Jazz Manifesto

©2008 LearnJazzFaster.com LLC All rights reserved ~ www.learnjazzfaster.
com
About Chris
“I've never come across a person who "Chris is certainly the best jazz music
could explain what, and how to practice teacher I've ever had, but he's more than
as well as he can.” that: he's one of the best teachers I've ever
had--in any subject." He has a special talent
―When I first saw Chris play at a jam here in for taking complex topics and breaking them
Boston, I thought, that's the guy I want to take down into the simplest possible parts.
lessons with. Luckily for me, he's as good a
teacher as he is a player. Chris also has a wonderfully open-minded
approach to musical concepts, critically
Chris has a very logical and straightforward examining conventional wisdom and
approach to learning music. Since taking encouraging his students to do the same. He'll
lessons with Chris I've learned to maximize my certainly offer answers to his students'
practice time, working on multiple topics questions, but he always urges them to pursue
through one exercise. I've never come across a their own path, to find their own musical way.
person who could explain what, and how to
practice as well as he can. It is Chris' holistic approach to learning jazz--
focusing not just on technical concepts but on
I would recommend Chris to anyone looking to all of the emotional and psychological
take their understanding of music to a deeper components of learning jazz as well--that
level, I don't know anyone who will give you a makes him an ideal guide to the world of jazz.
more honest, and passionate education.‖
Chris' lessons have been a huge help for me.
Mike Tucker—Drummer and Band Jazz is such a rich and deep tradition, and it's
Leader—Boston, MA easy to get lost or overwhelmed when you try
______________________________________ to study it. One of the things I like best about
Chris' approach is that he doesn't oversimplify
"Chris‘ ‗Monster Jazz Formula‘ is a detailed and the whole process by telling you what to focus
motivational approach to reaching your goals on. Instead, he helps you decide what you
as a jazz musician. This is not just a book for want to focus on. And then he shows you how
novices - reading through Chris Punis' books to go about learning those things the right
prompted me to rethink my own concepts and way.
approaches to teaching and practicing - after
20 years of professional playing and teaching! I One of the most important aspects in
highly recommend this book and plan to becoming a great jazz musician is developing
introduce it to my own students and fellow your own voice, and Chris really helps you do
musicians." that in the learning process."
Joel Yennior—Trombonist with Gypsy Ken Hiatt—Accordionist, Band Leader,

Schaeffer, Either/Orchestra and Teacher—Waltham, MA
Instructor at the New England
Conservatory—Boston, MA
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©2010 LearnJazzFaster.com LLC All rights reserved ~ www.learnjazzfaster.com/monsterjazzformula.htm
The “Secrets” to becoming a Monster Jazz Musician.
What you now hold in your hands is just a snap shot of my years of extensive research, practice,
performance, trial and error and studies with many of the top teachers in the jazz world.
Up till now, this information has been virtually unknown to students of jazz. Practically a ‗Secret‘.
You see, many of the top players don‘t actually ‗know‘ how they got to the level they are at now. If
they do, they don‘t know how to articulate it to their students (or they don‘t want to).
They might be able to tell you what they do now, or how they approach jazz. But they can‘t tell you
how they got there.
These ‗secrets‘ are certainly not taught in music school. I‘ll be honest, school and me are like oil and
water. Sure, I know how to play the game and pass the classes. But, I have some pretty harsh
opinions of the education world. I might offend some of my readers who still hold loyalty to our
‗trusted institutions‘.
But I‘m not here to be nice or politically correct or to make friends with the establishment. I‘m here
to shed light on some of these major problems with learning jazz. And to help you become the player
you‘ve always wanted to be.
There‟s a very big idea inside and many people

I strongly suggest that you print have used it to become „Monsters‟ once they
this book out right now, and grasped the concepts that you are about to
read it immediately. receive right here for free.
Who is Chris Punis?

You might know me from my free online e-course ‗Twenty-one
Great Ways to Become a Monster Jazz Musician‘ or maybe you
already own ‗The Monster Jazz Formula‘. Or you might be familiar
with my work with Charlie Kohlhase‘s Explorer‘s Club or the band
Gypsy Schaeffer.
To be honest, I‘m not really in the limelight right now. I‘ve spent
the last few years working behind the scenes trying to really figure
out a simple system for learning and a simple system for success
with jazz that anyone can use to realize their musical dreams. In
fact, unless you‘re from Boston or the East Coast you‘ve probably
never seen me perform, you might have never even heard of me.
But rest assured, on the following pages you‘ll get to know me and
find out why I feel it‘s so important for you to listen to these ideas about success with jazz.
“Ok, but why do I care about getting to know you?” you may ask. Touché. Good question.
©2008 LearnJazzFaster.com LLC All rights reserved ~ www.learnjazzfaster.com

The reason is this: I know from personal experience that my frustrations are pretty much universal in
the jazz world. My story resonates with my students and can help them uncover problems and
challenges of their own.
If I come right out and say ―you have such and such problem, you have such and such frustration,‖
that can make people put their guard up, become defensive and miss the very important ideas that
are presented here.
This way you can sit back and enjoy, err, I mean observe the sufferings of a fellow jazz musician. If
something resonates with you, maybe I can assist you in solving that problem or frustration. Only
you can be the judge of that.
On the following pages I‘m going to spill the beans about jazz education and dispel many of the
myths and misconceptions about becoming a great player. I‘ll shed light on why most people never
become Monsters and give in to their frustrations and fears, only to spend their lives wondering ‗what
if‘.
Or even worse, become music teachers themselves, only to ‗spread the pain‘.
In a just a second I‘ll tell you all about my own struggles and failures with jazz. I‘m going to tell you
about my deep dark secrets, how I almost gave up after years of spinning my wheels.
Believe me, I don‘t really want anyone to know this much about me. But I really believe deep down
that it‘s the only way to really help you with your musical struggles.
You see the fact that you‘re reading this means that you and I are probably a lot alike. For as far
back I can remember, I have always wanted to be a jazz musician, one of the cats.
From the first time I heard ‗Trane and Miles I knew I wanted to be a player. I knew in my heart of
hearts that I wanted to do ‗that‘.
But let‟s start at the beginning…
Way back when I was 13 years old, before I ever heard of ear training, practice habits, swing feel or
modern harmony, I fell in love with the drums. Actually, I was fascinated with the drums long before
that. But I was 13 before I ever got to see and play a drumset. My best friend‘s older brother got a
drumset and I would follow him home everyday after school and beg him to let me bang on them.
‗Bang‘ being the key word.
When I sat behind this seemingly giant set of silver Slingerland drums my imagination would take
over. The sound of the drums got my blood pumping, got me excited. It was nothing short of
amazing, powerful and awe inspiring. I would imagine myself playing in front of a roaring crowd
playing the ‗baddest‘ drum solo ever.
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I‘m telling you this corny story of my childhood to illustrate a point. Do you remember the first time
you played your instrument? I bet you were fascinated, excited and enamored with it to say the
least. I bet it just looked and felt amazing in your hands. And the sound was just pure electricity.
Music was so much simpler back then. We would play around,

play being the operative word, and figure things out that sounded “I just couldn‟t keep
great to our virgin ears. We had no expectations, no judgement. up. And the fact is that
We didn‘t know how much we were ‗supposed‘ to know to be a most people can‟t. But
‗real‘ musician. We hadn‘t acquired any music school baggage yet. that didn‟t stop me
We played for the sheer joy, for the experience. from thinking that I
„should‟ be able to
Well, that soon would change. As I started taking drum lessons keep up. So I practiced
and playing in the school band, little by little the requirements and studied more and
were piled on one after the other, week after week. As soon as I more.”
barely got through one lesson another was thrown on the pile.
Then another, and another and another…
Slowly but surely the joy and electricity were stripped away and replaced with judgements,
expectations, rules and standards. But back then I didn‘t know this was a problem. I wasn‘t aware of
what was really happening. I was digging myself into a dark musical abyss of un-mastered material
and half-learned concepts.
Then I discovered jazz. I fell in love with it, with the sound and the story. The sound was something
I‘d never heard before. It was rich and stimulated my ears like nothing else. And the ‗characters‘
were no less enticing. They were one part cool and one part rebel. They were different. They did
their own thing. And their music was simultaneously hip and sophisticated. It wasn‘t long before I
knew that that‘s what I wanted to do. That‘s who I wanted to be.
Soon I found myself in music school, studying jazz. This ‗problem‘ I wasn‘t even aware of yet was
only intensified. The workload increased. 10 fold. I was bombarded by musical concepts, theory,
technique, harmony, improvisation, ensembles and on and on.
I just couldn‘t keep up. And the fact is that most people can‘t. But that didn‘t stop me from thinking
that I ‗should‘ be able to keep up. So I practiced and studied more and more.
I developed an addiction to practicing in fact. I would put practicing before everything else in my life.
I lost girlfriends, had no social life and even gave up a free trip to
Italy all in the name of practice.
I practiced 8, 9 even 10 hours a day on some days. I never mastered

