16 Tips For Playing Music In A Group

This list of advice for playing music in a group I picked up from one of my instructors while attending Musicians Institute. The advice is from jazz keyboardist Chick Corea. Chick says as a preface “these bits of advice are policies and guidelines that formed through the years. I’ve found them to be comfortable, useful attitudes and rules. Use them if they work for you – discard them if they don’t”.

I find this list particularly relevant to blues and jazz styles, where communication and improvisation are central.

1. Play only what you hear.
2. If you don’t hear something, don’t play anything.
3. Don’t let your fingers and limbs just wander – place them intentionally.
4. Don’t improvise on endlessly – play something with intention, develop it or not, but then end off-take a break.
5. Create space – then place something in it.
6. Leave space – create space – intentionally create places where you don’t play
7. Make your sound blend, listen to your sound and adjust it to the rest of the band and the room.
8. If you play more than one instrument at a time – like a drum kit or multiple keyboards – make sure they balance with one another. (edit: As a guitarist I relate this to different guitars, amp settings and effects patches)
9. Don’t make any of your music mechanically or just through patterns of habit, create each sound, phrase, and piece with choice-deliberately.
10. Guide your choice of what to play by what you like – not by what someone else will think.
11. Use contrast and balance the elements: High – Low, Fast – Slow, Loud – Soft, Tense – Relaxed, Dense – Sparse
12. Play to make the other musicians sound good. Play things that will make the overall music sound good.
13. Play with a relaxed body. Always release whatever tension you create.
14. Create space – begin, develop and end phrases with intention.
15. Never beat or pound your instrument – play it easily and gracefully.
16. When improvising use mimicry sparsely – mostly create phrases that contrast with and develop the phrases of the other players.

If you haven’t heard Chick Corea, you should check him out on iTunes, YouTube or Rhapsody. His playing is stellar and he has worked with a who’s who of jazz-rock guitarists: Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin, Scott Henderson and Frank Gambale to name just a few.

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