This Technique Saved Me 100s of Hours of Practice Time
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- #bettersax #saxophone #musician
Jay Metcalf shares how practicing visualization can help musicians increase their skills when they aren't playing.
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I have played piano since I was 3, professionally since age 15. I started using visualization when I had to ride the bus to school. I'm 81 and STILL do it! This WORKS people, music has always been up to the connection between the brain and the fingers, your job is to _get out of the way_ and let the music through...
You're still going to school at the age of 81? Well you're never too old to learn! LOL
I hope I never stop learning! 😉
Absolutely amazing. I’ve been struggling to remember the chord changes and the melody for All The Things You Are. Yesterday I watched the champions league match, and when nothing happened I visualised the chords, the melody and how I would improvise. Today I picked up my horn and immediately played the melody and was able to improvise over the chords. It’s mind blowing how powerful this method is.
Very interesting and informative as always. Particularly relevant to my current reading which is classical guitarist Christopher Berg's book 'Practicing Music by Design - Historic Virtuosi on Peak Performance.'
He covers eight common elements of practice which have been used by pianists and violinists historically. One of these is chapter 4 'Mental Work'.
The interesting thing about the book is that Berg doesn't just look at modern research into learning and performing (which includes sports coaching as well as music) but that he emphasises how these techniques were known and used historically.
He starts the chapter with the sentence 'Study methods away from the instrument that were
used by some of the great pianists and violinists - specifically mental work and the use of recall - anticipate and confirm current research about learning and memory.'
He mentions the formation of myelin (the insulation of brain cells which speed transmission of impulses in the brain) and how this increases with mental work. He quotes accounts of older virtuoso musicians' practice and teaching requirements which included work away from the instrument.
Other chapters include slow practice, chunking, variety in practice.
So (forgive the long comment 😐), your practice is well founded by research and older virtuosi.
Thanks again for your videos!
I played saxophone in high school and college. I'm 61 now, and I'm playing jazz guitar. I use visualization regularly, especially for memorizing chords and comping. I find it very effective, and often do this when I can't sleep at night. It still surprises me that when I'm mentally playing chords, I'll stop occasionally, because I missed a string or picked the wrong voicing, just like when I am playing a physical guitar!
Yes, I agree. My Saxophone professor in college taught me “visualization practice”. I’ve been using it for years and years. I can confirm that it works. Great video. 👍🏻
Absolutely spot on, Jay. I started visualising about two years ago and it has transformed my playing. The biggest benefit I found is that it has even improved my sight reading. Not sure how but I no longer fear sharps and flats. By the way, I tried out practising in the car after your previous video and it has worked a treat! Thank you.
Great to hear!
sight reading!!!! wow!!!! I can't wait to start on this!!!
Life Lessons from our instructor! A philosophical flex 😊
Great to see someone address this. Little hint: First visualize yourself playing your instrument (i.e. as if you're watching yourself on a screen.) Then visualize it from a first person p.o.v.. There's lots of solid research that supports the benefits of mental visualization on performance.
In my youth I was a woodwind player for eight years. Other than two brief returns to playing I didn’t fully return until my mid seventies.
Oddly enough over the years of non-playing I would occasionally visualize the chromatic scale fingerings and other scales. I credit this “strange habit” 😊 with allowing me to focus on my embouchure/tone redevelopment now that I have fully returned to classical clarinet in my retirement years.
Makes perfect sense Jay, and it works for so many different things. Thanks for surfacing the topic!
Had gotten used to doing this in marching band (on low brass) to help memorize music and still to this day tend to finger along to music I'm listening to.
You are priceless. Thank you soo.... much for your generosity and sincerity. A struggling clarinet owner and aspiring clarinetist.
Thanks very much Jay for this fascinating lesson.
Yes, thanks. And to "hum along" with your visualization produces even greater integration.
Thank Jay.
I started doing this technique a few months ago and it has definitely been a game changer in my playing ability. As always thank you for the constant encouragement to become a better Sax player.
This is awesome. One thing I've stayed doing away from the horn is more Ear Training. Take a standard and listen to it so I can sing the bass line and melody. That way, I'm practicing the art of listening.
Very solid recommendation and gives me a lot to consider when on an airplane or other down times.
I use this when trying to play by ear. Starting with tunes I know and then visualizing neighboring tones. Thanks for reminding us!
Thank You so much! Will be using this a lot!
It works, done this for years and it works because the human brain operates by thoughts that help to make sense of the world. In one sense it cannot differentiate between thoughts and reality. That is why visualisation works. It I’d most definitely not mum o jumbo as one comment suggests, in fact in other uses the technique is extremely effective in helping people with mental health issues. Great post Jay.
