An important thing to do when you go out to jam sessions is to listen to, and heed, what other musicians say about your playing, even if it really hurts. Or rather, particularly when it really hurts. Don't be defensive, don't offer any excuses. Just listen. Go home, lick your wounds, get out your instrument, and work hard on sorting the problem out.
This was an EXCELLENT video! I especially appreciated that -- when listing the standards/tunes to be learned-- with each, he gave theoretical reasons for why that particular tune was chosen. Some musicians simply have the knack to break things down. As basic as a lot of this is, surprisingly-- but pleasantly so, I was engaged throughout the video. With my attention-span, I usually don't make it past 3-5 minutes before having to take a 'break'. Thank you, my friend. Peace
Very confused. Why put up a CMaj7 chord and then play the BbMaj7 arpeggio? All the arpeggios are played in Bb... And you seem to be saying that this is for "a complete Jazz beginner", but then you require advanced theoretical knowledge, musical language and chord proficiency. Signed Doubtful
I'm about to give up on practicing. I don't see the point. I don't live in a giant city so there's no jam sessions near me, so I have no one to play with. If I'm just practicing for nothing, what's the point?
I actually started my jazz education by listening to your podcast 5 years ago. It really helped me isolate exactly what I needed to work on to achieve my goal. Thanks to you, and many other great teachers, I can now play reasonably fluent improvisation by connecting chord tones using chord scales, by playing melodically using key centres, and by weaving in learned ii-V-I licks where appropriate. I'm working on getting altered sounds using triad paris / tritone subs etc and now I'm really trying to focus on learning more actual jazz language and integrating it into my improvisations. It's a long road but at least I know it's the right road now. Thanks for all the help over the years Brent.
Great video as always. Intermediate here, I think not enough people talk about motivic development though. As a listener I think this what I find the difference is between artists I really like and others that I sometimes zone out listening to
I kind of liked your demonstration of the beginner. Wasn’t better than the intermediate , but it sounded good. It is likely because when you try to sound like a beginner by playing largely the scale without any two five sort of licks - you yourself are not particularly a beginner so your tone and time is good and so on. 😀
This is an absolutely fantastic video! Thank you so much. What I had been doing lately is going back to the standards and pop tunes I learned several months ago and see if I can remember to play them by memory and by ear. Then I will audit that action and go back and double check if I remembered it correctly by looking at the charts of the songs. But I really try to dig deep into my memory and also use my ear before I “check my work”. This has helped me tremendously with my retention of songs.
Thank you for your video. Btw, do someone knows how to transcribe a chord that contain like 6 different notes without déjà-vu method (like an usual chord E G# Eb Bb F or Emaj7b5b9 or Ebsus2/Emaj). Usually, I recognize only chords or progressions that I already know. And it's hard for me to sing the notes besides the bass and the highest notes. Any advice, thank you very much for your help.
Sadly, I've been wandering in the wilderness of level #2 jazz beginner for over twenty years: I keep learning and forgetting, learning and forgetting, learning and forgetting: Blues, Autumn Leaves, Blue Bossa, All of Me, Sweet Georgia Brown, So What (and many more not on this beginner list); arpeggios, scales, licks, solos. And I still can't improvise a solo that sounds 'cool' to my ears.
Thanks a lot for your videos. I have one question, for the begging level ,as a guitar player. Do you think important play all these standards in all keys? Or master the standard just in one key? I'm talking not just the melody but the accompaniment.Thanks
Great video with superb advise :) 30 years ago I could not really make it to the intermediate plateau with my jazz guitar.... now I am back on saxophone, so with your advise I hope to reach higher!
I'm working to fill gaps in my soloing ability. Between forgotten information and just not doing it for 30 years, it's like starting over. Currently, if I'm performing, I generally compose all of my solos. I'm pretty good at mimicking the style of artists rather than finding my own. I've never been able to figure that part out. I tend to sound a bit like whoever I'm listening to at the time or the style of the piece. But nothing signature sticks, and I'm not one to want to listen to one artist forever. So I'm hoping this will help. My goal is to eventually play professionally.
