Practice This!
June 2010

Building Strong Listening Habits

Saxophonist and composer/arranger Matso Limtiaco recently started a website, blog and clinic format designed to emphasize quality listening as a part of your practice regimen and learning process. Limtiaco and his project, named “Start Listening!”, recently queried some of the young musicians he had heard at the Viking Jazz Festival (where he was an adjudicator) about their listening habits. Here are some of the conclusions drawn from their responses.

Most students started listening in Sixth Grade. Only one of the students started listening to jazz regularly in the Seventh Grade. While starting early isn’t necessary, the earlier you start spending time seriously investigating jazz as a listener, the more time you will have behind you by your high school and college years. Ben Wheeler from Mt. Si High School said, “I was in my middle school jazz band and my teacher had told the band to start listening because it would make us better players so I figured if I was really into playing jazz then listening is the next step to get better.”

All students spend time listening to jazz every day. Some catch some music in the morning, others in the evening. Jazz is often the accompaniment of choice for homework. All made concerted efforts to spend focused time listening each and every day. Other recommended sources for listening to jazz included satellite radio and YouTube.

Most students tend to have a wide variety in their listening habits. When asked about their favorites, most students named two or three very different artists. Josh Supkoff of Mt. Si listed “Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, and Wynton Marsalis,” while Peter Graham of Bellevue High School listed “Brad Mehldau, Kurt Rosenwinkle and Mark Turner”.

All students listen with a sense of awareness and analysis. Passively listening does not teach us much, but as we investigate new music, try to break down what you are hearing and connect it to what you already know. Ryan Donnelly of Mt. Si said, “The first time I listen, I’m mostly listening for the form and the changes of the song. Then the second time, I focus more on what the melody sounds like. To understand the form and changes, I listen to the bass and piano to hear what chords they’re playing. To figure out what intervals they are, I use my ear.”

How important is listening to one’s practice routine? Peter Graham said, “Even on days where I can’t make time to practice, I always have some time to listen, and I find few things more helpful than sitting down and trying to play with a recording. So the answer is that listening to jazz is the largest part of my practice regimen because otherwise I would have no musical frame of reference. In order to know what’s hip and what’s not, you have to listen critically and constantly.”

To read more about Matso Limtiaco’s “Start Listening!” project, and to read the complete answers of the students, be sure to visit http://startlisteningtojazz.blogspot.com for complete details.

Practice This! is an educational project organized by David M. Marriott, Jr. for Earshot Jazz with sponsorship from The Seattle Drum School. Each month a new lesson by a different local jazz artist will appear for students to learn from and for non-musician readers to gain insight into the craft of improvising.