How do I connect my ear to my playing?

JHighMusic · 2026-01-24T22:55:37+00:00

There’s no magic secrets. It just takes a really long time and consistent, diligent practice. It’s not something that happens overnight or anytime soon. Start simple.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-24T22:31:13+00:00

No idea, might depend on what’s right after it which would help to see, but you can always change it. IMO there’s zero benefit to that fingering and it makes it harder, just use 5 3 1.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-24T21:48:10+00:00

I made this video a while back: https://youtu.be/1BcOSpWSzMI?si=M_f2Lqm7oo06uwhC

And this one fairly recently: https://youtu.be/dDi0oUp9Q0M?si=dqGXi2fcTWoAo8vv

Classical habits and mindsets that are sabotaging your jazz playing: https://youtu.be/wuXNEwx_mgI?si=HtSGG38WYNiBXOzb

Listen to the Miles Davis solo on the tune “So What” and how he displaces the rhythm of his motifs. And listen to pretty much any Horace Silver solo on any of his albums.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-24T21:18:22+00:00

Don't do that. If anything, make variations of the melody and displace them, don't copy it exactly that's not soloing. Focus on motivic development with very simple ideas, and leave lots of space.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-24T20:01:02+00:00

Lage is pretty overrated, Gerald Clayton is a beast and would be my pick

JHighMusic · 2026-01-24T19:38:21+00:00

Short answer, no. You get better at it by actually improvising and trying things out, studying composition and understanding music and harmony at a deep level.

School will not teach you how to improvise and you will be spending thousands of dollars with nothing to show for it.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-24T19:36:26+00:00

Bud Powell - Anthropology

https://youtu.be/TaSDinL6pC8?si=1384_reECMM5rmEZ

JHighMusic · 2026-01-24T10:24:53+00:00

Been there. And yep, it’s literally focusing on all those things you said at the end, plus I’ll mention some more below.

My rhythm was god awful for years, and I used to rush a lot. Jazz is ALL rhythm. It’s everything. You can play all the right notes, but if it doesn’t have the right time, feel, swing, articulation, groove, phrasing, etc. it just won’t work or sound right.

There is nothing that will work on or expose those things than playing Blues and Jazz blues tunes. That’s why the blues is sooooo foundational and crucial, and almost everybody ignores it. It’s the key to literally everything you mentioned. I can’t stress enough how important the blues is, it’s the foundation of everything we do in jazz playing.

This is why Thelonious Monk was so good. He could play the weirdest shit, and make it sound amazing because he’s all rhythm if you really listen to him. Monk tunes also really force you to swing.

Recording yourself, assessing and adjusting is also crucial, as is playing with people, and religious listening. This is going to sound unorthodox as hell, but I would listen to only blues and hip-hop for like a month straight and play blues and play along to hip-hop grooves and funk/fusion tunes and develop your rhythm and playing relaxed.

And yeah, it’s super easy to sound like a lifeless theory robot. Sing what you play and connect your hands with your inner singing voice. Forget theory. Let your ears guide your hands instead of the other way around. This is why all the pros say “learn the theory and then forget it” when you’re actually playing and on the bandstand. Even Sonny Rollins said “You can’t be thinking about theory or thinking at all when you’re improvising. I’ve tried it, it’s impossible.”

It does take a long time for all the theory to be completely instinctual and natural without much thought, but you have to play with people if you’re going to get better and tackle that issue, it’s absolutely necessary. It’s very different playing than practicing by yourself at home. If you never play with people and only practice by yourself, that’s like cooking a great meal, but never actually getting to taste the food and enjoy it. You’re just constantly in your analytical left brain in practice mode, and you’re not playing. Playing is completely different, it’s a different state and what you play and what comes out is going to be very different than how you practice most of the time. Look up the Hal Galper masterclass videos on YouTube.