Intermediate here, great video! Surprisingly you didn't even mention the altered scale or bebop. For me the bebop soloing technics has made a huge difference, and I would recommend beginners to start their improvisations there. Well, off to learn more standards..
If someone is able to solo over the bridge of Have You Met Miss Jones spelling out the changes, making it sound musical and you consider them to be a beginner-- we have very different definitions of skill levels.
@@yksityinenoma7821 It's a very common tune at open jams (at least it was when I was doing open jams in the 90s and early 2000s). Yes, it's got a tricky bridge, but it's not as complicated a tune as, say, Airegin, which I first encountered at an open jam, but which is by no means as common or as much of a core of the jazz repertoire, or Cherokee, which is faster and in my opinion has a trickier bridge. I would say being able to pretty consistently do decent solos on Have You Met Miss Jones is intermediate-level. I have to admit, though, that my views of what the levels of jazz skill are could be somewhat skewed, because my most serious studies of jazz began only after I got a Doctorate in Flute Performance as a classical musician, so I had already developed my technique and classical theoretical understanding to a high level and had a very good ear for chord progressions.
Just finished my first blues in F. I decided to learn Blues for Brandon. And honestly your channels helped by breaking down where the 251 major and minor progressions are and just tried different licks over it
Being older, I struggle with memory. Even if I memorize tunes, I will forget how to play them if I don't play them for a couple of weeks (unless I'm reading the music, then I'm okay unless it's been a year or more for faster runs.) My question is how often do you have to know a chart by memory on a single gig?
It really depends on the kind of gig. My main gig for the last few years has been as a soloist on flute at a nursing home, where I usually play for 2 to 2 1/2 hours. It's just me with my instrument and no stand. So I have to have enough repertoire I can play by memory. The longest gig I did there, a few years ago, was 3 hours and 20 minutes and then I called it a day because my arms felt like they were going to fall off, haha. I didn't run out of repertoire that day. But that's a really uncommon situation. There are many gigs where music stands are used, especially but by no means exclusively when groups are premiering new tunes. Not to ignore the possibly obvious, what could help your memory of tunes when you don't play them for a couple of weeks is listening to recordings of the tunes, so if you're not listening to recordings a lot, don't neglect that.
The plan is presented with such authority and energy that it's kinda compelling you to do the work exactly and simply as it says. It certainly takes a serious effort but it sounds completely doable and achievable. Thank you so much for pointing us all in the right direction. And greetings from Santiago de Chile.🤠
may seem like a silly question, but at the stage where you are first learning songs, at point in learning a song would you say “ok, you got this, start on the next song”?
I would say you should spend long enough to play it without having to read it and at the same speed or close. You also have to memorize or learn that tune's most important chord progressions and key changes. That should take a month... Just when you think you know it all, move forward and come back eventually to realize that you don't. In any case, it is important to feel challenged but not bored... As a disclosure note I may say that I am just a beginner on my way to intermediate but really enjoying the trip and improving fast 💪😉
Who's to say you can't learn two or more songs at the same time? I find that the way I continue to improve as a professional is to do total improvisations up and down the entire compass of my instrument (which sometimes results in finding worthwhile tunes to write down but is mainly an end in itself), find patterns and play them in different keys or up and down at particular intervals, and then play songs with backing tracks right here on TH-cam. Of course, before the pandemic, I played more jams with friends, and I probably will start doing that again soon - it's really important, and backing tracks, while really helpful, are not close to a substitute for jamming with people. But the main point is that the way to keep getting better as a musician is to keep enjoying the process of practicing, regardless of what level you're at, and keep finding more things to explore. So whenever you are starting to get bored with a song, feeling like you're in a rut with it, or feeling like you'd like to try another, switch. You can even put a song away for a while and come back to it, because the higher-level answer to the question of when you can say "OK, you've got this" is "never." There's always more to learn, more to explore and more to enjoy.
