Jazz Techniques - How and What to Practice Part 2

In part 2 we'll walk through the actual method and approach to slow motion musical mastery
If you read part 1 you now know what slow motion practice will do for your playing. And you know why it works so well. In Now, let's talk about how to actually do this the right way.
First, let's choose something to practice. Say it's a 2 bar melody.
Step one is to simply analyze and become familiar with the melody. What key is it in? Is it smooth with lots of stepwise motion? Or does it have wide leaps? Is it dissonant? Does it resolve? Is it very rhythmically active? What kind of rhythms does use? What is the vibe of the line? Is it a sweet, loving ballad, or a ripping bebop line? Is it angry, happy, sad, light, heavy.
Don't skip that step. Most everyone does. But the more you know about a melody the more quickly you can learn it.
Step two is to slowly pick the melody out on your instrument. Ideally you can listen to the melody, like a recording, many many times until you absorb the sound by ear. Either way at this point, one by one, find the pitches. Once you have the pitches you can practice the melody over and over out of time using just whole notes for instance until the pitch sequence just plays itself. Next, count through and figure out the rhythms if their complicated. Slow the tempo down to a point where you can actually control and execute every rhythm and every pitch comfortably and accurately. Slow motion playing will teach soooo much about time. At first you might even play with a 5 seconds between each note if you need that time to play comfortably and really hear the sound and the pitches.
Step three : Once you get to the point where you can play the melody at a very slow tempo, you can start to actually practice and sculpt it into music. We're at the point now where many cats move on to the next phrase. When in fact this is when practice actually begins.
You're going to repeat the melody many, many times at an extremely slow tempo as you refine it. Learn to dig slow tempos. Everything you play at medium and up tempos will be infinitely tighter, more focused and purposeful because of what you do with slow tempo work. At first your concentration will go to the pitches and rhythms and the time. That's the most basic information. I would recommend playing the line a few times, 4-8, and then sitting silently and hearing the line in your mind's ear. I go into depth about mental rehearsal in another video. But just know that it works. Going back and forth in this fashion until you can hear all of the pitches accurately in your minds ear and perform them on your instrument easily will have a profound effect on your abilities. You may have to do this note by note at first depending on your audiation skills, you know, your ability to hear the music in your mind.
As you explore the melody, you'll want to also refine the articulation and the dynamics Try different accents, and articulations and use your ear and taste to tell you what you like and what sounds good. After you've done considerable work on the melody you can try recording and critiquing it. This will give you even more insight into the melody as well as your performance of it.
As you get the notes, rhythms, articulation, dynamics, mood, etc all dialed in you'll want to meditate on the phrase until it plays itself. And, until you can easily hear it in your inner mind. Until you hear the notes, played just before you actually play them. So there's no way you could make a mistake, anymore than you could make a mistake counting to 10. Then you can either begin to take the tempo up, or move on to another line.