Tips for mature players
Lee De Cola

These tips are addressed to older musicians who:

• have been listening to various kinds of music throughout their lives
• may have been classically trained and who can read music (and even sight-read)
• may have taken up jazz later in life
• are experiencing the usual limitations associated with maturity - especially declining memorization skills

Memorization

• try to memorize a song's melody (& lyrics) and changes, especially one you like
• when rehearsing have the tune's lead sheet on your stand available but not visible - make your 'mistakes' part of the improvisation, but check the deviation
• move about the Venn diagram of music - ART/PHYSICS/CODE - to get new ideas (what moves you, sounds weird, is a 3rd above?)

Solos

• a simple solo that your audience will appreciate could be an embellishment of the melody: ornaments, little excursions from the tune, ornaments, octave jumps
• although almost everyone can appreciate a skilled solo, many folks in most audiences can get lost in the form; they won't mind if you stay close to the tune
• let the 'bugs' of your instrument become a feature (e.g. my clarinet wants to jump up a fifth or down a fourth, so I use the 'octave' key to jump around)

Learn scales and intervals

• the pros insist on our learning ‘all the scales in all the keys' - blues, major, minor (harmonic, Lydian, etc.) - but I say try to master the important scales for your songs
• learn the key of C plus or minus 3 (or 2) keys (e.g. from A to Eb) – when something more sophisticated comes along play the root.
• for those scales, try to learn the 3rd (major and minor) and the 7th (one note down)
• try to stay in the middle of the 'bell curve' between what sounds boring and just plain 'wrong' (although this is always a matter of opinion).
• get at least a cheap keyboard to pick out chords

Cheat sheet - make yourself a simple little table

• organize it according to the form (AABA, ABA, etc.)
• group parts into 2 (or better yet 4) bar subparts so that e.g. the B part (e.g. bars 17 through 24) appears below part A (1 through 8)
• show the most important chords - ignore those flat-9^ths and 13^ths, although you might stumble on them while trying a solo!
• in general, try to think in powers of 2 from the whole song to the notes of the melody

Practicing

• the pros say practice 6 hours a day; but try for 6 hours a week: maybe 3 sessions of 2 hours or 2 sessions of 3 hours; this will keep your chops up without tiring you out
• start with a few minutes of scales (and if you're a horn-player, long tones) and maybe an hour each for a couple of tunes.
• buy a few versions that you like of the song and play along with the recording.