I’m a begintermediate. A self teaching 60+ beginner that has been playing long enough to play better than I’m currently able to. I can play a few tunes but can’t improvise. Your tips should help me focus and grow faster than I have in the past. Thanks.
heh, in 96 I've made a whole demo tape for my high school punk/blues rock band with a marshall like that. We've just put it close to the one and only mike :))
Great lesson. I have been playing for over 40 years and write my own songs. i know and practice scales and modes a lot. Lol. Diatonic, Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, Whole Tone, Half Whole, and Chromatic. I know many movable chords and inversions. But I think that I need to immerse myself in learning 10 and then 10 more jazz standards. I learned about 10-20 jazz standards about 30 years ago, but have forgotten them. Many of them are in the list you give here. I am going to really learn them and study them now. I have found a great place with an open jazz night. Each night there are about 20 musicians who come to play, and they rotate. They have already invited me so I have to brush up on a few songs for starters. This is something I really want to focus on, because learning this material opens you up to all sorts of music. Thanks!
HALF RIGHT my friend. As a music educator of over 20 years teaching thousands of lessons and students and thousands of gigs I think I only agree about half of what you say. Steps three and four I agree wholeheartedly but steps one and two can be adjusted. The greats, most not all did not learn the conventional way. They couldn't read a note or know anything about music theory. If jazz musicians want to up their game really fast, the number one thing is they need to find a teacher. Second they need to learn these jazz standards by ear not by reading it. Learning to read music in the beginning will hinder their progress guaranteed. The only minimal music theory they actually need is the name of the notes and chords. After learning a handful of jazz standards which shouldn't take that long, they need to get up on stage and start performing and this can happen in a little as a few months. Learntunes and solos by ear then perform them live, rinse and repeat rinse and repeat. It's that simple. I totally dig your channel by the way.
I so agree with you here. Learning about enclosures, target notes, voice leading is great, but a beginner/intermediate won’t be able to think about targeting a specific note three measures ahead when improvising at 140 BPM, a second before you get there. You must learn the “sound” of it first. An infant learns to speak way before it learns the rules of grammar. So you must listen (a lot!), sing, and transcribe by ear first, then you can figure the theory behind it. As you said, finding a teacher/guide is THE most important thing. Watching videos alone provides no feedback as to what you need to do to improve. There are even online communities, such as Learn Jazz Standards and JazzWire that can provide such guidance and feedback. And have fun!!!
I like this channel but it sickens me to see you trying to 'play the game' with these ridiculous thumbnails. The open mouthed 'soy face' is one of the worst kinds, these remind me of children's magazines on the bottom shelf, crafted to appeal to the most immature instincts. Others are jumping on board, putting feminine emojis into the actual thumbnail itself. You can make thumbnails that don't provoke disgust and disrespect.
![ผัวเถื่อน - ยูริ โตเกียวมิวสิค [ OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/P08ORRVDGl8/mqdefault.jpg)
you younger cats watching this, listen to this man. ive been playing jazz bass for 30 years and I can tell you, usually you gotta pay for this advice.
Thanks Justin! Glad you agree
Thanks Justin! Glad you agree
bros comment was so important he had to say it twice
An important thing to do when you go out to jam sessions is to listen to, and heed, what other musicians say about your playing, even if it really hurts. Or rather, particularly when it really hurts. Don't be defensive, don't offer any excuses. Just listen. Go home, lick your wounds, get out your instrument, and work hard on sorting the problem out.
Great advice. I hear a myriad of excuses why someone didn’t sound good or played the wrong notes.
the worst is when they don't say anything...
This was an EXCELLENT video! I especially appreciated that -- when listing the standards/tunes to be learned-- with each, he gave theoretical reasons for why that particular tune was chosen. Some musicians simply have the knack to break things down. As basic as a lot of this is, surprisingly-- but pleasantly so, I was engaged throughout the video. With my attention-span, I usually don't make it past 3-5 minutes before having to take a 'break'. Thank you, my friend. Peace
On the instrument technique and theory side, I am intermediate. But when it comes to ear training and the whole picture, definitively beginner.
As an almost “jazz beginner,” this makes a lot of sense to. It sounds reasonable. Thanks for these tips.
Great suggestions, especially composing solos, because that will actually improve my ability to improvise. It takes discipline!
Very confused.
Why put up a CMaj7 chord and then play the BbMaj7 arpeggio?
All the arpeggios are played in Bb...