anything, but I kept trying to go further and build on this weak
foundation. There was just soooooo much to practice, I had to try to
fit it all in. I didn‘t have much time after all. I was already 18 years
old! But soon I was ‗already‘ 20. Then ‗already‘ 22. Then ‗already‘ 25.
Instead of building a magnificent musical ‗castle‘ on top of a sturdy

and unbreakable foundation, I was building a rickety shack made of
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a hodge podge of materials held together with duck tape and kite string and all resting on quick
sand.
Somehow I knew that something was wrong, that something wasn‘t working. But I thought it was
me, not my methods. And I sure as hell didn‘t have time to stop and figure it out. There Was Still So
Much To Practice!!!
With every day of practice, study and class there was more information about jazz and music piled on
top. Just to keep things interesting I added learning piano to my list.
It was around this time that I really started to question whether I ‗had it‘ or not.
So I would practice harder.
I read or heard somewhere that Bird, Trane and other top players all practiced 6, 8, even 14 hours a
day. So I thought that‘s what I must do too. I never tried to find out how or what they practiced. I
just knew that logging hours was mandatory for top jazz musicians. So I pressed on further into the
downward spiral to utter confusion and defeat.
And of course most teachers were of no help. They just fed the fire by throwing more information,
more tests, more homework, more papers, and more practice topics.
I don‘t blame them though. They didn‘t know they were adding to the problem. For many of them
they view it as their job to give you more work, so you get your money‘s worth. For others that‘s
exactly how they were taught so that‘s all they know. And for those for whom music happen to come
really easy or who happen to stumble on to the right path and take the right actions and make the
right choices they didn‘t even know the problem existed.
Soon I was beating myself up about a variety of things:
 I wondered if I had it, if I had enough talent.
 I wondered if I came from the right background. I was a white kid from the suburbs who
had no other musicians in his family and grew up listening to rock music. What right did I have to
think I could learn to play jazz?
 I would even beat myself up for not feeling music intensely enough when I listened to
it. I was so cluttered up with expectations that I couldn‘t even enjoy listening to music anymore.
 I wondered if I was creative. Imagine that. Creativity, which I now believe is a birthright,
simply the combination of trust, receptiveness and the result of feeding the creative well spring,
eluded me. But how could I be creative when I hadn‘t truly mastered much at all, and I was so
tripped out all the time about whether I was creative or not. Truly a vicious cycle.
 I wondered if I was disciplined enough. Most people can‘t discipline themselves to exercise
for 20 minutes three time a week. Here I was locking myself in a practice room for 6-8 hours
everyday, and I wondered if I was disciplined. Crazy!
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 If I had a bad gig, I felt terrible. If I had a good gig, I wondered if it was a fluke. I actually
purposefully would NOT tell people about my gigs and recitals. I was afraid I would blow it and
look like an idiot on stage.
Unfortunately, I could go on and on about these things I would beat myself up about. But I don‘t
want you to think I‘m a total basket case!
But the truth is, if most people were to lay their fears and
insecurities out on the table we would all look like basket cases!
When I was at Berklee I was surrounded by people just like me. We had all accepted the false belief
that jazz was hard. That it was supposed to be a struggle. That if you weren‘t a tortured artist, you
weren‘t a real artist.
One by one I watched many of them drop out of school and out of music all together. Even top
players who we might think have it all together feel these same pressures.
But luckily something inside me wouldn‘t let me quit. Believe me I thought about it. I just hated the
idea of wondering ‗what if‘ for the rest of my life more than the idea of continuing my dysfunctional
music education.
Finally something happened that shook me to the core. Ever since arriving at Berklee I wanted to
take an ensemble with the great Hal Crook. Finally after three years I was able to register for one of
his ensembles. I showed up, got my ass handed to me and was promptly thrown out of the
ensemble. This was a major turning point in my life.
Hal Crook did what only a great teacher could do. He was completely honest with me. He was blunt
and to the point but compassionate at the same time. He basically told me that I wasn‘t ready for the
class. That I didn‘t need to be a better drummer; I needed more experience playing jazz with people.
Here was this master trombonist and master teacher telling me that I didn‘t need to practice as
much, I needed to PLAY.
Something clicked in my head. Now I knew I was doing something wrong

and I had a great teacher affirm that conclusion. And for the first time it
dawned on me that I might be able to figure out what that was. And then
learn to do the ‗right‘ things.
This began a fantastic journey up out of the musical abyss of frustration and
failure and ever closer towards realizing my musical dreams.
First of all, I did just what Hal prescribed. I scheduled every session I could
with every player I knew. I didn‘t have as much time to practice now, so I
chopped my practice routine down to what I thought were the bare essentials.
I was practicing less than ever but improving at a faster rate than ever before.
I was starting to get results.
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Soon I found myself approaching the top players in the school to play sessions. And a funny thing
happened. Most of them said yes! I had this false assumption that I needed to be great player before
I could ask them to play. Boy was I wrong. You see the top players just wanted to play jazz too. All I
had to do was ask. They were ready and willing since most everyone else was too busy hammering
away in the shed or procrastinating in front of the TV.
I began to feel good about music again. I was inspired again.
But that‟s not the end of story.

I still knew that something I was doing in the practice room wasn‘t working. But now I was ready to
figure out what. I began a search to find out what the top players did differently. I began to block
out what most of my other teachers were dumping on me and got busy learning jazz for my own
sake, paying attention only to those teachers who I thought were really valuable to MY situation.
I read everything I could get my hands on. I read biographies of great players. I read books about
success and achievement. I read about learning, practicing, art, self-esteem and personal
improvement. I was on a mission.
The next year, after playing a ton of sessions and radically altering my practice habits I called Hal
Crook up and told him I still wanted to be in his ensemble. He scheduled a session with a bass player
and myself and I nailed it. He invited me to play the following semester. I went on to study with him
privately for the next 8 years.
I took workshops with Kenny Werner, Danillo Perez, Joe Lovano, Jeff Watts, Pat Martino, Ran Blake,
Rashied Ali, among others.
I even went so far as to hire groundbreaking psychologist and father of the self-esteem movement,
Nathaniel Branden, as a personal coach. Every two weeks for two years we would talk on the phone
about topics as diverse as success, goal achievement, confidence and personal improvement.
Out of all this a vision for my music started to grow. It was crystal clear to me now that my whole
approach to learning jazz was a dead end street. I threw out all of my assumptions about learning
jazz and gradually became clearer and clearer about what worked.
After many years I‘ve been able to funnel this all down into a system for musical success that I use
with my students as well as for my own practicing, studies, rehearsals and gigs.
I did my time in the ‗music abyss‘ and I couldn‘t be happier to be out of it.
Now, don‘t get me wrong, I‘m not ‗there‘. Music is an on going process and there‘s still plenty of
things I could improve and learn. I have learned to embrace the fact that I‘ll never get ‗there‘. I love
the fact that there will always be music to learn and areas to explore. And now I can use these tools
to move ever forward with music. To be excited about your future and what opportunities the
universe might throw your way is a fantastic feeling. And a feeling that is very different from falling
into that abyss of jazz confusion.
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If any of that sounds familiar to you or hits a chord then you‘re in luck. In a few moments I‘ll be
going into depth about the ‗undesirable effects‘ I discussed above (you know the abyss), I‘ll reveal
the root causes and tell you about the solutions.
So why am I sharing this all with you?
First of all, I care deeply about jazz. I care about the jazz world. It‘s my life.
I‘ve seen my own frustrations mirrored in the experiences of many of my students. I‘ve witnessed
them having breakthroughs and epiphanies and seeing the truth for themselves.
There is nothing more gratifying for a teacher than to see his students learn, put the pieces together
for themselves and simply IMPROVE with their music.
When students tell me or write emails to me to tell me about there own struggles and how they saw
themselves in my story I feel connected. I feel like I‘m making an impact. When they tell me how
they were inspired or moved, or that they had an epiphany it feels awesome. They did the work, they
made the effort and they found the answer. I know it‘s them, not me. But if my ideas, teachings or
writing about jazz can be a catalyst for great change in a person‘s musical life than I am a happy
person.
Secondly, there is no reason in this day and age for a person to not realize their potential. The tools
are there for anyone to take and use for their own development. I feel much gratitude that I
happened upon these tools. Now I feel a responsibility to spread the word. I want to tell the whole
jazz world about this. I want to change the way music is taught in most learning environments.
Don‘t get me wrong there are many fabulous teachers out there who really do care and really do
make a difference. But they are far and few between. Or they‘re stifled themselves by ineffective and
harmful educational institutions that simply perpetuate these problems by feeding the fire of
information overload, confusion and failure.
To be honest, when I first thought about teaching this stuff and writing and creating courses I was
very apprehensive to say the least. I didn‘t want to take time away from my own playing, performing
and practicing. But I realized that I had to. I just had to share it.
Besides, believe it or not, sometimes I feel like I might get more out of teaching than the student.
Teaching and articulating ideas so someone else can understand them is one of the most powerful
ways to learn.
There‘s one more reason for me writing this book. My personal vision and mission in life is to be a
major voice in the jazz world. To make a real contribution to the world of jazz.
I realized that playing music and creating my own art was only one of the ways I could realize that
vision.
By helping other jazz musicians who were in the same boat I was, I could impact the jazz world far
greater than just by my own music alone. If I can help create 10, 50, 100 even 1000 more successful
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and contributing jazz artists I could impact the world in a more positive and profound way than I ever
imagined. Let me help you to become one of them too.
So without further ado, let‘s get into the meat of the matter. Shall we?
The Jazz Musician‟s Lament:

