Scott K Fish: What kind of things do you practice?

I hear tales of you practicin

g eight hours a day.
Jack DeJohnette: I use to do that. I don t do it anymore. I just sit down and play
.
SKF: How long did you do that for?
JD: I don t know, man. I use to do it on the road. Do it
oint technically where you don t do it.

til you get to a certain p

Now I can practice half mentally. I can play as fast as I want or whatever. Do i
t mentally. As long as I sit down at the instrument one or twice a week. You jus
t get to a point where mentally you see yourself at the instrument and it s a cybe
rnetic thing.
perry_dejohnette_book[New York drum teacher] Charlie Perry pointed that out. Whe
n you see yourself doing the act and your brainwaves send out a signal to that p
art of your body. You don t actually follow through with it, but the message is se
nt there already. So it s already programmed. So when you actually sit down at the
instrument you ll find that you can play it
once you develop a certain amount of
dexterity and proficiency on the instrument.
SKF: There are certain drummers who practice using a book approach .
JD: I never did that shit because I never studied with a teacher. Cause I play pi
ano. I just went into a drum shop one day, got the 26 rudiments got the sheet
an
d learned all [of] them.
I looked at a few drum books. Charles Stone s Accents and Rebounds. Uh, that didn t
interest me to do. I knew what I wanted to do. I learned alot of what I did in m
y own head and listening to cats, watching them, talking with them, listening to
records. And actually on-the-scene experience. On the job experience.
There s a whole bunch of different ways you can get it.