Jazz Advice – How To Achieve Laser Focus In The Practice Room

All right, today I want to talk about some important jazz advice for practicing.

This is something that will make or break you as you go through your piano learning journey. This one concept is critical.

What you do on a daily basis, your habits, and what you choose to practice at the piano, will either be your path to success or your path to failure. So, I wanted to create a quick video to help you achieve more focus and more results in the practice room.

Jazz Advice For Achieving Great Focus In The Practice Room

How To Get Crystal Clear On What To Practice

Now, a lot of times you’re inundated with information and jazz advice. You feel like you want to learn all these 20 things and you have to learn them all at the same time.

Sometimes it boils over and it feels like if you don’t know 80 million jazz scales then you’re not any good.

You have this huge amount of pressure that happens because it feels like there’s a million different things you need to do.

What ends up happening, because there’s so much pressure, is either you don’t practice at all, because who wants to feel like they have to do a million things at one time, right? It’s a stressful feeling!

Or, it’s not fun when you’re practicing, because there’s so much pressure and stress.

Here’s the solution to this situation.

Stop focusing on tons of different things in 1 practice session. Instead focus on mastering one skill at a time. Go deep on that skill. Become great at that one thing.

You learn best when you dive deep and focus on one thing at a time, and that’s it. Focus on 1 skill for just a few months. Get your musical confidence high at that one thing!

One thing at a time. One small step. Just focus on that as you’re going. This is jazz advice i wish I had learned years ago.

How To Have More Success In The Practice Room

As an example, all right, let’s say today, you say, “You know what? I want to learn four bars of a tune.” Don’t worry about the 100 scales you may or may not know.

If you’re goal is to just to get better at playing a tune then don’t worry about the scales right now.

You’ll have plenty of time to learn more scales later.

You just need to learn those four bars, okay? Focus just on that. Then, you have something tangible and real at the end of your practice session. It feels great when you can get real results.

This is way better than practicing 100 different things to a 50% level.

In music and especially in jazz you need confidence. Confidence to execute and confidence to feel free at the keyboard. If you only know something at 50% that’s the opposite of confidence. You can’t depend on it.

So, you want to focus on less at a time so you can get to 100% confidence.

My Jazz Advice For Greater Focus

Once you master the 4 bars then what are you going to do the next day? Well, learn four more bars. Learn four more bars, day by day adding onto that.

At the end of the year, you could know 30 or 40 songs, just learning four bars at a time. Simple stuff. You’re stacking development on top of ourselves. You’re just keeping it simple, focusing on one thing whenever you sit down at the piano.

That’s how you get rid of that overwhelm. This is how you succeed. Focus on 1 skill at a time. Get great at 1 thing. Then, move on to the next skill and get great at that.

I Followed This Exact Formula To A “T”

In case you’re wondering, I follow this exact strategy to this day. I don’t have 80 million things in my practice log at 1 time.

I’ll have these periods of time where I’m just focusing on one skill, one concept.

After I get real comfortable with that one skill (after a few months) I’l move on and focus on the next skill. Not 1000 things at one time. Just 1 thing and go deep.

I did the same thing when I got serious about blues piano. For several years I dove deep into blues. This singular focused changed my musical life forever.

I talk more about how I went from blues failure to world touring pro here .

This is how you move mountains and achieve greatness in our playing. Focus.

Now, what are the actual best skills to practice? How can you invest your time wisely, have fun, and express yourself more freely at the keys?

How To Finally Get Rid Of The Jazz Practice Overwhelm

Jazz should be fun and exciting. Becoming a player your can be proud is an incredible feeling. And you deserve to sound great at the keyboard.

So, if you want simple step by step jazz practice templates that you can instantly use to build better jazz skills?  Then check out my special insider jazz system.

We have a huge collection of videos, cheat sheets, songs, chords, licks & secrets that will double your jazz piano skills in 30 days or less. Check out the whole program and huge benefits here.

All right. Thank you reading and watch. Get some practice in. Stay hungry, stay motivated. I believe in your talent!