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You are here: Home / Jazz Lessons / Practice Habits / A Practical Practice Routine Lesson
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A Practical Practice Routine Lesson

A Practical Practice Routine Lesson

Rated 5.00 out of 5 based on 3 customer ratings
(3 customer reviews)

$9.99

SKU: 120 Category: Practice Habits Tags: jazz improvisation, learning an instrument, practice routine, video lesson
  • Description
  • Reviews (3)
  • Lesson Sample

Description

In this lesson I take you through my practice routine of the past 20 years. This lesson has to do with one of the most asked questions i receive by email……..How do I practice? What do I practice? I talk about the 5 elements of the routine and how I focus my practice time on specific goals and areas for each practice.  The areas I focus on are Tone, Technique, Tunes, Sight Reading and Ear Training.  I talk about how I divide my time and how important it is to focus on one specific thing. i hope you will get some great tips that will help you in your practice. Enjoy!  (Video)

3 reviews for A Practical Practice Routine Lesson

  1. Avatar
    Rated 5 out of 5

    Mark – November 23, 2010

    I recently downloaded the ‘practical practice routine’ this gives great focus to the areas that you need to develop, it identifies issues of information overload and encourages you to highlight an area of improvisational technique that requires improvement. There are five key areas including tone, tunes technique, ear and eye training, this is a lesson that could be easily missed but should form a crucial part of a players toolkit, Steve also talks about the importance of ending your practice on a mental high. I love the way these lessons all integrate with each other, every lesson containing part of the big picture, this is probably the biggest reason I like to source all my learning from Neffmusic.

  2. Avatar
    Rated 5 out of 5

    Mark Crowley – May 10, 2011

    For the longest time I felt overwhelmed with how much information one must consume when learning a musical instrument – let alone learning jazz theory. My practice sessions felt unorganized and I wasn’t sure what I should be concentrating on. In this lesson, Steve really puts things into perspective and gives you an organized and focused road map on how to practice the jazz saxophone effectively. He explains how to break up a practice session so that you hit all the important areas (technique, theory, repertoire, etc.). I found this lesson to be very helpful!

  3. Avatar
    Rated 5 out of 5

    Vincent – April 30, 2015

    I must have these tips of Tone, Technigue, Tunes, Site Reading and Ear Training right near or on computer. There are so many times where I have no plan and practice has been bad becomes a waste of time. This lesson is essential to moving forward. Thank you.

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Lesson Sample

https://public.neffmusic.com/A%20Practical%20Practice%20Routine%20clip.mp4

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I have been a member of Neffmusic for more than a year now and have enjoyed every minute of it! I have not only been going thru the Dominant Bebop Scale lessons and book (OUTSTANDING!) but the mouthpiece reviews, solo clips and transcriptions are very interesting. Steve approach to beginning and intermediate improv have given me many new pathways to teach my high school jazz ensemble students. Congratulations Steve, great product!
Craig

After reading your story I will never feel quite right about complaining about any of my MINOR health issues!!    God bless Steve and I really hope that your health doesn’t stop you from fulfilling your calling.    These books have been such a help to open up my jazz vocabulary…   Thanks so much for sharing your story and for providing these great teaching tools…   John Leclerc   Saxophonist / composer/ EWI player and professional working musician of 35 years….

John Leclerc

Hi Steve,

First, I want to thank you for all of your great lessons. They are like a “For Dummies” version of all the books on my shelf. The lessons break things down into manageable pieces, and give me the confidence that I’m practicing the right pieces. I’m starting to make progress.   Thank You,   Kim

Kim

Never really had lessons before just kinda worked things out on my own. Was in a rut but your lessons are really helpful in opening melodic possibilities. Ur an awesome resource to the saxophone community. Thanks for sharing. 

Anthony

Thank You Steve. I think that I will be busy for years. Thank You for your great contribution to jazz music. Your books, more than teaching “how to play jazz”, actually teach “how to speak jazz”. I wish I found your methods years ago.  

Jean-Eric
First, I’m really excited about your materials! This site is a vast resource for any aspiring (and maybe already inspired) jazz musicians. I’m not a sax player, I play mandolin and fiddle, but have been learning jazz and playing weekly with a quintet for the past 6 months and have been struggling with all of the issues you get into in your lessons. I bought several books and lessons and plan to continue with some others as soon as I organize my practice routine. Thanks again for a great site … Read more
Tony Galfano
Your major diatonic patterns book is great. I”m studying the first twenty patterns (first twenty pages) each day with different articulation each day and slowly increasing the tempo each week or so.  There is a noticeable improvement in finger coordination across all keys and its amazing how much more secure I feel on the difficult keys when attempting to play pieces with 5+ flats/sharps. I’m able to sort out the fingerings for these pieces now much more quickly than before, often in one or two … Read more
Geoff
I just joined Neff Music last month. I can’t tell you how excited I’ve been to be able to pick back up on lessons. I’ve been in a rut and you got me out! I’ve especially appreciated the Lesson Path section. It was so clear I knew exactly where to jump in and start. Many many thanks!
Karin
Your lessons on playing the blues is so clear . I have been through many books on blues playing and not one of them explains as clear as your lessons . Most of them say “Play the same blues scale over all three chords of a 12 bar blues ” Its very misleading .     Thanks
Martin
I’m an experienced player in the pop/soul/funk areas of music and, previously, classical.  Over the decades I’ve been playing, I’ve always felt that I could do what I needed in those styles of music.  However, recently I began to feel limited by my use of the same old licks. When I discovered Steve Neff’s website, and heard the audio examples based on the exercises in his books, I realized they were what I needed.  I purchased all of them and have been working on them since.  It’s very hard work… Read more
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