How to Structure Your Practice Routine With Limited Time

7 Minute Read

Most people are busy with work, family or both. Finding enough time to dedicate to practicing (especially Jazz music) can be tricky, let alone WHAT and HOW to practice effectively with such limited time.

In this article we’ll look at how to set up and structure not only an effective routine, but a set of a few different routines so you can effectively hit all the areas you want while achieving your goals, even with limited time.

We’ll look at some examples if you only have 30 minutes per day.

Some people would suggest you can hit 6 different areas of practice, spending 5 minutes on each section for those precious 30 minutes.

Others might suggest practicing 2–3 things given the 30 minute time limit and dividing that time equally, or the majority of the time is spent on one thing.

There’s lots of combinations and different ways you could try out, but I’ve found with Jazz and in my own experience, we face a unique problem:

• The sheer number of things to practice.

• WHAT exact things to practice.

• HOW to practice those things most effectively.

With such limited time, in my opinion it’s much better to have a series of 4–5 different routines that you rotate through, with each one hitting different areas.

In this way you’re practicing is well rounded; You’re not stuck playing the same exact things every day but will rotate through them every few days, you avoid practice monotony, you’re constantly building your skills in different ways and you’re working towards your goals and applying everything to tunes.

You’re also spending more time on less things. You’re avoiding the all to common trap of spreading yourself too thin and taking on too much in one practice session!

Let’s first discuss the 5 main areas of an effective Jazz practice routine while actually at your instrument.

Those of you who follow me and have downloaded my free Practice Structuring Guide, this will be familiar. The 5 areas are:

1. Warm-Up and Technique Building

Scales, arpeggios, Classical etudes, technique exercises, a Classical etude. Or, play a Bebop head (play a Charlie Parker head, for example)playing the melody in both hands at the same time 1 or 2 octaves apart in different keys. These are what I call Jazz Etudes.

2. Voicings

2–5–1s and variations, individual chord types, 2-handed voicings, root position voicings, shared-hands voicings, rootless left hand voicings, etc.

3. Vocabulary Study / Transcription / Ear Training

Learning one short phrase/lick from a recording or published transcription in all 12 keys with slight variations of the lick/phrase to make it your own: Blues lick, 2–5 phrase, 5–1 phrase, Major chord phrase, Minor chord phrase, etc. Listening to recordings, ear training apps, etc.

4. Vocabulary Integration and/or Improvisation Practice

Improvising over a certain chord type, common progression. Application of the transcribed phrase: Combining it with your own improvisation over 2–5–1s or other progressions, improvising and implementing it over Left Hand voicings, all of the above in different keys with various rhythms, etc.

5. Learning Tunes

Learning / playing the head of a tune: Solo piano or from a group standpoint. Practicing items from previous sections over the forms of tunes, improvisation exercises over tunes, Comping over the changes. Introductions. Left Hand or Right Hand soloing techniques (or both), performing a tune from start to finish.

Ok, so how do you divide all of that into 30 minutes per day?! The short answer is, you can’t!

So that means creating a set of a few different routines that you rotate through every week to hit all of those main areas effectively.

Before we dive in, here are some key things that will save you a lot of time and what to focus on:

1. The main goal of learning Jazz is learning tunes and applying everything you practice to the tunes you’re learning.

Thus, 50% of your practice time or more should be spent on tunes; Whether that’s learning the head, improvising over the changes, listening to the tune and internalizing the form, applying vocabulary to the changes, comping through the changes, etc.

2. You should always do some kind of warm-up and work on your technique.

3. You can even practice while you’re AWAY from the instrument, which I’ll cover at the end of the article.

So let’s address what you can cover in a few different routines. Our tune example will be Autumn Leaves.

Now, these are just examples and you can fine tune and tweak them to your liking but it should give you some very structured and specific ideas:

Routine 1 of 4 (Monday)

• 5 minutes: Warm-up with scales (Major or Pentatonic), then arpeggios and/or diatonic 7th chords in 3 different keys (C, F, Bb). Work on playing them musically, ascending, descending. Hands together. Accenting, with swing, etc. Use a metronome, try different tempos.

• 5 minutes: One voicing for a particular chord type (Major chord, Minor chord, Drop 2 version of chord, etc.) that you play in all 12 keys: Chromatically up and down, in whole steps, around the Circle of 4ths or 5ths. Or, 2–5–1s in 3 different keys either left hand rootless voicings or shells, or two-handed voicings.