And you seem to be saying that this is for "a complete Jazz beginner", but then you require advanced theoretical knowledge, musical language and chord proficiency.
Signed
Doubtful
I'm about to give up on practicing. I don't see the point. I don't live in a giant city so there's no jam sessions near me, so I have no one to play with. If I'm just practicing for nothing, what's the point?
according to your taxonomy I would be .... beginner. That's tough.
feel you
I actually started my jazz education by listening to your podcast 5 years ago. It really helped me isolate exactly what I needed to work on to achieve my goal. Thanks to you, and many other great teachers, I can now play reasonably fluent improvisation by connecting chord tones using chord scales, by playing melodically using key centres, and by weaving in learned ii-V-I licks where appropriate. I'm working on getting altered sounds using triad paris / tritone subs etc and now I'm really trying to focus on learning more actual jazz language and integrating it into my improvisations. It's a long road but at least I know it's the right road now. Thanks for all the help over the years Brent.
This is so golden, you are generating future pat methneies more than he is making now in side eyes programe
Excellent advice for a structured long term approach! Congratulations Sir!
Glad you found it helpful Richard!
I am intermediate. Thanks for the tips, especially learning more jazz standard, and composing solos. Love this channel.
Great video as always. Intermediate here, I think not enough people talk about motivic development though. As a listener I think this what I find the difference is between artists I really like and others that I sometimes zone out listening to
I kind of liked your demonstration of the beginner. Wasn’t better than the intermediate , but it sounded good. It is likely because when you try to sound like a beginner by playing largely the scale without any two five sort of licks - you yourself are not particularly a beginner so your tone and time is good and so on. 😀
Excellent. The best Jazz beginner to advanced video by far. I am very much a beginner so this really helped me.
This is an absolutely fantastic video! Thank you so much. What I had been doing lately is going back to the standards and pop tunes I learned several months ago and see if I can remember to play them by memory and by ear. Then I will audit that action and go back and double check if I remembered it correctly by looking at the charts of the songs. But I really try to dig deep into my memory and also use my ear before I “check my work”. This has helped me tremendously with my retention of songs.
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you for your video. Btw, do someone knows how to transcribe a chord that contain like 6 different notes without déjà-vu method (like an usual chord E G# Eb Bb F or Emaj7b5b9 or Ebsus2/Emaj). Usually, I recognize only chords or progressions that I already know. And it's hard for me to sing the notes besides the bass and the highest notes. Any advice, thank you very much for your help.
Sadly, I've been wandering in the wilderness of level #2 jazz beginner for over twenty years: I keep learning and forgetting, learning and forgetting, learning and forgetting: Blues, Autumn Leaves, Blue Bossa, All of Me, Sweet Georgia Brown, So What (and many more not on this beginner list); arpeggios, scales, licks, solos. And I still can't improvise a solo that sounds 'cool' to my ears.
Thanks a lot for your videos. I have one question, for the begging level ,as a guitar player. Do you think important play all these standards in all keys? Or master the standard just in one key? I'm talking not just the melody but the accompaniment.Thanks
I like how no one ever mentions singers :D (not)
Great video with superb advise :) 30 years ago I could not really make it to the intermediate plateau with my jazz guitar.... now I am back on saxophone, so with your advise I hope to reach higher!
Ebook on jazz beginner and intermediate to advance level ???
Level 1. I'll see you in one month on level 2 (I hope).
I'm working to fill gaps in my soloing ability. Between forgotten information and just not doing it for 30 years, it's like starting over. Currently, if I'm performing, I generally compose all of my solos. I'm pretty good at mimicking the style of artists rather than finding my own. I've never been able to figure that part out. I tend to sound a bit like whoever I'm listening to at the time or the style of the piece. But nothing signature sticks, and I'm not one to want to listen to one artist forever. So I'm hoping this will help. My goal is to eventually play professionally.
Stella by Startlight 😀. or by Stoplight? Great video. Cheers.
Thank you for these many really good tips!
Beginner 🔰 jazz, thank you very much for the video, can I get a link to download the jazz blues and jazz standards 🙏🙏🙏
Intermediate here, great video! Surprisingly you didn't even mention the altered scale or bebop. For me the bebop soloing technics has made a huge difference, and I would recommend beginners to start their improvisations there. Well, off to learn more standards..