Paying too high a price for musical success that never comes
If I asked you right now, ―What one thing determines the level of success you‘ll achieve with your
music?‖ How would you answer?
 Your Talent?
 Your Intelligence?
 Your Skills?
 Your Strengths?
 Your Creativity?
 Your Persistence?
 Your Discipline?
 Your Knowledge?
 Your Teachers?
 Your Technique?
 Your willingness to practice 20,40 even 60 hours a week?
What if I told you it was none of the above?
What if I told you that your talent, creativity, technique, strengths and discipline do NOT determine
how far you will go with your music?
Now don‘t get me wrong. These things are important but they are almost never the deciding factor in
why some players become great players.
Why? Because these things only determine your potential with music. They do not guarantee that
you will become the player you want to be or how far you‘ll go with your music.
The fact is, there are literally thousands of musicians who possess all or most of these traits and yet
fail to realize even a tiny fraction of their potential.
My point is that your potential in music and your actual success in music are two very different
things. You don‘t get the gig because of your potential. You don‘t become ‗one of the cats‘ because
you have potential. Potential alone can‘t make you a Monster Jazz Musician or guarantee that your
music will go down in the history books.
Now, ask yourself this…
Does your current musical level equal your potential?
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Are the actual results you‘re achieving with your music—your growth and your quality of gigs—equal
to your potential? Do you believe your current levels of musical growth, your gigs, your band, your
experiences on the band stand, are all that you‘re capable of?
If you can honestly answer ―Yes!‖ to those questions—if you know in your heart of hearts that you
have already achieved everything that you‘re capable of, if you‘re improving in music at the fastest
rate possible—then please stop reading this book right now. There‘s nothing here that will help you.
But if you‘re like most jazz musicians…if your answer to these questions is ―No!‖… If you are fully
aware that you have only achieved a tiny fraction of your musical potential, then this book is going to
be a godsend to you.
Because by the time you finish reading this book I‘m going to give you an ―Ah-ha‖ moment that will
explain why you‘re not getting the results you want, why you‘re not the player you want to be.
You‘ll understand precisely why you‘re practicing more and more and improving less and less as a
jazz musician. Or why you might be paralyzed by the music, overwhelmed and unable to practice and
advance in any real way, why you‘re a chronic procrastinator.
And this will be a giant step forward for you, a giant step to opening the floodgates of musical
advancement and achievement. You‘ll be able to get busy improving and hitting your musical targets
one by one.
While other frustrated jazz musicians continue to bang their heads against there own limitations, this
simple realization will empower you to sky-rocket your music into the stratosphere as if those
limitations—real or imagined—simply don‘t exist.
Specifically, I‘m going to show you how false assumptions and false beliefs are more responsible for
your hindered musical progress then anything else. Becoming aware of these things may be difficult
to stomach at first. But once you see them for what they are you are going to be free and able to
achieve your big musical vision.
I‘m going to show you specific tools and strategies that you can apply immediately to your music so
you can begin getting results right away. I‘ll show you how to take ‗your foot off the breaks‘ and get
real momentum happening to carry you further and further forward.
If you aren‘t already aware of it, information overload is becoming a major problem in the world
today. We are constantly bombarded by new information. It comes at us from all directions. This
problem is systemic in the whole world not just the world of jazz. But within jazz it‘s a very real thing.
It was a problem even 50 years ago, but now it‘s downright out of control.
Musicians don‘t need more information about music, they need a way to deal with what they already
have. There‘s already thousands of books about composition, harmony, eartraining, technique, styles,
rhythm, improvisation, and every other topic and sub-topic of music you can think of. Then there‘s
DVDs, online courses, blogs, youtube videos, music sites. There are schools and lessons, workshops
and clinics. Then of course there are thousands if not millions of recordings to check out and learn.
(Which consequently is where you should be focusing much of your attention anyway).
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I‘m going to show you a way to deal with this ‗exploding brain‘ feeling, the feeling of overwhelm and
exhaustion. Once you know how to sort through this mountain of ‗stuff‘ and keep only what‘s truly
valuable to YOU, music becomes easy again. You might even fall in love with music all over again.
I know—you‘re skeptical. You‘ve heard thousands of big promises from teachers, books, sites and so
on. But please hear me out. If I can deliver on even one tenth of this promise to you, the time spent
to read this book will be the best investment you‘ve ever made.
And you won‘t just benefit today. You‘ll benefit for the rest of your life. In fact these ideas and
concepts will only become clearer and clearer to you over time. You‘ll only become better and better
at using the tools and strategies. This will create momentum in your music the likes of which you
may not have ever seen before.
Have you ever wondered why you aren‟t making the progress with
music that the other players around you are?
Has your frustration level reached high enough levels to begin doubting whether there‘s something
wrong with you?
Have you ever asked yourself
…Why am I not a better player?
…What am I doing wrong?
…What‟s wrong with me?
…Will I ever succeed in music?
And have you ever found yourself wondering…
“Why is becoming a jazz musician so hard?”

Frankly, if you‘ve ever asked yourself these nagging questions before, you are NOT alone.
Just about every email I ever get from my students telling me about their biggest challenges are
from people struggling to keep their head above water. They are overwhelmed and even angry that
they can‘t seem to get where they want to go.
12
They wonder if they have what it takes.
They wonder if they are practicing the „right‟ stuff.
They don‟t know where to begin or how to choose what to practice.
They are frustrated that their playing is so inconsistent.
They are frustrated with certain problem areas in their music that they‟ve been
struggling with for years.
Sometimes they even feel like it‟s not fair that some players got all the luck and talent
and left them with their confusion and frustration.
They are downright pissed off that they can‟t seem to get it together!
Until, just a few years ago I wouldn‘t have been able to give you an answer to these problems. I was
just finally beginning to figure out how to get results with my own music!
But I decided to try to put it all together so others could learn from my experience (and plentiful
frustrations!). Now, as I tried to organize this into something that would be truly beneficial and easy
to use for other jazz musicians I quickly realized that this would be a Tall, Tall order.
It took me much longer than I ever could have anticipated to put all the pieces together. The
culmination was something I created and call The Monster Jazz Formula. You may have heard of it.
In a moment I‘ll tell you more about ‗The Formula‘ but I don‘t want to take up too much time with
that now. First let‘s take a good, hard look at how NOT realizing your full potential is effecting your
life. Then we‘ll move on to the root causes and the solutions.
Practicing ever more and ever faster; advancing ever slower

