Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

Welcome to episode 269 where I have the audacity to suggest that you only need to know one scale in order to start improvising over jazz standards. And chords? Only a small handful.This episode will help beginner and intermediate jazz musicians cut the fat, weed out the excess, and get down to the essentials.Every month in our LJS Inner Circle membership, we do something called the Monthly Jazz Mastermind. And this is an opportunity for all the members to get on a live Q&A call with me to ask any music or jazz-related questions. It's a lot of fun and we had a great question that came up, and the question was, "as a trumpet player, which scales and chords are considered to be a must-know before going on to others?"And the first way I answer this particular member was that it doesn't matter if you're a trumpet player or a guitar player, a bass player, or a saxophone player. Whatever instrument you play when it comes to jazz, there are really only a few scales and really only a few chords that you need to know before going on and exploring more in-depth things. In fact, I had the audacity to suggest that this particular musician only needs to know one scale. So, let's dig into that in this episode. Let's discover this. Let's break things down, make things simpler and let's do this thing.In this episode:1. Understanding the major scale 2. Understanding how to harmonize a major scale with 7th chords 3. There are only 5 chords you need to know 4. Understanding how to utilize the major scale over all of the 7th chordsImportant Links:1. Podcast Sponsor: Modacity (music practicing app) 2. LJS Inner Circle Membership3. Free Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart WayLearn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

Welcome to episode 268 where today we have a very special episode in celebration of our 1 year birthday of our LJS Inner Circle membership. We have a lot of guests on the show, members of our Inner Circle, share their musical breakthroughs to help you get an idea of what's working for them so you can take action for yourself.Today's episode is a very special episode. It's an episode where we are celebrating the one-year birthday of our LJS Inner Circle membership. And to celebrate that I wanted to have members of our Inner Circle come in on the podcast and share their musical breakthroughs with all of you. Because I believe that when we listen to other musicians who are in the same position as you, you're not professional musicians, not any of those other people, who have actually seen success in their jazz playing. We want to know what those things actually are. If we can learn from others like us trying to accomplish the same thing, we can fast-track our growth by just keying into these things. So you are going to learn so much in today's episode from so many different special guests. Get ready for this. This is going to be a fun celebratory episode.In this episode:1. Our members share their jazz breakthroughs so you can learn what is working best for musicians just like youImportant Links:LJS Inner Circle MembershipFree Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart WayLearn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

Welcome to episode 267 where today we have a special guest, founder and CEO of Modactiy, Marc Gelfo, on to talk about practice strategy. In this episode, Marc digs beneath the surface and shares his thoughts on practicing effectively drawing from neuroscience, psychology, and his experience as an extraordinarily accomplished french hornist.When it comes to practicing, we often talk about what you should be practicing to improve your musicianship or your jazz skills. And often some tactics are prescribed. I know that I often prescribe certain practice regimens, different things that you can do to accelerate your progress. But we often don't talk about the deeper side, the brain side, the psychological side of practicing. How we can speed up our development by the way we think, by the way we feel physically. And all these things that are kind of meta and beneath the surface of what we normally talk about when we talk about practicing.So, on today's show, I have a very special guest Marc Gelfo, the founder of the practicing app Modacity, to get inside of all this stuff with us, to talk about the mind, the body, and music and how we can apply some real strategies for improving our practicing and improving our progress.In this episode:1. Marc's background on how he came to effective practicing 2. Why practicing well matters (and the consequences of not) 3. Marc's emotional, mental, and technical practice hacks 4. The role of recording your practice 5. Modacity and how it can help you practice more effectivelyImportant Links:1. Modacity (Marc's Practice App)LJS Inner Circle MembershipFree Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart WayLearn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