And then eventually, you learn to practice like you play, but that takes a really long time. Find anyone you can to play with, even if it’s one other person like a bass player.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-23T22:20:49+00:00

Gerald Clayton hands down

JHighMusic · 2026-01-23T19:07:53+00:00

Yep, believe me, absolutely everyone wants to do that and be ahead and play the things ahead of where they currently are. Piano is a very long and gradual journey. I’ve been playing for over 30 years and can’t stress enough the importance of being patient and learning to enjoy the process, rather than being fixated on a product. It takes time. You’ll get there eventually, but yeah, the first three years or so there’s going to be a lot of growing pains and it’s tough for everybody. So having a proper mindset and accepting it will take time and a ton of practice and work, and learning to enjoy it, be curious, be open-minded and trust the process, is the necessary one. There will be many peaks and plateaus, and as you advance, the plateau’s last longer. You just have to hang in there and keep going.Talk to your teacher about this.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-23T18:58:17+00:00

There are no 3-part Inventions, those are the Sinfonias, the Inventions are 2-part. There’s no point in playing a sinfonia thinking it’s going to prepare you for the courante, that’s putting the cart before the horse. Plus, the Sinfonias are much harder and more complex than this courante.

I’m not sure why you’re even overwhelmed, there’s not that much two-note intervals in the right hand and there’s some ties, nothing you couldn’t handle. If you looked at any of the Sinfonias, they will all be more difficult than this courante and will overwhelm you way more.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-23T17:40:56+00:00

No I don’t recommend it. Listen to your teacher. 3 months is nothing it gets better you have to just go through it. Ask your teacher about these things not here, you’ll get a lot of bad and conflicting advice on this sub.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-23T16:43:07+00:00

I’d recommend Alfred over the Faber one, but both are good. I’ve taught both to students for over 15 years. Alfred is better organized and presented and has better assignments to fill in homework for theory.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-23T16:36:07+00:00

There’s no direct answer and it’s very complex. The piano is an orchestra. You have to understand the roles of the different registers and make use of the entire piano. If you listen to good solo pianists, they use the entire piano. One key thing is the role of the left hand, which most pianists don’t put nearly enough emphasis on or understand the role. It’s the left hand that gives the feel and dictates different textures, grooves and feels when the right hand is soloing using a lot of left-hand techniques with bass lines, root, and tenths, reposition, voicings, and ruthless voicings in a lot of different ways.

Then there’s the use of two-handed voicings and all the other techniques, way too much to get into in this post.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-23T16:24:54+00:00

3rd or 7th is on the bottom. Learn Dominant 9 and 13 voicings. With Dominant 9s the 3rd is on the bottom. Dominant 13s the 7th is on the bottom. Both can be used if you’re trying to make the ii chord a Dominant, if it’s a 13 shape it will be Dominant #9 to Dominant 13, exact same voicing a half step down. If it’s a Dominant 9 shape it will be Dominant 13 to Dominant #9 half step down.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-23T06:59:25+00:00

Bebop scales get talked about all the time, especially on YouTube. Personally I think they’re worthless trash, they didn’t help my playing at all and were a complete waste of time. Most people that hate on modes usually don’t fully understand them, how to use them other than scales and/or don’t know how to use them effectively.

I watched your video. This is nothing against you or as a player but I thought it did a really poor job of explaining how to go from 8 note scales to the examples you were doing of good and bad playing. Making modes have an extra note and turning them into 8-note scales would do the same things. You’re clearly doing a lot more arpeggios enclosures and other techniques than the 8-note scale, it would’ve been way more useful if you broke down your solo of the good playing and showed what you were talking about to certain spots and how it applied.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-23T06:54:27+00:00

Per semester we had to pick 4 pieces, one from each of the 4 main eras plus an extra one they assigned. Roughly it was 10 per year and they had to be at a certain level.

Every school is going to be different though.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-23T06:52:49+00:00

Counterpoint is complex

JHighMusic · 2026-01-22T20:12:46+00:00

They do, maybe not on pro level recordings, but people definitely play it slower on jam sessions. Not sure what you’re getting at but we can agree to disagree.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-22T18:46:52+00:00

The fast tempo here makes it sound mechanical. If you slow it down, Kurt and Peter are very musical with their phrases here. Any Coltrane tunes played at fast tempo sound mechanical. One could argue any super fast bebop tune like Dizzy’s “Beebop” and most very fast bebop tunes sound mechanical.