Many jazz musicians approach learning jazz as if it were a race—one that keeps getting harder and
harder—with no end in sight. We want to be so much better than we are right now. We are in a
hurry to figure it all out. We reason that once we get a certain level of musicianship we will be happy.
That the gigs will fall into our laps and we will live happily ever after as one of the cats.
We practice more and more but always come up short. We go down this path and that path, buy this
book, that book, take lessons with this teacher, that teacher. We practice this topic for awhile then
that topic. We constantly change directions. We may even get to the point where we are changing
our practice routine daily and never achieving any results with any of it, certainly not any results that
come out in our playing effortlessly with inspiration like it‘s ‗supposed‘ to be.
Perhaps we have become so overwhelmed by this process that we become numb, like zombies. We
just go through the motions and wait for ‗some day‘ when it all magically works itself out.
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By going deeper and deeper into this musical abyss we get ourselves into a vicious cycle, a self-
perpetuating cycle. By switching topics before ever achieving any kind of mastery we never
experience what‘s possible with mastery. We lose, if only temporarily, our creativity and our innate
ability to learn. Our playing is inconsistent to say the least. And we struggle. But the struggling
becomes a way of life. It becomes our reality. We expect this struggle even. Since we struggle and
never achieve mastery we never play at a level that‘s ‗good enough‘. We assume we must be
practicing the wrong things or not enough of them. So we switch. Again not achieving mastery. And
so on goes the cycle.
As our frustration increases we seek out the ‗magic bullets‘. We know there must be that one thing
that will make us a Monster. If only we had that magic bullet everything would be great and we
would become one of the cats, garnering the respect of our peers and the admiration of the
audience.
So we jump into learning to play ―Giant Steps‖, or maybe we figure that the hippest players are
masters of cross rhythms, or maybe we try to master every single permutation of every single chord
structure we‘ve ever heard of in every single key. If we can get that down than surely we will have
arrived. We practice things that are way too advanced for us, way too broad or way too vague. We
never go deeply into any one topic, any one small area of music. So again we don‘t achieve mastery
and we perpetuate our cycle down into the abyss.
We completely lose sight of the point of music in the

first place: To express ourselves, create and connect
with other people.
This is a very painful place to exist. Each time we

perpetuate this cycle we chip away at our self-esteem
and confidence. This can have the effect of rippling out
into our whole lives. This brand of ineffective and fear
centered practice can literally effect the quality of our
entire life.
We can begin to obsess about music. It‘s all we think

about. We might even go so far as to put it before
everything else in life. We can lose sight of the REAL
priorities in life, the important people in our lives, like
our girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husbands, children,
siblings, parents, friends and so on. We might sacrifice
our social lives to practicing. And even turn down a free, all expense paid trip to Europe like I did.
Now don‘t misunderstand me. Becoming a great player does require commitment and some sacrifice.
It‘s just that the things we should sacrifice are things like television, or getting high and watching
Jackass, or watching dancing babies on youtube, or reading trashy magazines. We don‘t sacrifice our
lives.
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I read an interview with Wayne Shorter once where the interviewer asked him to talk about his ‗life‘
as a jazz musician. Wayne said something along the lines of ―Music isn‘t my life. My life is my life.
Music is just a part of it.‖
But how many of us lose sight of our lives and become obsessed with becoming a great jazz musician
to the detriment of everything else.
The level of stress and pressure that musicians and artists can put on themselves can be ridiculous.
This pressure can literally lead to depression, health issues or even substance abuse. It‘s no secret
that the art world is full of drug addicts and alcoholics.
But there is another way. There is a healthy way that can actually lead to more fulfillment in life and
Monster Music Skills! There is a mindset and a set of healthy beliefs that can put you on this path.
There are tools and strategies that pioneers before us have figured out, that we can use ‗right out of
box‘ to achieve our musical goals.
Believe me, the Healthy Way is infinitely more desirable than living and practicing and performing
down in that deep dark musical abyss.
Looking back on it, I can‘t believe how long I endured those frustrations myself before I said,
―Enough is Enough!‖ It is my hope and intention to short cut that process for you. So you can
achieve your musical goals faster than you ever thought possible. And have a life while doing it.
Now let‟s talk about each of these major problem areas in depth and surface the causes.
Major Musical Challenge #1

The Myth of Talent—fear of not „having it‟.
Probably the most wide spread and debilitating problem with jazz musicians is the fear that they
don‘t have enough musical talent. Now talent is a very slippery concept to cover. How do you
quantify talent? How do you know if you have enough of it?
The truth is, if you love jazz—in other words you ‗get it‘ when you listen to it, it resonates with you—
then you most likely have all the talent you need to go as far with music as you wish. This fear of not
having it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words a fear of failure can actually create the
real failure. Self-doubt can keep you from doing the right things, taking the right risks and following
through on your plans and goals. If you believe you aren‘t talented enough you will most certainly
create that reality for yourself. I believe it was Richard Bach who wrote ―Argue your limitations and
surely they are yours.‖
The great jazz piano player Bill Evans actually believed that he was not particularly talented with
music. So he had to rely on his analytical musical mind to dissect the musical ideas and concepts that
he was attracted to and build his music piece by piece through patient and thorough practice and
study. And look what he did with music. He‘s one of the Giants! Today, to think that Bill Evans was
not talented is a preposterous idea.
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Evans chose to focus on his goal of playing great jazz, rather than focus on his limitations. Instead he
did what‘s called leveraging your strengths. He focused on specific areas of music that he was
naturally inclined to explore. He explored those areas as deeply as he could and the rest is history.
His methods might have been a complete disaster for a more ‗natural‘ player like Lester Young and
vice versa.
The Law of Dharma or Purpose of Life.

This law states that each and every one of us possesses a unique set of abilities and a unique way of
expressing them. If you ponder that idea for a moment and then consider some of the most original
voices in jazz—Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday,
Ornette Coleman—it becomes quite evident that these pioneers of jazz discovered their musical
purpose. They gave back to the world ten times over in the form of beautiful, inspiring music. Not all
of them had blazing chops or virtuosic control of music. But they did have a profound understanding
and intimate knowledge of their true voice.
So what‟s the solution to this problem?

Remove the word talent from your vocabulary. It doesn‘t matter. How does the saying go, ―The bars
are packed with talented people.‖ Instead, focus on finding those things in music that really hit you
where it counts, that flow to you and out of you almost effortlessly. You don‘t have to be someone
you‘re not. Through consistent and purposeful practice and observation you can surface your
strengths and then get busy leveraging them to put you on the path to becoming a one of a kind jazz
musician, A Monster. That‘s what you really want in the first place, right?

Information Overload: AKA Exploding Brain Syndrome.
Information overload presents a serious challenge. But it‘s
also one that‘s not quite as elusive as talent. You can use
simple tools and strategies to deal with this one. We‘ll get
to these tools in a second.
Information Overload rears its ugly head in several ways.
First of all, there is an incomprehensible amount of

information about learning jazz available to us. Think back
to how it must have been to learn to play music in the
20‘s or 30‘s. Students of jazz would have only been
exposed to a tiny fraction of the musical ideas floating
around the world today. They might have been able to
hear a small sample of the music being played at the time
on the radio. Maybe they got their hands on one or two
books from the classical tradition or some sheet music. There were few if any books about learning
jazz so that wasn‘t a problem.
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A student most likely learned by watching and emulating local jazz musicians, playing the music with
peers and perhaps taking lessons with one of the local professionals. Their choices for what to
practice were, again, tiny compared to the overwhelming choices that exist today. Over the years
jazz musicians took the art form in incredibly diverse directions. Slowly but surely there were more
players. Recording and duplication processes improved dramatically and with these improvements the
number of records available to study increased exponentially.
More and more teachers began to analyze the music and create methods to teach it and to write
books about every musical topic under the sun. Soon there were many different styles of music and
many different approaches to learning it. It‘s amazing to think that players in the 50‘s came up
against this challenge of information overload too. They had to deal with the music of Louis
Armstrong, Count Basie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane
and all of the other thousands of great jazz musicians.
Jazz slowly made its way into the formal education world and with it thousands more books and
resources were created and became available to the student of jazz. This process has continued to
grow out of control to where we are today; there are many thousands of books, DVDs, methods,
teachers, classes, courses, workshops, lessons and of course opinions. Most Teachers and authors
also make a wonderful case as to why ‗their‘ particular book or approach is the right one.
And almost all of this information is available to you right on your computer thanks to the Internet
and the World Wide Web. This problem is only going to get worse as more and more people produce
information at dizzying speeds and this information gets passed around cyberspace as fast as it can
be created. (Yes I am aware of the irony of creating more information about information overload.)
Now on the surface, all of this information appears like a valuable resource to learning. And it is, IF
you know how to filter through it all and find the truly valuable gems that are relevant to YOUR
situation.
Now, so far I‘ve just talked about information overload as it relates to the jazz world. Obviously jazz
musicians aren‘t the only ones busy creating more information. Everyone is. Now we have cable TV
with hundreds of channels. We have Internet television, peer to peer networks, youtube, thousands
of news sites, millions of blogs. We have cell phone calls, text messaging and email. We have the
web available on our cell phones and even music and videos. We have mp3 players that can carry
months worth of music. We can download sheet music, order any book on any topic we can think of
from amazon.
It‘s no wonder we are overwhelmed and swimming in a sea of information trying to keep our heads
above water, let alone about trying to advance as players and really say something with our music.
Attention is becoming a scarcity. We are fragmented, distracted and disconnected. But attention is
one of the most important things you have. Where you put your attention and the quality of attention
you focus there will determine exactly where you go with your music. Attention is a precious asset
many waste daily. If you focus on the wrong things you will not be successful. If you focus on too
many things you won‘t be successful.
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So how the hell do we deal with all of this?
There are two things we need to do to deal with this challenge and to move towards our goals. One
is to create a musical foundation to help us choose what‘s important and sift through the mountain of
information. The other is to protect and defend our attention. We need to develop bulldog instincts to
“If Everything in Music is Important