• 20 Minutes on Autumn Leaves: Play the melody in the right hand over a left hand bass line, root position voicings or rootless voicings. The left hand can be played with sustained chords or shorter hits using a comping pattern like the Charleston.

Routine 2 of 4 (Tuesday):

• 5 minutes: Warm-up with scales (Major or Pentatonic), then arpeggios and or/diatonic 7th chords in 3 different keys (Eb, Ab, Db) same as above.

• 10 minutes: Playing a transcribed phrase that you’re going to use over one of the 2–5–1’s found in Autumn Leaves. Learn the line in the right hand first, then over a left hand bass line, root position voicing or rootless voicing. Go slow and repeat it 5 -7 times.

• 15 minutes: Improvise over Autumn Leaves with a LH device using motifs in the RH and see if you can incorporate part of the transcribed phrase. Or, try and use the altered or half/whole diminished on every dominant.

Routine 3 of 4 (Wednesday)

• 5 minutes: Warm-up with scales (Major or Pentatonic), then arpeggios and or/diatonic 7th chords in 3 different keys (Gb, B, E) same as above.

• 5 minutes: 2-handed comping voicings through Autumn Leaves to a backing track with no piano, like this one. Slow it down to 75% speed.

• 20 minutes: Review Autumn Leaves head using a particular LH device (Bass line, Root position voicing, Rootless voicings) or play it Shared Hands. Play through the head once and note tricky areas.

Routine 4 of 4 (Thursday)

• 5 minutes: Warm-up with scales (Major or Pentatonic), then arpeggios and or/diatonic 7th chords in 3 different keys (A, D, G) same as above.

• 5 minutes: Practice your transcribed phrase in a few different keys, either the keys found in the tune you’re working on (Autumn Leaves in this case) or keys you’re less familiar with. Repeat it a few times for each key, going slow and in time.

•20 minutes: Improvise and use the transcribed phrase over a 2–5–1 found in Autumn Leaves; Cm7 F7 Bbmaj7, or Am7 b5, D7, Gm7. In the last 5 minutes, play through the entire tune trying to incorporate some transcription or using an improvisational device of your choice; Motif, being Bluesy/using Blues scale, enclosures, aiming for 3rds of every chord, starting your phrases on a particular beat, playing variations of the melody as the basis for your improv ideas, etc. Pick 1–2 of those things I just mentioned for a given session.

Even in just 4 days following the above routines, you’re covering so many things in a very short amount of time!

If you keep cycling through it in a similar way and being aware of what needs work in each of those areas and focusing in on them the next practice session, you’re well on your way with consistent and very productive improvement.

Do this over one month and you’ll be surprised at just how much progress you can make in that time.

And here’s the best part and even more practice you can do while AWAY from your instrument.

For some reason, nobody talks about the importance and benefits of this type of practice.

You can do it while you’re on your commutes to and from work, picking up your kids to and from school, running errands, or even while doing chores around the house.

What is this practice you might ask?

LISTENING to the tune you’re learning! Listening to different versions of the tune. And not just for pleasure, but for knowing and INTERNALIZING the form, the chord changes, hearing how different players solo over the changes, transcribing solo lines, doing all of that while listening to it repeatedly.

Most importantly, it’s for KNOWING AND INTERNALIZING THE FORM, so you know the tune’s structure and how it flows on a deep level, especially during solos.

One of the biggest keys for listening to tunes, especially new tunes you’re learning or ones that you aren’t familiar with, is knowing the form and knowing where you are in the form during solos.

This is so unbelievably crucial to learning tunes and becoming a better jazz musician!

It will help you especially when you’re away from your instrument so that when you do come back to it, especially when improvising over the chord changes, you know the tune on a deeper level and won’t lose the form, get tripped up and can start to navigate your way from beginning to end without getting lost!

The key is being aware of each section. For Autumn Leaves, it's an AABA tune, with each section lasting 8 bars/measures. The key is being aware every time you've gone through 8 bars and making a quick mental note and awareness.

Especially when solos are happening, make it a point to say to yourself: "First A section. Second A. Bridge. Last A" every time it comes up in the form.

If you need to, count to 4 for every bar 8 times. Eventually you won't have to think about it and your brain will naturally just expect each section to change given that amount of time.

The more you can do that for any tune and knowing it's form from listening, the benefits are enormous.

If you don’t already have it, download my FREE Practice Structuring Guide for any level to get clear on your goals, strengths and weaknesses and some other helpful hints and tips for your practice.