Welcome to episode 266 where today we talk about swing feel, what it is, how to properly swing, and some common mistakes musicians make. Swing is the most unique style of jazz, despite there being multiple straight eighth styles associated with jazz. But what exactly makes up a swing feel, and how do we find the balance between "over swinging" and "under swinging." This episode gets you headed in the right direction.Even though jazz has a lot of different styles and grooves associated with the genre, the most unique style is swing. The idea of swinging your eighth notes, then of course all the other rhythmic associations that come with that. I mean, even a bass player just playing quarter notes can swing really hard and have that feeling underneath it. But I hear a lot of musicians not really quite hitting the mark. Not really getting the swing feel correct. And so, I want to dive into that in today's episode, to really kind of discover the rhythmic background to the swing feel and then try to figure out what is the sweet spot with swinging and playing eighth-note lines that are straight, what's the beautiful perfect match between the two of those that will really make us groove really hard.In this episode:1. Swung eighth notes are based on a triplet pattern 2. How to play straight eighth, triplet eighths, and swung eighths 3. Avoid accenting the "let" of the triplet. 4. Finding the sweet spot between straight and swung eighth notes 5. Copying other jazz musicians' swing feel will help you better understand the feeling of a good swing feelImportant Links:1. Podcast Sponsor: Modacity (music practicing app)2. LJS Inner Circle Membership3. Free Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart WayLearn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

Welcome to episode 265 where today I have on special guest musician Michael Lake to talk about overcoming musical frustration. It's not uncommon for a musician studying jazz to get frustrated with their musical progress, which in unhealthy amounts can sometimes lead to demotivation. Michael lends his thoughts on how to work through this and how to set yourself up for long-term success.The reality of studying any kind of music is that eventually, you are going to get frustrated with your progress. You are going to be frustrated with the way you sound. You are going to be frustrated with how quickly you are progressing. You are going to get frustrated if there's something difficult in that music that you are having a hard time wrapping your head around.And this is especially true for jazz being a more complex kind of music, with more complex harmony, and improvisation just in general being a challenging concept. But we don't want to stay in that place of frustration for too long. We want to be enjoying ourselves and progressing. So, in today's show, I have a special guest Michael Lake to talk about overcoming musical frustration and give you some really practical tips and really powerful things for overcoming those barriers of musical frustration and musical motivation. In this episode:1. Defining your goals for what you want to get out of the music 2. Accepting your musical skill level as you grow 3. Overcoming frustration with action Important Links:Michael Lake's Music SavvyLJS Inner Circle MembershipFree Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart WayLearn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

Welcome to episode 264 where today I go over some tips and strategies for memorizing jazz standards in such a way that you are less likely to forget them and can recall them even if you haven't played them in a while. I go over a few don'ts of memorizing jazz standards, and some work you can do ahead of time and during the process of learning that will make a difference.The question I get quite often is how do I memorize jazz standards so I don't forget them, especially because it seems as if it's required of me to know a lot of them? Like 10, 15, 20, 30, 50, maybe even more jazz standards when you go out to a jam session. Maybe you are a musician who is actually starting to gig around a little bit at your local coffee shops and bars, and you need to know a lot of tunes. And it can be really frustrating especially if you have learned the tune only later when it's called on a jam session or a gig to forget it.So in this episode, I'm going to be digging into some strategies and some tips I can offer to help you memorize jazz standards better and really get the most out of them so that you are not forgetting them that you are able to put them to use on the bandstand.In this episode:1. Learn the melody using the LIST Process 2. Understand the major and minor diatonic series 3. Be able to recall in your head and on your instrument common chord progressions in different keys 4. After learning the chords to a jazz standard, categorize each set of changes rather than thinking of chords individually Important Links:LJS Inner Circle MembershipFree Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart WayLearn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

