David Haynes

[David Haynes]

Thanks for the offer Tony. I have everything digitized (I think). I’d just like to listen to the tapes before I put them on the site in hopes I can speak to what’s on them. Many are over an hour long. I’m a little amazed at how much time David spent on these. The original Song Of the Month experiment didn’t last very long so I’m not exactly sure where all these tapes fell within David’s never ending quest to make a living from this work (it’s still never ending, sans the effort..).

[David Haynes]

Meredith – a while back I was contacted by the reporter who wrote this store for the NY Times. Thought you might be interested: Sudnow Class
This was when he was doing large scale seminars around the country.

[David Haynes]

Thanks Tony.
I probably have 20 or more songs he recorded that I have yet to get onto the site. As I get a chance to listen to all of them I try to add a couple here and there in the “Song of the Month” section within the so-called Advanced Resources. And probably other stuff floating around that I should be organizing too.

[David Haynes]

Hi Meredith,
David has written somewhere about those early workshops in NYC. I have in my mind’s eye a photo of David and a bunch of students sitting behind digital pianos. I’ll have to nose around and see if I can find it.

I have not yet gotten all of David’s Method-related stuff up on the web site – it’s a little daunting to see it all gathered together – but you’ve encouraged me to get back at it.

[David Haynes]

I’m sorta out of the loop as far as digital pianos – thanks for the mini-review. I’m curious about where that technology is going these days.

[David Haynes]

A few years ago the Mantooth books disappeared from the Hal Leonard site. Somehow I got an email address for his widow and discovered there was an effort underway to republish his work. I don’t know all the details but obviously the effort was successful – thankfully.

Good to have you on the forum again Tony.

[David Haynes]

Be careful of the nightbirdmusic site – Google (and my virus software) think it has been hacked.

The Frank Mantooth books have been republished by Hal Leonard as ‘Pro Chord Changes’ volumes 1 and 2. Between them are over 300 songs with great voicings. Hal Leonard also has a series of legal “Real Books” that have a larger collection of songs more specific to the jazz idiom. There is also a “Real Book” of Christmas songs (it’s snowing here today…). You can also find a nice Champ Champagne book of “Christmas Favorites”.

…’David’ or ‘Markham’ both work. :^)

[David Haynes]

Thanks for the link Judith – interesting.

Not specific to the “senior brain” but fascinating nonetheless is Dan Levitan’s “This is Your Brain on Music”:

http://daniellevitin.com/publicpage/books/this-is-your-brain-on-music/

[David Haynes]

Hi Gary – welcome back.
I too would be interested to know what kind of success people have trying to get older adults involved in playing.

I do know that sometimes music is the one thing that seems to be retained as faculties decline. I don’t know what that may imply for learning new music.

[David Haynes]

Thanks William. I don’t know the Mathieu book but it looks very interesting. I’ve downloaded the “sample” from iBooks (it’s also available for Kindle and via Amazon among other places) – I’m intrigued.

I have Coker’s “Improvising Jazz” sitting among a pile of other good tomes on jazz improvisation – none of which I’ve spent much focused time with. The truth being that I just haven’t committed myself to going down that particular path in any depth – yet.

[David Haynes]

For those of you with ‘Advanced’ memberships, I’ve added a few more of David’s ‘Song of the Month’ recordings. These are in the Advanced Resources section. I’ll continue to add more as I have time.

These are generally pretty dense descriptions of a song, sometimes with a particular topic in mind, other times not so much.

They are pretty fascinating but you really need to know your scales, your voicing rules, and be able to listen while you’re actually sitting at your piano.

Enjoy.

[David Haynes]

Should be good to go now – although it’s possible I may still have missed some someplace else. Sorry.

[David Haynes]

I’m assuming you’re referring to the audio files – not the Advanced topics in general.

I’ll take a closer look tonight when I get home. Probably have some incorrect links. Thanks for letting me know.

[David Haynes]

David – Suds said he purposefully proposed “5 minutes a day” for scale practice because he knew it would be better received than, say, 15 or 20 minutes, even though he knew people wouldn’t get through all their scales in two minutes and would, as you suggest, end up spending more time on them.

I would strongly suggest, however, you practice all your major scales at each sitting. Even if you only get through them once (with the correct fingering and also slowly with one finger paying attention to the spacial relationships) you’ll have better luck with them all becoming equally “easy”.

As an aside, a good friend of mine practices 4 hours a day (she’s a professional jazz musician) unless she has a big gig coming up, then she bumps it to 6-8. One the one hand I can’t imagine that sort of focus (obviously I’m not a professional musician) but on the other hand it becomes easy to imagine how good I could become if I did.

My point is that we all have to match our goals with our willingness to put in the work. I, for example, can play songs reasonably fluently and “read” from fake books. For the most part, I’m happy with being there. As that changes, I’ll find more time to practice.

Still the “crucial moments” for all of us are those times when we’re deciding not to practice. What do we do, how do we think about ourselves in those moments? “Maybe I just can’t do this…” is a common thought-or perhaps excuse.

If you want to be a successful amateur (you get to decide what “success” is) you must have a strategy for what you’re going to do and say to yourself in those moments.

[David Haynes]

I’m reminded of a book by Nick Hall (you can listen to Dr. Hall talk about it on YouTube). It is titled, “I Know What To Do So Why Don’t I Do It?” Worth a listen – or, for the old-fashioned among us, a read.

I think there are four things you can try (but try them all at once):

1. Write down your near-term goal. Make it reasonable and specific. Maybe, “Be able to play my major scales perfectly as David proscribes in two minutes and play “Misty” all the way through with an even tempo.” You may have to break it into smaller chunks even than that.

2. Decide on a manageable length for your practice sessions (at least 20 minutes) and a frequency (every day is best but be realistic in terms of your life style). MOST IMPORTANTLY: Discus this schedule with your significant other or roommate and get them to agree to help you maintain your schedule – by encouraging your play, not scheduling other things with you during those periods, and trying to avoid interrupting you. Make sure they know that this is important to you – and why.

3. Map out each individual practice session. This can be as simple as “5 minutes on scales, then “Misty” for 15 minutes.” ALSO IMPORTANT: This can get boring so schedule some time that just says “goofing around” so you don’t feel guilty about not practicing what you think you “should”. Goofing around is an important part of the process just don’t make it a substitute for focused practice. As an addendum to this rule, also feel free to take a vacation – BUT call it a vacation before your scheduled practice session, not after you’ve skipped it.

4. If you feel like changing your goal (you will – and you should). Rewrite it, don’t just ignore it.

This might help. But you’ll still fail occasionally. That’s ok. Be supportive of yourself.

-Markham

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