This video is very helpfull for me!!
Thanks
Peter, Germany
Pure inspiration!, thanks !!, Joe Pass told me the same things 30 years ago!.
How's that for validation?
Why do the ten songs do not include Misty and Summertime? Just wonder
If someone is able to solo over the bridge of Have You Met Miss Jones spelling out the changes, making it sound musical and you consider them to be a beginner-- we have very different definitions of skill levels.
I agree, that song do not belong to the beginner list at all, it’s a difficult song to improvise over. More like advanced players.
@@yksityinenoma7821 It's a very common tune at open jams (at least it was when I was doing open jams in the 90s and early 2000s). Yes, it's got a tricky bridge, but it's not as complicated a tune as, say, Airegin, which I first encountered at an open jam, but which is by no means as common or as much of a core of the jazz repertoire, or Cherokee, which is faster and in my opinion has a trickier bridge. I would say being able to pretty consistently do decent solos on Have You Met Miss Jones is intermediate-level. I have to admit, though, that my views of what the levels of jazz skill are could be somewhat skewed, because my most serious studies of jazz began only after I got a Doctorate in Flute Performance as a classical musician, so I had already developed my technique and classical theoretical understanding to a high level and had a very good ear for chord progressions.
Just finished my first blues in F. I decided to learn Blues for Brandon. And honestly your channels helped by breaking down where the 251 major and minor progressions are and just tried different licks over it
Very helpful, Brian... thank you! One thing I often hear from other jazz musicians is the importance of transcribing. Any thoughts on that?
OOPS Brent...sorry about that name error!
When learning solos by ear, do you notate it on paper or do you just stick to learning on the instrument?
just found your channel , will be watching for more : ) ☮️
Being older, I struggle with memory. Even if I memorize tunes, I will forget how to play them if I don't play them for a couple of weeks (unless I'm reading the music, then I'm okay unless it's been a year or more for faster runs.) My question is how often do you have to know a chart by memory on a single gig?
It really depends on the kind of gig. My main gig for the last few years has been as a soloist on flute at a nursing home, where I usually play for 2 to 2 1/2 hours. It's just me with my instrument and no stand. So I have to have enough repertoire I can play by memory. The longest gig I did there, a few years ago, was 3 hours and 20 minutes and then I called it a day because my arms felt like they were going to fall off, haha. I didn't run out of repertoire that day. But that's a really uncommon situation. There are many gigs where music stands are used, especially but by no means exclusively when groups are premiering new tunes. Not to ignore the possibly obvious, what could help your memory of tunes when you don't play them for a couple of weeks is listening to recordings of the tunes, so if you're not listening to recordings a lot, don't neglect that.
The plan is presented with such authority and energy that it's kinda compelling you to do the work exactly and simply as it says. It certainly takes a serious effort but it sounds completely doable and achievable. Thank you so much for pointing us all in the right direction. And greetings from Santiago de Chile.🤠
Thanks so much!
The BEST advice! Thanks!
Thanks Fabio, glad you found this helpful!
Excellent content; outstanding presentation. Thank you; it’s going to be a long but wonderful journey!
I play sax but I'm learning so much from this young man.
Thanks!
Composing is just improvising in step-time.
Save the list at 7:40
wisdom
Fantastic advice! Thank you!
🔥 🔥 🔥
Very helpful thank you 🙏🏿
may seem like a silly question, but at the stage where you are first learning songs, at point in learning a song would you say “ok, you got this, start on the next song”?