Welcome to episode 263 where today I go over a simple strategy you can start implementing into your practice. It's called the L.R.C Practice Strategy, and it will help you take your practice to the next level with structured and focused actions that yield better and faster results.In today's episode, I'm going to be teaching a simple but powerful practice strategy that I first kind of put a name to and revealed in a masterclass that I gave at our recent Learn Jazz Live 2021 Virtual Summit. And this is a practice strategy that I implement in a lot of my courses, of course, in my own playing and any other students that I've taught in the past. I've used this practice strategy to help accelerate the process of becoming a better jazz improviser and making sure that while practicing, you are utilizing all the elements of the material you are learning to really make quicker progress.I'm excited about this episode, it's a quick but powerful one. In this episode:1. Learn 2. Refine 3. CreateImportant Links:LJS Inner Circle MembershipFree Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart WayLearn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

Welcome to episode 262 where today we are reaching into the LJS Podcast Vault and going back in time to revisit an episode all about Bossa Nova. Special guest Livio Almeida walks us through the basics, shedding light on important rhythms, composers, and tunes. This is one of those episodes that needs another listen!Today on the podcast we are going to be traveling back in time. We are going to be reaching into the vault of the LJS podcast to reflect on an episode back in the earlier days of the show that I think is really important and one that I don't really talk about, or at least a subject matter I don't really touch on a lot nowadays because I'm not really an expert in the field.However, it's really important to jazz, and that is Bossa Nova and understanding the basic rhythms, understanding some ideas about how to play Bossa Nova well because Bossa Novas are a big part of the jazz standard repertoire so we need to know that very well.I had a special guest, Livio Almeida, onboard this episode that we are going to revisit today and he is an expert at all the stuff and an incredible jazz musician as well. In this episode:1. Learn about the origins of Bossa Nova 2. Learn basic rhythmic structures of Bossa Nova 3. Learn important composers to be aware of 4. Learn important tunes you need to learn 5. Learn about "Choro" music (Brazilian bebop) 6. Brent recaps his biggest episode takeawaysImportant Links:LJS Inner Circle MembershipFree Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart WayLearn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

Welcome to episode 261 where today I'm covering 4 levels of jazz chords so that you can start implementing these concepts into your comping and jazz solos. In this episode, I start with the simplest of chords, triads, and build up in complexity. You'll learn how jazz musicians take basic chords and transform them into colorful harmonic tools.In your jazz studies, you probably noticed that jazz standards have a wealth of harmonic information in them. And jazz musicians don't even always stick to that harmonic information in the jazz standard. Sometimes they take a chord and they change it. They make it even more colorful. Sometimes they remove a chord. Sometimes they'll add in different chords altogether. So how do we go from just very basic chords? Like just regular triads that you've heard of, you know, rock and pop and all that stuff, and slowly turn them into "jazzy chords"?Well, that's what we are going to talk about in today's episode. Four different levels of jazz chords starting from incredibly basic to a lot more complex and more colorful, the kind of stuff that jazz musicians like to play in their harmony, their comping, and in their solos.In this episode:1. Triads 2. 7th Chords 3. Extensions and Alterations 4. Chord Substitutions Important Links:LJS Inner Circle MembershipFree Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart WayLearn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

Welcome to episode 260 where today I'm covering a 7 step process for improvising over a jazz standard starting from zero. This is the exact process that my Inner Circle members go through to learn and improvise over a new jazz standard every month, and now I'm sharing it with you.Check it out! I just got done practicing 4 hours to demonstrate the material that I'm about to show you in this episode where I'm going to show you how you can go from essentially not knowing a  jazz standard almost at all to improvising over it at a fairly high level. And there are 7 steps I'm going to walk you through that I personally went through today to get myself to this point and certain tools that I use in order to accelerate this process.So I'm really excited about this process. This is one of those episodes where it's kind of a big, big one and I really want you to pay attention to this one.In this episode:1. Learn the melody and the changes 2. Learn and memorize a chord tone map 3. Learn and memorize a guide tone map 4. Learn and memorize a scale map 5. Learn one chorus of an etude or solo 6. Compose your own chorus of a solo 7. Improvise a chorus of a solo Important Links:LJS Inner Circle MembershipFree Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart WayLearn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!