‹ Drafts

Kenny Werner Jazz Masterclass: Core Ideas Compressed

The Zone & Performance

  • The zone is created by not criticizing yourself during performance
  • Performance is about not being careful - your safety net is internal
  • Self-criticism breaks the groove; your reaction to notes disrupts flow
  • Practice loving every sound aggressively before you have time to evaluate
  • “Carnegie Hall, Carnegie Deli—doesn’t matter” - cultivate healthy detachment
  • Care deeply off-stage; be indifferent on-stage
  • Personal power of the musician makes notes right (Monk example)

The Paradox of Caring

  • When you desperately want to play well, you play worse
  • When you don’t care, it flows
  • Peak experiences fade because excitement about the experience breaks it
  • Don’t notice how you sound; notice how it feels
  • Walk off stage as if the performance never happened

Practice vs. Playing

  • Practicing: Study of what you don’t yet control (left brain, analytical)
  • Playing: Carte blanche acceptance of everything (right brain, flow)
  • These modes must never contaminate each other
  • Efficient practice means only working on what you’re uncomfortable with
  • The “20 variations method”: isolate problem spots, find 20 good ways through

The Toothbrush Analogy

  • Practice with the detachment and consistency of brushing teeth
  • Don’t evaluate progress during practice
  • It doesn’t take talent to upgrade—it takes patience
  • Consistent daily practice without emotional investment in results

When Practice Is Complete

  • When the formerly difficult passage requires no more mental effort than easy parts
  • “Don’t quit a day before the miracle happens”
  • Unaddressed weaknesses plague you for life—they don’t improve with age

Mind Sabotage

  • The mind constantly generates criticism: “should be more burning/modern/authentic”
  • Two flows disrupted: flow of playing AND flow of practicing
  • Impatience breaks the practice groove
  • “Grandiose statements” like “I’ll never get this” don’t help and aren’t true

The Ego’s Role

  • Ego pushes you beyond competence during performance
  • Creates “disease state of mind”: anything easy can’t be worth much
  • Links self-worth to playing quality (unhealthy)
  • Makes honest self-assessment emotionally painful

Self-Assessment Without Pain

  • View weaknesses as inventory, not proof of inadequacy
  • “Whatever my worst gig is—that’s how I play”
  • If you mess up form, you haven’t mastered form (simple diagnosis)
  • Separating self-worth from ability enables honest assessment

False Limiting Beliefs

  • “I can’t swing—I’m Danish” / “I’m a woman in a man’s world” - all false
  • Every limitation comes from presumptions that aren’t true
  • People who don’t listen to these thoughts go far

Foundational Skills for Improvisers

  • Rhythm
  • Time
  • Linear manifestations of chord changes
  • When these are effortless, you can play anything put in front of you

The Five-Minute Rule

  • “Practice for 2 hours” = you don’t practice (waiting for time to appear)
  • “Practice for 5 minutes” = you practice a lot (often becomes 45 min)
  • Five minutes is always your way in
  • Many small opportunities beat waiting for perfect conditions

Transformation: Process vs. Instantaneous

  • Breaking into consciousness is instantaneous
  • Learning to access it at will is the process
  • The practice: stay in that state longer and longer until it becomes who you are

From Thinking to Feeling to Sensuality

  • Beyond the thinking mind lies emotional connection
  • Beyond emotion lies physical, embodied pleasure in playing
  • Greatest singers revel in the sensuality of sound production

Teaching Philosophy

  • Traditional education often prevents the “real experience of music”
  • Establish joy of playing first, then technique
  • The teacher’s job: embody and radiate love of the subject
  • More important to share excitement than to teach content
  • “Freedom to” (mastery enables) > “Freedom from” (escape)

Authenticity & Success

  • Performance must come from within comfort zone (controlled material)
  • Your voice emerges only on material you’re deeply familiar with
  • Record what you know, not what you’re working on
  • Phrasing is extension of personal identity—don’t deny your background
  • “Your strength is in what’s really happening with you, not who you’d like to be”

Going Deeper Into Who You Are

  • Everyone has everything inside them
  • Become special by going deeper into your specificity
  • “The secret of great spirits is how deeply they love what they’re doing”
  • The universal resides within the particular

Carmen McRae Example

  • Presence, control, complete mastery of material
  • “Her presence was a concert”
  • Higher goal: transformation, not demonstration

The Path Summarized

  1. Thinking → Feeling → Sensuality
  2. Criticism → Acceptance → Love
  3. Effort → Effortlessness → Presence

Master Quote

“That is the closest thing to Enlightenment in music—loving absolutely every sound you make, no matter where it is.”