I do this all the time but I think it's more essential on trumpet because the valves alone won't tell you what note you are playing and the embouchure and valves must agree (which is why split notes are a thing even for pros). Thus I have to visualize even when I'm playing. I have to be careful about doing this before sleep though, as it's more likely to lead to insomnia than drifting off. In my first year of learning improvisation I suffered with severe insomnia for this reason. I had an endless i-real pro loop of Autumn Leaves going in my head every time I closed my eyes. It got quite bad for a few months.
Great tip Jay and definitely something I’ve done for years - also a brilliant reminder for newer players to get off to a faster start.
Thank you for the video!! I'm excited to give this a try!😊
Great video Jay! Yes I do this too, mostly to help me go to sleep or in the middle of the night. I’ll usually go over a solo I’ve transcribed or a tune. As you say it’s also a great chance to work on your ear training and intervals!
Wonderful, Jay. I have used visualisation to remember chored changes of tunes in several keys, but haven't thought about using it for the actual practice of playing. Thanks!
I have been practising chord changes in the mind for some years now and have found it has helped me to analyse quickly the notes l would need to play.
I use visualization for pool and some playing the sax . This video will help improve what I’ve been doing .
Yes, thankyou Jay great post.. The music is not in our fingers or our instruments, the music is in our head.Recently I have been learning new, and revisiting old melodies by singing and playing the melody on piano.Start very slowly and sing and memorise the intervals on piano and the timing from the sheet .Then when I am driving I visualise the piano and rhythm sheet, singing the melodies and then sing visualising the transposition to tenor saxophone.I find visualisation is great. singing with visualised thought is useful as we can do it anywhere👍 anytime.
Great info as usual. Thanks Jay! Mental practice is very useful for many situations, and can increase our concentration capacity if we do it regularly like you say😊
Thanks Jay. This is new to me, very zen, very cool! I've been stressing lately as work and life has kept me from practicing as much as I want. Gonna give it a try...
Wonderful advice for players of all levels!!
Visualization is how I learnt the bass guitar fretboard. Lacking a photographic memory it took a while to build an understanding from landmarks and relationships along the strings and across the frets. A big help was A Natural Minor with its symmetry.
Excellent advice Jay; thank you for sharing & never a day off now! cheers 🍻
Great lesson
Absolutely. There are many studies proving this works. How about level 4: visualize playing a standard noting where the melody note fits into the underlying chord. Start with All the Things You Are, a very 3rd heavy melody.
I discovered this technique by myself not to long ago when trying to lean to play chromatic harmonica, that does not have any visual or tactile clue, and agree with you, it works!!! Great tip as usual!! 👋👋👋
Brilliant .I used visualisation to learn skiing and karate when I was younger.Thanks for rekindling this technique ❤.
great Jay! As usual. You are telling people things they should do for every activity….. so they might get better in it. In fact it's the base of real meditation and has everything to do with INTENTION. This way you're creating your own reality and skills! Super ! Well done to advise this for playing saxophone!
Bravo. I never thought about it! Just when I was saying to myself that I got to practice my scales. Thanks
This is a well done video. Nice work!
That totally works. I learned all scales with this method quickly. Thank you very much for your videos 👍👏
You are awesome! Thank you!!!
Hey Jay!
This was beneficial & something I hadn’t considered! You offer great tips & ideas. Thank you! Vernon
Just seeing this and i would start shortly, thanks so very much sir
Visualization can help with anything. You're training your brain. I was first taught this in the military and then in my current occupation. It works.
I’ve been doing this to learn new tunes on my commute, it’s surprising how well it worke
Really helpful and reassuring Jay! I have been doing this rather randomly for years without thinking about it and do find it helpful and even a good problem-solving technique. Whilst I don't move my fingers fully, I do find a tiny twitch of the 'correct' finger(s) helps me. But maybe I should try and move on from that!
It takes a special skill to make a video like this. Great job.
I do this, I do find it helps to move fingers, even if its only a small amount when going through patterns and as others have said here, this really does work and you will feel the benefit when you try it on the instrument.
Fingering is about muscle memory (an imprecise term but everyone understands the concept) and muscle memory gets 'baked in' AFTER rehearsal, and during rest. So it makes absolute sense to do this as you drift of to sleep.
Yes, this really works! I've done it for many years. In fact I can't keep from doing it. Whenever I have a tune in my head I visualize the fingerings. Great for developing, improving relative pitch, "virtual" ear-training and improvisation.