I would say you should spend long enough to play it without having to read it and at the same speed or close. You also have to memorize or learn that tune's most important chord progressions and key changes. That should take a month... Just when you think you know it all, move forward and come back eventually to realize that you don't. In any case, it is important to feel challenged but not bored... As a disclosure note I may say that I am just a beginner on my way to intermediate but really enjoying the trip and improving fast 💪😉
Who's to say you can't learn two or more songs at the same time? I find that the way I continue to improve as a professional is to do total improvisations up and down the entire compass of my instrument (which sometimes results in finding worthwhile tunes to write down but is mainly an end in itself), find patterns and play them in different keys or up and down at particular intervals, and then play songs with backing tracks right here on TH-cam. Of course, before the pandemic, I played more jams with friends, and I probably will start doing that again soon - it's really important, and backing tracks, while really helpful, are not close to a substitute for jamming with people. But the main point is that the way to keep getting better as a musician is to keep enjoying the process of practicing, regardless of what level you're at, and keep finding more things to explore. So whenever you are starting to get bored with a song, feeling like you're in a rut with it, or feeling like you'd like to try another, switch. You can even put a song away for a while and come back to it, because the higher-level answer to the question of when you can say "OK, you've got this" is "never." There's always more to learn, more to explore and more to enjoy.
A real key point to internalizing is to learn the lyrics of the standard and let them get stuck in your head
Great video, really mapped out a logical, yet demanding, schedule.
Thanks for the road map to advanced jazz.
I’m a begintermediate. A self teaching 60+ beginner that has been playing long enough to play better than I’m currently able to. I can play a few tunes but can’t improvise. Your tips should help me focus and grow faster than I have in the past. Thanks.
Opino exactamente como tú, excelente video!!
heh, in 96 I've made a whole demo tape for my high school punk/blues rock band with a marshall like that. We've just put it close to the one and only mike :))
Thank you so much for this video! I have read and reread your book, and the information in this video reinforces the concepts in your book.
Thank you!
Al Gore Rhythm Comment.
I love you sir!
This is so helpful, thank you soooooo much!
Glad it was helpful! Thanks
This is a very helpful video. I'm a bigger with guitar and piano.
Great lesson. I have been playing for over 40 years and write my own songs. i know and practice scales and modes a lot. Lol. Diatonic, Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, Whole Tone, Half Whole, and Chromatic. I know many movable chords and inversions. But I think that I need to immerse myself in learning 10 and then 10 more jazz standards. I learned about 10-20 jazz standards about 30 years ago, but have forgotten them. Many of them are in the list you give here. I am going to really learn them and study them now. I have found a great place with an open jazz night. Each night there are about 20 musicians who come to play, and they rotate. They have already invited me so I have to brush up on a few songs for starters. This is something I really want to focus on, because learning this material opens you up to all sorts of music. Thanks!
HALF RIGHT my friend. As a music educator of over 20 years teaching thousands of lessons and students and thousands of gigs I think I only agree about half of what you say. Steps three and four I agree wholeheartedly but steps one and two can be adjusted. The greats, most not all did not learn the conventional way. They couldn't read a note or know anything about music theory. If jazz musicians want to up their game really fast, the number one thing is they need to find a teacher. Second they need to learn these jazz standards by ear not by reading it. Learning to read music in the beginning will hinder their progress guaranteed. The only minimal music theory they actually need is the name of the notes and chords. After learning a handful of jazz standards which shouldn't take that long, they need to get up on stage and start performing and this can happen in a little as a few months. Learntunes and solos by ear then perform them live, rinse and repeat rinse and repeat. It's that simple. I totally dig your channel by the way.
I so agree with you here. Learning about enclosures, target notes, voice leading is great, but a beginner/intermediate won’t be able to think about targeting a specific note three measures ahead when improvising at 140 BPM, a second before you get there. You must learn the “sound” of it first. An infant learns to speak way before it learns the rules of grammar. So you must listen (a lot!), sing, and transcribe by ear first, then you can figure the theory behind it. As you said, finding a teacher/guide is THE most important thing. Watching videos alone provides no feedback as to what you need to do to improve. There are even online communities, such as Learn Jazz Standards and JazzWire that can provide such guidance and feedback.
And have fun!!!
@@ronklein482 Nice!
I like this channel but it sickens me to see you trying to 'play the game' with these ridiculous thumbnails. The open mouthed 'soy face' is one of the worst kinds, these remind me of children's magazines on the bottom shelf, crafted to appeal to the most immature instincts. Others are jumping on board, putting feminine emojis into the actual thumbnail itself. You can make thumbnails that don't provoke disgust and disrespect.