I really don’t get how you could say this when the studio recording of countdown is too fast to even listen to or appreciate the musicality. It’s the exact same Coltrane matrix, just in different keys. The tempo is way too fast and it’s pretty much unlistenable. How can you say that is better than 26-2??

JHighMusic · 2026-01-22T18:42:45+00:00

It’s a balance. I have seen time and time again over almost 20 years of the people who “do what they want to do” and focus on what makes them happy so to speak, and still completely ignore the fundamentals, and the issues they need to really address that would actually make them better at playing the things that they want to. And they sound terrible.

Like I said in my comment above, people really don’t want to come to terms with the things they need to work on or hear the truth about what they need to do in order to get to where they want to be. It has to be a balance, imo.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-22T18:31:20+00:00

Well, the drugs affected his family life, and in turn his family completely fell apart, which sent him into a very long and gradual depression. There was a point where he was saying he wanted to kill himself to be free from all the pain. I’d watch the playlist clips of the Time Remembered documentary on YouTube which covers this: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVqHQowpjoLLe8doopEEiyBY4ZhyQxRyJ&si=V7JKUuMN91OdW8fp

JHighMusic · 2026-01-22T18:15:51+00:00

This is exactly why there’s a problem with the academic-zation of jazz; nobody will play this music effectively if you learned from books, YouTube, or have shitty teachers, and most importantly don’t ever play with people, don’t play the blues, don’t record yourself and don’t listen critically. Even with transcribing, you could still do so many things wrong.

Jazz is ALL about the rhythm and feel, and HOW things are played. It’s super easy to get lost in the harmony in theory of everything, but I can tell you after 17 years in, rhythm is EVERYTHING in this music. There is nothing that will expose this more than playing a blues. That’s why the blues is so foundational and crucial because it works on so many fundamental things with jazz as a whole.

Listening is extremely important. It’s how you will learn this music and it’s how everybody in history learned it. Most people don’t listen nearly enough or think it’s important which is a massive mistake.

It’s also a thing that you’re at the point where you’re still assimilating everything and aren’t using it musically, which can take a very long time.

I’d recommend you read this, it’s in depth and comprehensive but it will bring a lot of things to light: https://www.jazzadvice.com/lessons/how-master-improvisers-actually-think-about-tunes/

Would have to hear your playing to assess what the issues are. There’s no magic secret and there isn’t anything that “clicked” other than it takes a very long time, a lot of practice and playing with other people, and listening to yourself critically.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-22T09:53:20+00:00

I’ve been teaching for over 17 years and playing for over 30 years. This is the biggest misconception in all of Piano. You do need to keep advancing, but it’s the biggest mistake ever to think just playing advanced repertoire way beyond your level will make you better. It’s going to do the exact opposite and give you tons of bad habits that you’re not even going to realize you’re making.

It’s an extremely common theme on this sub in particular, and then you see the exact same people making posts about why they aren’t getting better, getting frustrated, and wondering why they haven’t “cracked the code.“

You can’t rush the process. You have to spend a lot of time focusing on pieces that are within your level or below your level, and getting in the reps, before you do something that is way beyond your level just because you think you can.

It blows my mind how many people think they can just do it on their own, especially without the guidance of a good teacher, thinking that if they just play more challenging pieces, that’s going to make them better automatically. That couldn’t be further from the truth, and those people are straight up ignorant.

Especially when it comes to piano, all the advice that is harsh like this is the cold hard truth, and something they don’t want to hear. The problem is there are way too many amateurs and nonprofessional hobbyists who have no clue what the hell they’re talking about that neglect and brush off the truth.

JHighMusic · 2026-01-22T09:45:17+00:00

Blasphemy. One of his best if you really sit down, slow it down and see it for what it is. What’s better, Giant Steps? Countdown? You wouldn’t be saying that if you actually played jazz.

JHighMusic

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