and a joy level plummets. I’m thinking this lesson is aimed at musicians who can pretty well do the things in the plan, with some effort, but not be slowed to a snail's pace. I wonder if anyone knows of a lesson (preferably Aimee’s!) that a late-beginner can use to approach a new song.

Meanwhile, many thanks to you, Aimee. You are a treasure!

I need to get a damn piano...

This video is such a help for everyone and it's great to watch, I just have a question. I'm a bass player, and some of these concepts might be a little hard to translate directly to my bass in terms of the practicing (not counting learning the tune bc that helps everyone with getting that harmony in the head). Any recommendations on translating this practice regimen to other instruments such at bass or guitar?

THANK YOU!!! I’m not a pianist nor a singer, but this is a great organized way to study. Exactly what I needed! Ps. Love you work!

Great stuff! Wish I would have done something like this early on. Just wondering, have you done a video on tune maintenance yet? That seems to be a struggle when getting busier and not being able to go to jam sessions or perform standards as much

Just a question, how would you recommend also acquiring language while doing this routine?

Muchas Gracias de Nuevo !

So helpful. I need this direction so I can progress.

Okay, I'm doing this.


Day 1: Thanks for making me dead tired of "Razao de Amor" by Marcos Valle.

This is wonderful! Thank you. I just skipped on Monday, but I've been working on a song all last week, and now yi have a great method here😊

On Thursday work, should we always play the notes except melody in LH , and the melody in RH?How can we split notes between hands?

What's your day gig?

Ok but how can I come up with me own lead sheet of tunes. I’m so frustrated trying to piece everything together about jazz piano it’s like I’m trying to put together a puzzle

Brilliant!

Could this work for like trumpet or something?