Trust your ears...

Last night at the jam at Moody Brews, I got into a conversation with another player that I keep thinking about. He said something I've heard plenty of times, and honestly, something I used to feel myself.

"I had this stuff down at home...but when I got up there, it just didn't feel the same."

The thing is, it's not supposed to. When you're practicing at home, everything's in your favor. Stop, rewind, fix it. Just you and the material. No variables. The jam is something else. The tempo breathes, the drummer lays back, the bass player pushes, the space sounds nothing as you expected, and your adrenaline is off doing its own thing. So, of course, it feels different. That's not a sign that something went wrong. It's a sign you stepped into something real. These are the moments I lean into. This is where music comes to life.

I asked what he was focused on while he was playing. 

"I was just trying to read everything right. I don’t even know where I am."

I've been in that exact place. Locked into the chart, half a step behind the music, trying to execute every detail as written. What I've learned is that a shift needs to happen in your thinking. Stop relying on the page and start trusting the ear. Listen more than read. Lock into the groove. React to what the rhythm section is giving you. Sometimes that means simplifying or letting go of something you practiced and leaving space instead of filling it.

The chart got you to the gig. It showed you the form and gave you the roadmap, but once the music starts, you don't want to sound like you're just reading a map. You want to sound like you know where you're going. Some things don't transfer the way you’d expect. What’s important are your “ears” and your time feel. How you recover when something goes sideways is your willingness to stay in it when it gets uncomfortable. That's the real stuff. Music is tension and release.

In a solo, time almost slows down, like there's more space than there actually is. Then you listen back to a recording and think, man, that moved fast. That used to throw me, but now I take it as a sign I was actually present. I find myself searching for that when I practice nowadays. I still work on details, but I try to build in some kind of unpredictability. Practicing things faster than what feels comfortable. Starting in the middle of phrases. Playing along with recordings that push and pull. When something falls apart, I don't always stop. I practice getting through it. Getting things memorized so the page isn't a crutch when it counts. Because the goal isn't to play it right alone in a quiet room. It's to be ready for whatever the music becomes once other people are in it.

If it feels different on the bandstand, nothing went wrong. That's the real thing. The goal isn't perfection. It's fluency, trusting your ears and hearing what's happening in the moment, and responding honestly.

That's when it stops feeling like practicing and starts feeling like music.

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