Then Nothing is Important.”
fend off people (and devices) that try to steal our attention and our time.
Let‟s talk about foundation first.
In a quick nutshell the way to deal with all of this information can be distilled down to three steps.
1. Determine your goals with music. What are the desired results?
2. Determine the actions needed to get there. What do you need to practice? What skills do you
need to acquire?
3. Determine what information you will need. What books will you need? What records will you
need? What teachers should you seek out?
“Ok, that sounds simple, but how do I choose my goals. There are so many musical topics
to choose from.”
It all starts with figuring out what‘s important to you, what your values are. Your values are your
priorities in music. The clearer you are about your values the clearer you will be about what to
practice. And a good starting point is to figure what it is that you like about your favorite players.
What is it in their playing that draws you to them. Put on your favorite recordings and just listen. Ask
yourself what it is that you like so much about this recording or a particular player. As ideas come to
you write them down. Write anything that comes to mind. Don‘t judge your answers or edit them yet.
This will give you real insight into what it is that‘s important to you.
Be sure to be honest with yourself. Do YOU really like that player or that music or is it one of the hip
records that your teacher or peers told you you‘re supposed to like. I‘m talking about finding what it
is in music that really gets your wheels turning, gets your blood pumping. Make a list of all of these
things that move you about music. When you‘re finished listening you can add to your list if you like
or repeat this exercise with another recording or player.
Next, choose the top 5 – 7 items from the list and put them in order of importance. In other words, if
you could have one but not another which one would you choose.
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Just to clarify, something like learning all the major and minor scales in all twelve keys would
probably not be a value. It is a necessary condition for achieving other things in music, but in and of
themselves you probably don‘t care about scales. You are most likely not inspired by scales. That‘s
not why you got into jazz in the first place.
You care about things like powerful swing feel, or beautiful and lyrical Melodies, or seamless
interaction and deep communication between the musicians.
Now remember. Your values will change and grow as you change and grow as a player. This list is
not set in stone. You should review it from time to time and make any changes you see fit. In fact,
print a copy out and tack it to your wall. That way you can always use it as a litmus test to see if you
are operating in harmony with your own personal values.
From this list of values you can now create your musical goals. What would you like to accomplish
with your music within the next year? A year is a good timeframe for a long-term goal. While it is a
good idea to have a long-term vision—like 5, 10 years—keep your goals to a year or so. Otherwise it
becomes way too hard to conceptualize all of the details. Then again, one year is farther than most
people think into the future so even that may be a stretch. At first you may decide to start with a
shorter time frame like one month or even one week.
Next you need to turn that goal into a step by step plan. If you have any aversion to making plans
like many of us ‗creative types‘ who prefer to fly by the wind remember this: plans are simply tools to
keep you moving forward. Nine times out of ten the way your plan unfolds turns out dramatically
different from how you wrote it down. That‘s fine. It‘s just a tool. Use it and enjoy the results of its
power.
Here‘s a quick but deceptively powerful way to make a plan using the backward planning method.
You start with the end goal in mind. Describe it in as much detail as possible. The clearer you are
about your goal the more likely you will hit it. What will it look like? What exactly will you be able to
do? When do you plan on hitting it?
The next steps are easy. You simply work your way back to today, where you are right now in
relation to the goal.
What step will you have to achieve right before you reach your goal?
What will you have to achieve right before you reach that step?
How about the next step?
Continue this simple process and work your way backward.
The steps that come just before you reach your goal will be bigger and less detailed.
The steps that are closest to today should be as detailed as possible. So that you can answer the
question ―What exact result am I going to get in my practice session TODAY?‖
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As you move forward towards your goal, you will make adjustments to this plan. You will flesh things
out into greater detail as you approach them. You might add steps, drop steps, change directions
slightly or adjust the order.
Before you get started though, go through your plan and apply a little dose of good old fashioned
logical thinking. Go through it step by step and check for ‗dependency‘ between the steps.
Ok, I know that doesn‘t sound like fun but it‘s easier than it sounds.
Simply ask ―do I really need to complete this step in order to reach the next step, or am I adding
unnecessary steps.‖ Ask ―Does this step really need to come before this step in order to move
forward.‖ If you find two steps in the plan that don‘t seem to be connected than you may be missing
a step. See if there is something that must happen in between these steps in the plan.
So to recap you want to make sure that the order makes sense and that you aren‘t adding anything
extra. It‘s like my grandmother used to tell me when she was cooking pasta and meat sauce ―You
have to cook the onions just enough. Not too much, not too little.‖ It‘s the same with plans.
Don‘t worry about getting it perfect. Perfect is the enemy of good. And good in this case is good
enough. Just by adding this framework and forward momentum to your practicing you will move
forward at a faster rate. For me and many of my students, that rate was faster than ever before once
we applied these tools and strategies to our music.
In a moment we‘ll talk about the law of the straight line and go into more depth about this. But a
very common pitfall for jazz musicians is to add unnecessary steps to their practicing.
So after having completed this plan, your practicing will be greatly focused and you‘ll find that you
begin to move forward faster and faster. This is a deceptively simple concept. But learning jazz
should be simple. I know, I know. There‘s so much to learn and practice! But remember, you can‘t
possibly conceptualize or take responsibility for your entire ascension from beginner jazz musician to
jazz master guru all at the same time. Your brain will simply explode!
But what you practice today and this week should be simple, simple enough for you to dig in deep
and to attain mastery. That means really simple. That‘s a lesson that I learned from a variety of
places but most notably from checking out Bill Evans. He taught that in practicing less truly is more.
By digging into the simple concepts in a very real and true way you provide a musical foundation that
you can take as high as you want. Do that kind of practice for a few years and you get Bill Evans.
That‘s sounds good to me.
The other side of information overload.

So a minute ago I mentioned that you needed to develop a bulldog mentality to fend off interruptions
of your attention and time. I wasn‘t kidding. Every time you are interrupted during practice—in
addition to the time stolen from you by the actual interruption—you lose time trying to get back into
the practice mindset, sometimes up to twenty or thirty minutes! Add that all up and that‘s a lot of
attention and time lost.
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Let‘s start with people. Most people are not striving towards a goal. They are not attempting to
become an artist. They are not aiming at mastery. And they do not value their (or your) time.
Therefore, they will steal your time and interrupt your practice sessions without flinching.
Now I‘m sure most of them are not trying to sabotage your practicing (except maybe that musician
who lives across the street and hears how fast you‘re improving with your new plan and your new
practice habits;-). They just don‘t get it. Well it‘s your job to educate the people around you that you
are never, ever, ever, ever to be interrupted during your practicing. Maybe if your house is on fire
you can let them interrupt you. But only if it‘s a serious fire—one that would burn the house down or
reach your practice space before you‘re finished practicing.
Now let‘s talk about devices. Twenty years ago you had two likely interruptions, someone might
knock on your door, or the phone might ring. Now there are dozens of ways people will try to contact
you.
You still have a door and the phone still might ring. But now you have a cell phone too. And you have
a computer. You have email (probably multiple email addresses), you have instant messaging, you
have RSS feeds, you have desktop updates, you have google alerts, you have text messaging, you
have video phones on your computer, you have skype, you have myspace, facebook, twitter, etc, etc.
Turn Every Single Last One of Them OFF! They will destroy your practice sessions. When you sit
down to practice. You are there to do one thing and one thing only. PRACTICE. You are there to get
some specific result that will take you that much closer to your dreams. If it‘s that important they‘ll
call back (or text, or email, or whatever).

