Listen once, play once

Today's tip is a simple one, but an important one for learning material. For most people, the first thing they do when digging into learning a lick or solo is to play along with the recording. When playing along with the recording there's a percentage you'll miss... rhythm, notes (notes that you'll miss or replace with incorrect ones), nuances (such as pulls and other articulations that help speak the notes) and dynamics. This can easily be fixed by listening to the lick you're trying to copy once and then playing along with it once. Listen to it again once to pick up on what you didn't hear the first time and play along with it once again. Setting this lick into an A/B repeat with a program like the Amazing Slow Downer makes this easy and fast to do. Give it a try, you'll both speed up the learning of material and finish with less errors.