Want to develop the ability to play what you hear?
It helps a lot to simply spend time playing melodies from memory.
These might be jazz standards, but any melodies will do.
Start simple - playing children’s songs, folk melodies, etc.
Gradually increase complexity and difficulty.
The melody doesn’t need to be exactly right.
For the purpose of this exercise, paraphrasing the melody is fine.
Personalizing the melody can be part of the process of remembering.
The goal is to be able to:
remember the melody, more or less, (hear it in your mind) and then
transfer the melody to your instrument
This brings memory and ear training together, along with technical facility on the instrument.
Spend some time on this area of practice daily.
You’ll train your ears and develop repertoire and melodic vocabulary for improvisation while you’re at it.
Not sure what melodies to draw from?
Find a list of standard tunes online and go from there.
Here’s one.
But don’t limit yourself to jazz standards.
Pop music, classical themes, TV music, it’s all good.
This isn’t the whole story.
You can also practice scales, arpeggios, etc.
But don’t overlook developing the ability to play melodies and themes from memory.
This is an essential skill as demonstrated by many of our favorite jazz players, with Sonny Rollins being the grand master of this approach.