ZEN!!!! I love this, thanks for uploading
Thanks, You have a nice tone. I visualize blues licks in my head and some arpeggios. Relate to the scales. Had to get my circle of fifths major and minor down in School of music. Havent been playing in a bit. May get into the wind synth with my guitars
I started learning Alto Sax just a few weeks ago. Funny enough, recently, before I saw your video, I didn't have time to practice and when I went to bed I tried to visualize playing the beginning of the song I'm trying to learn, to make up for the missed opportunity to practice in "real life". I'm sure it works and I will try to continue doing it.
Very helpful!
Thanks Jay. I never thought of this technique on the sax! Viewing you "visualizing" gives me the impression of steps toward something "spiritual," which seemed to be "foreign" to you (at least from my impressions of some of the various interviews you've posted.) -- Music is already spiritual.
Excellent ! ❤
I have done this occasionally over my many years of playing... But only thought of it as thinking through a phrase or song. And I only would do it for a few minutes. I am going to start including this in my daily routine. The mind is very powerful. Thank you for the tutorial Jay.
Me too!!!!
I actually do that quite often. It does work. I actually find myself doing this during the day without really thinking about it.
Spot on.
I was taught similar techniques in some Alexander Technique classes, as well as from Joseph Lallo (University of Melbourne). Every minute of practicing visualize is effective and I definitely recommend it. Awesome video, as always.
This is excellent. Visualization really works. It doesn’t replace practice of course but it helps one internalize so many skills and techniques.
yes!
Thank you, this will help me learn my scales so much faster. I've been struggling on the sax with it for a while.
let me know how it goes
This makes sooooooo much sense!!!!!!!!
I do the same thing too… Appreciate the videos
Hallo Jay, ein sehr wertvolles Video !! In meiner Jugend war mein großes Thema das Sportkarate. Es war den ganzen Tag in meinem Kopf und so habe ich damals außerhalb des Trainings, gefühlt jede freie Minute meine Schläge, Tritte und Kombinationen in Gedanken durchprobiert. Ich bin mir sicher, das hatte einen großen Anteil, dass ich damals mehrfach die Landesmeisterschaften gewinnen konnte und über Jahre im Auswahlkader war. Außerdem war der Prozess der Visualisierung pure Freude ! Ich konnte genau das tun an was ich so viel Spaß hatte. Vielen Dank also für die Erinnerung daran, dass genau das jetzt für mich beim üben für das Saxophon wieder mehr Anteil bekommen kann.
Thanks!
I am going to implement this approach and practice into my daily routine. Thanks Jay, for always providing great and helpful content. I spent way too many years of self taught, and now must reprogram my thinking and methods of practice.
Good to hear Ray, it really helps!
In addition to playing the saxophone, I'm also a racing driver, and I use this technique before I get on the track, I visualize the whole race!
Wow, that's cool.
amazing!
I've been doing this for years. It really works. Thanks Jay 😊
thank you!
Excellent advice! I have used visualization with other of my endeavors and it has been very beneficial. If you are like me and have a difficult time falling asleep, visualizing scale fingering while in bed will knock you out in a matter of moments.
I've played a ts for about 20 years, and sometime at nights, when it was already too late to play it, I used to practice without blowing into the sax but merely imagined the sound going out of the horn. Also a kind of intermediate technique to archieve a mental "virtualization" (I like this term more than "vizualization").
I do all my scale work through visualization. I use use it for memorization as well. It really helps avoiding errors.
I started playing alto sax 7 months ago and I am 2nd chair of 3 people and I am in middle school and the sax is easy than in thought and a lot funner once you get used to it
Good reminding. The sounds starts in your brain. Your brain then commands your fingers.
Awesome advice! Hadn't thought about this sort of thing (pardon the pun), but just recently I've noticed that I can basically practice my keyboard silently just because I'm now so familiar with the notes. Hadn't considered actively trying to get to this stage with the sax, and of course it's much more helpful as unlike a keyboard, you can't exactly plug some headphones into a sax and practice without disrupting others!
A sort of meditation... Very relax after practicing like that.
Divers and gymnasts do this all the time. You see them standing on the board or infront of their apperatice and going through everything in their mind. Also skiers as well becasue thinking what it is next at 90 or so kms per hour is probably a little late. Soldiers and firefighters too as they don't have time to think when "stuff " is hitting the fan.
I explain this to my students all the time. If you are still thinking about it you are late. Cheers and as usual Jay great content.
This is how I learned the scales on clarinet after years of simple saxes!
I'll try it.