Practicing Harder; Advancing Less
Many jazz musicians find that the results they are getting from their practice sessions are incongruent
with the effort they are putting into them. In other words they practice their butts off but don‘t
achieve the musical ability they want so bad. And they are not getting these results nearly fast
enough.
Once you have a foundation for your music, once you know what your goals are and what your
musical priorities are, you still need to deal with the actual practice session. I‘m talking about your
practice habits. Now you know what to practice. Next we need to learn HOW to practice it, and
achieve the result we want.
Results Based Practicing.
This concept is already implied in the goal and values concept. But I think it needs further
explanation because understanding and applying this one principle alone will propel your music
forward faster than you probably believe is possible.
Each day when you approach your practice room you want to take a moment to be as clear as
possible about the purpose of the practice session, about the desired result.
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Many, many students approach the practice room with no idea about what they will practice or what
the point of it is anyway. But there needs to be a point, a purpose, a result.
After completing the exercises from the values and goal planning section, you are now clearer about
where you are going. So, you take that information and use it to decide exactly what you are going
work on today. The point is to learn something or improve something in your music each and every
single day.
Suppose that you really dig Miles Davis. Something about his phrasing and lyricism really hits you
where it counts. So your goal is to grasp and internalize his approach to soloing from say, one
particular record that you like. I‘ll use Kind of Blue as an example since pretty much everyone knows
and loves that record.
You decide as part of your plan to understand and internalize his approach that you will transcribe
and learn several of his solos from Kind of Blue. You decide that you‘ll start with his solo on Freddie
the Freeloader.
Your final goal here might be defined as such:
Upon completing this goal you will be able to:

 Play the solo on your instrument, from memory, along with the record, in tune with Miles,
matching his phrasing, articulation, dynamics and rhythmic feel.
Now that‘s no small task. But it‘s a worthwhile task. And with the right practice habits and approach,
it‘s a target you will be able to hit faster than might think.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Your goal must be realistic to your current situation. And your timeline for your
goal must also be realistic. Your goal must be challenging but doable. You must believe that it is
possible. So if you‘re just starting to play, the goal of learning Mile‘s solo by ear might be too far a
stretch. You‘ll need to create a goal that‘s realistic for your situation. Maybe you buy a transcription
of the solo and work on learning just the notes and rhythms. Conversely, if you‘ve already
transcribed and memorized 15 Lennie Tristano solos this goal will be quite feasible, perhaps even in a
very short period of time.
Now there‘s a lot going on in that goal. First you have to Make Your Goals Realistic,
figure out the notes and rhythms, then the phrasing, Challenging but Doable. Then Get
articulation, dynamics and feel. If you try to do that all Busy Nailing Them One ‗Result‘ at a
at once you will most likely end up frustrated with some Time. Be Sure to Improve One Thing or
pretty crappy results. But if you break it down into a tiny Learn One Thing Each and Everyday.
bite size result that you will achieve today or tomorrow, That‘s the Way to Skyrocket Your
and you continue in that fashion eventually you will Musical Abilities into the Stratosphere.
arrive at your desired goal.
So for day 1 (That‘s today) you may decide that your Your Musical Progress
target, your desired result is to learn and transcribe the
rhythm of the first four bars. If you get that together
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fast, you move on to the next four. If you don‘t get it today, you continue tomorrow. Then you move
through the entire solo, little by little until you have all the rhythm memorized and/or written down.
Then you start with the pitches. The desired result now may be to figure out the pitches of the first
phrase. You continue with this process, going step by step until you reach your target:
Play the solo on your instrument, from memory, along with the record, in tune with
Miles, matching his phrasing, articulation, dynamics and rhythmic feel.
Now here‘s the magical part. It won‘t take as long as you think to go through the entire process this
way. It‘s not as tedious as it sounds. Once you REALLY get the rhythm from the first four bars, the
second four bars will come faster. And the next phrase even faster. You will be lying down your
foundation and solidifying your musical skills. As your foundation grows stronger you will move faster
and faster through the material.
If your first Miles solo takes you one month to get through with this method, your next one might
only take you two weeks. And with each solo you will find yourself digging deeper and deeper into
the music and hearing more and more of the incredible detail and nuance that is contained within his
music.
If you were to complete this process with the entire record you would learn more about phrasing,
tone, articulation, musicality, development etc then most musicians cover in 5 years. And it would
probably take you a matter of months.
The greatest players in the world are the ones that are willing to do what others are not. Like follow
this disciplined and deep path into Mile‘s music, and take it to completion.
There‘s no magic or extra talent or luck or circumstances that make it possible. Great players simply
do things differently than the mass majority of mediocre players. And if you do the things that great
players do you will get the results that great players get. Plain and simple.
Now to further strengthen this process, I recommend you add two simple steps to your practicing. At
the beginning of your session, before you start to play write down exactly what result you plan to
achieve. Then at the end of the session make a few quick notes about the session.
Did you achieve your result?
What worked? What didn‘t?
What could you do different or better tomorrow?
Were there any other take aways from the session?
Keep this journal and review before each session. Looking back through it you will gain great insight
about your practicing. This journal will also serve as a chronicle of your progress. You will be able to
see real progress happening. The awareness of this progress will only serve to give you further
momentum and confidence.
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You can apply this approach of results based practice to any area of music, whether you are learning
tunes, practicing scales and arpeggios or working on an improvisation concept.
Next, lets talk about four laws of success related to results based practice that when applied will
further skyrocket your musical advancement. I originally came across these laws of success from a
writer, entrepreneur, and all around inspiring individual named Mark Joyner. He‘s got great concepts
about success and goal achievement that work extremely well with musical goals. I‘ve taken these
laws and adapted them to a musical context.
Much of this next section is taken directly out of my ―Monster Jazz Formula‖. I‘ve reprinted an
abridged version of it here because I believe you will find, when applied, these concepts will be
invaluable to your musical success.
Musical Success Law #1

The Shortest Path between Two Points Is A Straight Line.
By this point you‘ve begun to lay your foundation for musical success. You are clear about your
values and you are clear about your goals.
You‘ve taken this foundation and picked your most important goals and worked your way back down
to today‘s practice session. This work you‘ve done alone will put your practicing on the fast track.
But I‘d like to share with you 4 laws of musical achievement that if applied will really push your music
over the edge and speed up your progress. You see we‘ve been brainwashed by society to believe
that learning and advancing with music has to take a long time. But it‘s possible to move forward far
faster than you realize.
Now, I‘m sure you‘ve heard of the law of

straight lines. It is one of the basic laws of
geometry. The shortest path between two
points is a straight line. Now, I‘m no
mathematician or physicist, so I‘m
presenting this law loosely. For our
purposes, it is an analogy and a method to
approach goal achievement.
Let‘s say then that one of the two points is

where we are right now; our current skill
level with a particular musical topic. The
other point is of course where we are
going. It‘s the level of skill or knowledge
about a particular musical topic that we
want to attain. It‘s the tune we want to
learn or tune we want to write. It‘s the
band we want to start; it‘s the record we
want to record.
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If you‘re in New York and you want to go to Boston you don‘t go there via Las Angeles. You choose
the shortest path available to you. The same is true for learning music. If you want to learn the
melody to Body and Soul for instance then that is the point you are aiming at. You would first define
certain parameters, such as key, tempo etc. You might break it down into bite size pieces. You might
use some memorization techniques to learn it. But once you have your plan you would simply get
busy working on the tune, piece by piece, until you reached your goal.
Now if you wanted to learn the tune on piano, but you have never even touched a piano before there
might be preliminary steps, such as learning basic piano techniques and the necessary fundamentals
of music. But assuming at least a novice level of piano skills you would simply learn the tune. You
might listen to a recording of it a few times to get the sound of it in your ears, and then work
through it phrase by phrase until you had it.
You wouldn‘t need to get a hold of 30 recorded versions first, finish the Hanon piano technique book,
read a book about learning tunes or any other steps. You just need to learn the tune. Many jazz
musicians (including yours truly) tend to get hung up on some aspects of studying. We over-study
and over-practice, always preparing, never doing. We overcomplicate matters. We add extra steps.
Of course learning 30 versions of Body and Soul would be an excellent study of the tune and the
many possible interpretations of ballads. If your goal was to become an expert on ballads and the
tune Body and Soul this might be your course of action. But if you just want to learn the tune, than
just do it.
How far you go on the path to your goal, depends on your ability to find the shortest path and STAY
ON IT. Sometimes society and our peers want us to believe that success is hard and elusive. But it‘s
not. It‘s simply a matter of taking the right steps and staying the course. Keep your eye on the prize.
This principle can be summed up another way: keep it simple, less is more. Do not introduce
unnecessary steps. Whether the extra steps are unnecessary musical steps or blatant procrastination
eliminate them. Achieving a goal is usually far easier than we think. The shortest path between two
points is a straight line.

