people use this, it's a really good way to check your own judgment to see how to

improve your judgment. Because it's your judgment you're working with. So one way to

do that is- it's an easy way to apprentice. What you do is you find a recording of a passage

or song or an artists, that has the kind of time and rhythm that you like, you say “Wow,

that's cool. I wish I could be that-” whatever. That fluent or that smooth or that

swinging or that whatever. What ever your concept is.You say,“Boom. I wish I could-" see

languages,” it's so hard to describe. “I wish I could do that.” So, what you

do is you take that as a model. And for the first step in practice is try to duplicate

it. Just mimic it completely. See if you can find out by mimicking it, what the points

in it are that you like, technically. You can mimic it. I used to do that with Bud Powell's

music. And I tried to mimic his motion. So I get the flow of his rhythm and so forth.

That's step number one. And then turn the recording off and play it yourself and see

if that has helped you get the groove and improve. That's one way to do it. That's-I'm

going to give you the ultimate exercise in a second. But that's one way to do it, when

you're on your own in your practice room. Another thing that I wanted to say is another

method that musicians use that is really great, that I think is really valid, is that you

record yourself. Use a sequencer or use a recorder of any kind or video, use an actual video

recorder. And record yourself playing something. Something that you would like to judge whether-

on what level it is. What you need to improve and then play it back and look at it or listen

to it and go, “Well that's too much this way and it needs more of that.” So now practice

more of that toward whatever your ideal is. Because the tricky thing is, only you're going

to know when you reach a point where you go, “Oh yeah, thats pretty good.” Who else

is going to tell you that? Who, that matters? You're not looking for admiration at this

point. You're looking for, you've got to know. So you've got to start trusting

your own judgment. Now the ultimate exercise is not only in improving time, but improving

anything that you'd like to improve as a musician, is what I called, what is generally

known as the apprenticeship system. Apprenticeship. Now when you're an apprentice, you find

a “master,” to work with. It could be anyone. It could be your next door neighbor

who plays a little bit better than you. Or a friend. Or whoever it is who's got an

ability that you think you would like to have too. And you go play with him, you go work

with him, you go collaborate with, you go make music together and this is how anyone

learns a trade, or anyone learns the piano, or how anyone learns an instrument. You go

and play with other musicians that can help you understand the area that you're trying

to learn in and so forth. That's called an apprenticeship. Work with a band, work

with another musician. Always with the idea that you want to learn something and you're

there to assimilate what positive things you see and learn from them. And that is the ultimate,

“secret” of improving your time, your rhythm.