Brilliant and true. 🤓
I've been playing jazz/swing clarinet for over 50 years and have taken up sax seriously only in the last 5 (should've taken it up MUCH sooner than that but was stuck in my N. Orleans ways) I use the visualization method when I've just laid down in bed at night and can't sleep.
I’m out of town, and will start this tonight!
1st time comment on any channel ever, and even better... Something SUPER USSEFUL!!!
Thx for the vid!!
thanks! feel free to comment on all of our videos!
I wondered when you showed up. Verry few of us know this technique but i consider in kind of a ,,dangerous" technique because some of us are lazy and they will verry rare practice. Tnx Jay, you are the best!!!
sooo sax meditation...ON IT!
This is actually pretty similar to some old psychology studies investigating the effects of visualisation (simulated mental practice) on basketball free throw performance. Simulated mental practice of free-throws was found to be as significantly effective at improving free-throw performance, and had a similar increase in effectiveness as physical practice.
I couldn't find the original paper, but I found a similar paper that seems to have been conducted at around the same time by Grouios et al. (1997) titled "The effect of a simulated mental practice technique on free throw shooting accuracy of highly skilled basketball players". It's not a perfect study (small sample size and old methods), but still pretty interesting to read.
It's pretty darn cool that purely visualisation can increase skill in so many things. I guess the brain really is the most important muscle to train.
That's funny! I hear this for the first time from someone else. I use this method since many years, developed just by my own intution. I often do it to practice particular new pieces. And most of the time when I get to sleep. It's not just a comfortable way to exercise fingerings but a wonderful thing to calm down when too many thoughts run through my head and prevent me from falling asleep.
Exactly just like you said.
And since my main instrument is guitar I can subscribe that it works for any instrument.
I love it! So I can play wherever I am - even without having my instrument with me. It's all in my head.
In this moment I remember that already as a child I always sung in my thoughts.
BTW visualisation is very useful and a mighty tool to learn or practice anything. It's the base of every invention.
Or if I have an idea for a DIY project I make first construction plans in my head. There are endless opportunities to use it.
I've been visualizing some ii-V-I patterns in all keys as I fall asleep - great sleeping aid - I usually only get through 4 to 6 keys and I'm gone !
I love the sax :)
They've done visualization studies with basketball players. This is legit! Thanks for sharing.
I would argue you want to be pretty focused on the visualizations, though. Your brain can't actually effectively multitask.
G'day Jay! Love your content and courses but my difficulty in doing more is the lack of a solid internet connection out in my area. Is there a way to download your lessons and save them to my computer? I'm getting to be "buffering" errors to be able to play a whole session at a time. Thanks for any suggestions. Jeff
Can this be done with working on one's Embouchure ?
I didn't realize this was a thing. I got really sick when I first started playing and was out of school for weeks--and my horn was left in the band room at school during that time. I had my homework sent home to me and heard that our teacher was going to do a chair placement test soon. Luckily, I had my music book. I remember lying in bed, practicing the fingerings on a pencil and trying to think what it would feel like to play--I'd only played for a couple of months at that point so it was still somewhat of a mystery to me. When I returned to school, I took my play test, and got second chair! Maybe only a few of us actually studied the music but I'd like to think looking at it and thinking about it helped, even without being able to actually play. Thanks for the video, Jay! Hadn't thought about that in years! lol
great story
As an absolute beginner i thank you for this (and the other) content you make. I am honestly absolutely dreadful at sax right now (also i'm not young anymore either) so I think i'm going to need all the help i can get... needless to say, I've subscribed to your channel and website in a heartbeat!
As an aside: can i ask what is the background music you've used in this video? :)
Thank you so much
I notice one thing: when I play a theme worked from memory, the fingers rest on the right keys; but if I don't play the notes while blowing, I am unable to play the fingerings alone... surprising...I am therefore unable to think of fingerings, without the saxophone and without playing...may be a way to work ?
this is so interesting
MASTER.....
I’ve always practiced the pitches and fingerings in my head simultaneously- it does save you energy rather that actually playing so much 👍
definitely
I've nearly been run over from doing this while walking.
Also, I genuinely find it hard to think of "notes" when I'm actually playing the instrument (I always just think of the interval), but when doing visualisation I can do it a lot easier.
Wow, you just name a tecknique that I discover when I play the organ at Church. I didn't know that was a technique. But, I was trained in the sax and not the organ. So I'm very nervous often time just prior to the start of the mass. Well, one way to stop being nervous is this "visualization" that I do 5 minutes the bells ring to start.
Meredith Wilson’s “The Music Man” and his “Think System!”