The Law of Clear Vision.
Clear vision applies to all levels of the planning process, from the big picture to the details. You must
simultaneously see your vision for the future and the target you are aiming at today. To hit your
target you must see it.
Imagine you were an archer and you wanted to hit the bull‘s eye. You would take out your
‗instrument‘, a bow and arrow, look at the target, aim and fire. If you missed you would simply take
another shot, then another, until you hit your target dead on. While going through this process your
aim would improve, you would learn how to direct the arrow where you wanted it to go and you
would acquire all of the skills necessary to hit the target.
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Now imagine that you were wearing a blindfold and were spun around 5 times. How hard would it be
to hit your target? If you hit it, it would be by luck alone. Chance. To take it one step further,
imagine there were sixteen targets in front of you. You would have to choose which one to hit. If you
were blindfolded you might hit any one of the targets, or none of the targets. Again, luck and chance
would determine your success.
This is how many jazz musicians approach their musical development. They never take the time to
choose a target. And they never take the time to see the target. You can‘t apply the law of straight
lines if you don‘t see your target. Lack of clear vision is the chief cause of failure and mediocrity.
You can‘t hit 10 targets at once. No matter how talented you are. You must learn to see one target in
front of you and ‗hit it until hit it.‘
All great musicians and highly successful people understand and practice this principle. They are able
to hold one target in their sites. More importantly they are able to see it clearly. The more clearly you
define your target the more likely you will hit it and the faster you will hit it.

The Law of Focused Attention.
Now we‘ve covered clear vision, how in order to hit your target you have to see it. Once you see your
target you must hold your attention on the target long enough to hit it. You must hit it, until you hit
it. You may have a clear vision of your target but if you don‘t maintain your focus and your actions
you will not hit it.
Again imagine you were an archer. You see the target in front of you, the bull‘s eye. Now what would
happened if you were simultaneously trying to hit the target, watch your favorite TV show and carry
on a serious conversation with your significant other about the future of your relationship? Chances
are you wouldn‘t hit your target or catch much of the TV show. And How about the serious
relationship? Well, you might even do some damage. It‘s not a recommended approach to succeed at
anything.
To hit a target you focus your undivided attention on it until you hit it. You can‘t be taking phone
calls, text messaging your friend or watching TV while aiming at a target. Your results will
undoubtedly be diminished. You must learn to literally ignore and block out all other distractions and
single-mindedly focus on hitting your target.
Having too many targets can also distract you. If you are trying to squeeze 10 practice topics into a
one-hour practice session you will most likely make little progress. If you are constantly watching the
clock because you need to get to the next topic in time to squeeze in all 10 you will be distracted.
Timing your practice sessions and planning out chunks of time for several different topics is an
excellent tool and practice. Musicians will often have several topics they are working on, especially
early on. You might have a warm up routine, work on your C# major scale patterns, work on a tune
and practice an improvisation technique. If you had a specific result in mind for each of the topics
26
and focused your attention solely on the topic for the allotted time, this could be a productive
approach.
So you need complete focus and attention during your daily practice session. But you also need to
maintain your focus and attention day by day. If your target is to learn all of the major scales on
piano with both hands playing an octave apart with the ‗correct‘ classical fingerings, up and down
two octaves at quarter note equals 100, than you need to focus your attention on that until you hit it.
The plan you sketch out for yourself might extend over a one-month period with three keys per
week. You would than have to maintain your focused attention over the course of the month or
however long it actually takes you to hit your target.
If you‘re like me, you find it much easier to start projects than to finish them. It‘s exciting to start a
new book, transcription or topic. Somehow that initial spark of interest in a new project can fade out
over time. But if you want to achieve greatness—in particular, if you want to become a monster jazz
musician—you have to develop the habits of follow-through and completion. They are the traits that
truly differentiate those who realize their dreams from those who don‘t.
If you focus your attention and maintain it until you hit your target, then move on to the next target
and focus on that target until you hit it, and so on, you will also be applying what success guru, Brian
Tracy calls the law of accumulation. Success is built on tiny victories and perseverance. Tiny victory
after tiny victory after tiny victory equals huge progress. At first the progress may seem minimal but
stick with it and soon your musical development will begin to snowball.
See your target, find the shortest path to it and „hit it until you hit it.‟ This simple practice
will set you apart from the majority of jazz students in the world. The ability to focus your attention
on your target and work single-mindedly until completion will put your music on the fast track and
you‘ll be well on your way to becoming a monster jazz musician, faster than you ever thought
possible.

The law of focused energy.
The law of focused energy builds upon the law of focused attention. It states that the more focused
your energy (i.e. practice) the greater your results. If your attention and thus your energy are
focused on many things the impact of your energy will be less.
Let‘s look at an analogy. Compare a sharp knife and a blunt rock. What is the primary difference
between the two? Most people would answer that the knife was sharp and the rock was not. The
knife is ‗sharp‘ because the point of the knife and the blade of the knife allow you to focus your
energy (i.e. arm movement) on a smaller surface, thus allowing you to pierce and cut. With a sharp
knife you could easily cut a thin slice of cheese. What would happen if you tried to use the blunt
rock?
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Our results from practicing are much the same. If we have razor sharp focus we can easily ‗slice‘
through musical material. Your energy (i.e. practice) becomes diffused and weakened as you expand
it out over too many topics.
In order to have razor sharp focus you must trust yourself and your efforts. You must trust that you
will reach your targets in due time. This is the jazz musician‘s great paradox. We often want so badly
to be better than we are that we move too quickly and take on too much. By doing this we are
effectively shooting ourselves in the foot.
Young and less developed musicians always seem to be in a hurry to get somewhere. They are
certainly not happy where they are, but someday they will ―arrive‖ and live happily ever after. They
will become great players and then their life will begin. Wrong. Even if this methodology worked and
they somehow became great players, they still wouldn‘t be happy. It still wouldn‘t be enough.
Herein lies the paradox. Being in a hurry and trying to go too fast usually means slow progress or
even complete paralysis. Going slowly and patiently with a high level of focus, conversely, usually
means faster progress. Slow and steady wins the race.
I believe it was Bill Evans who was once asked

what he practiced when he was coming up. He
answered, ―As little as possible.‖ Many young
players practice as much as possible. And they
scramble along from topic to topic trying to get
there as fast as possible. I‘m not saying that
becoming an accomplished musician doesn‘t
require a lot of practice, a lot of time in the shed,
and study of a lot of topics. It does. But how and
why you practice is sometimes more important
than how much and what you practice.
While it is extremely important for anyone

aspiring to excellence to think ‗big picture‘, you
must simultaneously be sharply focused on your
target for today. What tiny little result will you get today? What tiny aspect of music will you learn or
improve today? The answer to that question will truly determine how far you advance with music.

Persistent Problem Areas That Just Won‟t Go Away. Arghhh!
Now this is a biggie, a major frustration for many jazz musicians. We‘ve all got these demons and
skeletons in the closet.
28
This could really be any area of music, big or small that a musician struggles
with and never successfully figures out how to conquer.
It might be sight-reading. Or it might be sight-reading certain things like

sixteenth note rhythms or ledger lines, or bass clef.
It might a certain style of music like Latin jazz.
It might be certain keys, or certain meters.
It might be up-tempo playing or maybe ballad playing.

“Why Can‟t I
Get It” It might even be something as small as the bridge of a certain tune.
For a bass player it might be using a bow or soloing.
For a pianist it might be the pedals.
For a trumpet player it might be the upper register.
For a saxophonist it might be intonation.
For a drummer it might be brushes or certain tempos.
We‘ve all got these things that haunt us. We‘ve tried in vein to get them together but we never quite
get there. Occasionally they pop up at a gig or session and we cringe while that familiar knot in our
stomach comes back once again.
There are a variety of causes for this situation we find ourselves in.
Let‘s deal with the more abstract and psychological one first, Self-concept. Now, your self-concept is
made up of every belief you hold about yourself. It‘s really quite an amazing and important thing. In
fact, I might even go so far as to say that it is everything! Your beliefs about your self and specifically
about your music and musical abilities will determine how far you go with music.
Somewhere along the line you decided that playing in three was difficult or that eartraining was hard,
sight-reading was impossible or that you could never learn to play fast. Try as you might, you
continue over the weeks, months and maybe years to struggle with these areas. Each failed attempt
only further solidifies your negative beliefs in this area and this too becomes a perpetual cycle.
So, how do you break this cycle and conquer this problem area once and for all?
Begin by recognizing the fallacy in your assumption about this musical area. If you can learn to play
in four, it stands to reason that you can play in three. If you can play in one key it stands to reason
that you can play in another key. If you can learn to read in treble clef surely you can learn to read in
bass clef. If you can play bebop why can‘t you learn to play Latin jazz?
29
Once you understand that this negative assumption does not make sense you can get busy breaking
through the barrier.
What you‘ll need to do is change your belief system as well as apply the excellent habits of practice
and goal attainment we‘ve already covered.
First let‘s talk about changing your belief system. Now whenever we try to change our ‗minds‘ we find
our selves in a tricky situation. Your mind can be very clever and will always resist change at first.
Especially if this is an old problem area.
Start by consistently reminding yourself that this is a false assumption. Then begin to change your
inner dialogue. You see, the way we talk to ourselves has a tremendous impact on what we think
about ourselves. Watch out for the word CAN‘T. It‘s probably the most dangerous word in the English
language. Of course if English isn‘t your first language then you‘ll need to deal with whatever the
equivalent translation is in your language.
If you catch yourself saying something like ―I can‘t play fast‖ or ―I can‘t play in tune‖ or ―I can‘t sight-
read‖ or ―I can‘t improvise,‖ stop yourself immediately and correct your inner speak with something
more positive and optimistic. Usually it‘s a case that you WON‘T or HAVEN‘T YET learned to perform
well those areas. So replace that language with I Can and I Will.
Next, go through the goal setting process. Determine exactly what you want to be able to do.
Determine the steps to get there. Add to this why you want to learn that. Determining why you want
to learn something and why your music will benefit by learning it can be a powerful motivator.
Focus on the goal and the benefits not the obstacles or the reasons why you can‘t do something. In
fact try to list as many ways you will benefit and as many reasons why you CAN learn it.
Next break the problem down to the smallest most easily achievable step you possibly can. Than
work on that one step, that one result until you nail it. Then go on to the next step. As you begin to
see yourself succeeding in this area you will slowly build up confidence and soon your false
assumption will dissolve and slip away and you will be on your way to breaking the boundary for
good.
Watch out for that mind of yours though, especially at the beginning. It will try to trick you into
falling into old patterns. Persevere and you‘ll get through it.
Another powerful tool you can add to this strategy is visualization. Sit in a quite place and relax.
Then, imagine yourself achieving this goal. Imagine in vivid detail, what it would look like, sound like
and most importantly, feel like to achieve this goal. Develop this visualization to the point where you
can conjure it up on cue. Practice this exercise daily early in the morning when you first wake up or
right before you practice. Many people have used the power of visualization to help them achieve
many goals including top musicians, top athletes and top achievers in all fields.
30
There are many ways you can use visualization. Here are a few more ideas.
Create a stream of ‗snapshots‘ that you hold in your mind for a few seconds (say 30) then switch to
the next.
Create a snapshot of yourself actually performing the musical concept at peak level.
Create a snapshot of a your teacher or other musician telling you how much you improved in that
area.
Create a snapshot of a review by a jazz critic commenting on your prowess in that musical area.
Create a short ‗movie‘ in the ‗theatre of your mind‘ where you are performing the concept/area at
your peak. Imagine every detail of the performance. What does the music sound like? What does the
room look like? Who else is there? How does your body feel? What are you thinking? Feeling?
Now, visualization only works if it‘s done frequently, like several times a day for a month. If at first
you find it difficult, rest assured that like everything else, it will improve with practice. Don‘t worry if
your visualization is vague or fuzzy at first. This is one case where it really is the thought that counts.
And visualization only works if it is accompanied by action. In other words you still need to work on
the problem in reality; you need to practice.
Each time you address and conquer one of these problem areas you should celebrate the victory.
Each time you achieve any goal for that matter, you should celebrate, congratulate yourself and feel
good about the victory. With each step forward you are increasing your musical foundation, your
creative wellspring and your self-confidence. And you will be on your way to achieving your musical
dreams.
In Closing
I hope by now it is clear to you that there is no reason for you to not achieve any goal with music
you put your mind to. There are so many musicians who end up frustrated and give up on their
dreams all together. This is unfortunate and unnecessary. By becoming aware of all the many false
assumptions we have we remove the constraints that are holding us back from musical achievement.
By applying excellent practice habits and practice planning skills we move forward faster. As we move
forward we improve and strengthen our musical foundation as well as our learning and practice skills.
We become more focused and more productive. Our music improves and our lives improve. Along the
way we throw away more and more false and negative beliefs about our music. We become freer
and freer and more truly artistic than ever before. Our musical growth and artistic output increase
exponentially as we move ever closer towards our musical vision and our true potential.
31
A Quick Recap of the Monster Jazz Principles
What I‘ve attempted to do in this manifesto is to get you thinking about your music differently than
you have before.
Here‟s a quick recap of what we covered.
1. How talent is not nearly as important as you think. Besides, you probably have more talent
and untapped potential than you need.
2. The law of purpose. Focus on finding your purpose and leveraging your musical strengths.
This is the path that all great players have taken, consciously or not.
3. In order to deal with information overload we must first determine what is important to us
and what we want to achieve. Then we determine the necessary steps and the information
we actually need to achieve those musical goals. We only need as much as we need to say
what we want to say.
4. How, seemingly, the whole world will try to steal your attention and your time and how
fending these distractions off will exponentially improve the productivity of your practice
sessions.
5. Practice for results, plain and simple. By learning some small thing or improving some small
area of our music each and every day we skyrocket our musical development forward
towards the stratosphere.
6. Define your desired musical results in detail and discipline yourself to work on that result
until you hit it. This habit alone will put you ahead of the pack.
7. Don‘t add any extra steps. Practice exactly what you need to practice to hit the goal.
Remember the law of the straight line.
8. Be crystal clear about your targets. You can‘t hit a target you can‘t see.
9. Focus all of your attention on your target until you hit. Avoid distraction and avoid moving
from target to target before completion.
10. The more razor sharp focused your practicing is the more quickly you will slice through
musical goals. Avoid being too vague or general. Get in there deep with the music, like Bill
Evans taught us.
11. Check out your self-concept and false assumptions about music. Work step by step to
rewire you mind and to finally conquer those pesky problem areas.
If you follow these suggestions you will be well on your way to achieving your musical dreams and
goals, and it will happen a lot faster than you might have imagined possible.
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Let me be frank, the strategies, ideas and tools I shared with you today are just the appetizers. The
main course is ―The Monster Jazz Formula‖.
You can check it out at http://www.learnjazzfaster.com/monsterjazzformula.htm
So if you‘re ready to take your music to the next level you need to take a look at the formula.
The concepts and ideas presented in the course have changed the lives of countless musicians.
Stay tuned. I‘ll tell you more about it soon.
I wish you the best with all your musical endeavors.
To Your Musical Success,

Chris Punis
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©2008 LearnJazzFaster.com LLC All rights reserved ~ www.learnjazzfaster.

Joel Yennior—Trombonist with Gypsy Ken Hiatt—Accordionist, Band Leader,

There‟s a very big idea inside and many people

Who is Chris Punis?

©2008 LearnJazzFaster.com LLC All rights reserved ~ www.learnjazzfaster.com

But let‟s start at the beginning…

Music was so much simpler back then. We would play around,

I practiced 8, 9 even 10 hours a day on some days. I never mastered

Instead of building a magnificent musical ‗castle‘ on top of a sturdy

So I would practice harder.

Soon I was beating myself up about a variety of things:

 I wondered if I had it, if I had enough talent.

Something clicked in my head. Now I knew I was doing something wrong

I began to feel good about music again. I was inspired again.

But that‟s not the end of story.

So why am I sharing this all with you?

The Jazz Musician‟s Lament:

What if I told you it was none of the above?

Now, ask yourself this…

Does your current musical level equal your potential?

Have you ever asked yourself

…Why am I not a better player?

…What am I doing wrong?

…What‟s wrong with me?

…Will I ever succeed in music?

And have you ever found yourself wondering…

“Why is becoming a jazz musician so hard?”

They wonder if they are practicing the „right‟ stuff.

They don‟t know where to begin or how to choose what to practice.

They are frustrated that their playing is so inconsistent.

Practicing ever more and ever faster; advancing ever slower

We completely lose sight of the point of music in the

This is a very painful place to exist. Each time we

We can begin to obsess about music. It‘s all we think

Major Musical Challenge #1

The Law of Dharma or Purpose of Life.

So what‟s the solution to this problem?

Major Musical Challenge #2

Information Overload rears its ugly head in several ways.

First of all, there is an incomprehensible amount of

“If Everything in Music is Important

Let‟s talk about foundation first.

How about the next step?

Continue this simple process and work your way backward.

The other side of information overload.

Major Musical Challenge #3

Results Based Practicing.

Your final goal here might be defined as such:

Upon completing this goal you will be able to:

Did you achieve your result?

What worked? What didn‘t?

What could you do different or better tomorrow?

Were there any other take aways from the session?

Musical Success Law #1

Now, I‘m sure you‘ve heard of the law of

Let‘s say then that one of the two points is

Musical Success Law #2

Musical Success Law #3

Musical Success Law #4

I believe it was Bill Evans who was once asked

While it is extremely important for anyone

Major Musical Challenge #4

It might be sight-reading. Or it might be sight-reading certain things like

It might a certain style of music like Latin jazz.