I always say transcribing was the main thing that changed my style of playing big time, so id recommend that. And its not literally writing it down, its by ear. Also not whole solos, just the pieces you like the most and take them as exercises all over the neck. Basically figuring out the fretboard by the shapes of those lines.
I’m currently in a “jazz curious” midlife crisis phase 😂 It was sparked initially by listening to a lot of Robben Ford and wanting to add a bit more complexity to my solos. I felt a bit like I was following a trail of breadcrumbs like in the old fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. I got a bit lost just exploring this whole new vocabulary of music and listening to jazz almost exclusively. I’m not sure if I’ve actually really studied jazz but my solos are a little more sophisticated, I’ve learned some new chord voicings and I’ve had a lot of fun so I’d definitely recommend anyone who feels the pull to dip a toe in the waters of jazz. It’s a sea that goes deeper than anyone can ever possibly explore but it’s still nice to just paddle up to your ankles 🌊
I studied jazz with a great teacher a few years back..... I agree John, learning standards is the way. The changes and the melody,chord melody and then soloing. Taught me so much coming from blues and rock. Voice leading chords and bass lines opened up music to me. Totally worth it and enjoyable, and helped when I'm out doing blues, rock and country gigs!
One of the best decision Ive ever had was committing myself to the endless journey of learning JAZZ GUITAR. never look back since. And Thank you for the video!!
The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine is still the best one stop shop, after that transcribe your fav bits from fav solos from fav artists, be super focused, preferably only start with what you deeply love, life is too short to look into everybody you're supposed to
I’ve found learning to play jazz so invaluable to my playing. Not only improvising but also harmonic knowledge, rhythm, well everything. Start with whatever you like, there’s something for everyone in the jazz genre if you look hard enough.
It has taught me so much, coming from blues, rock, pop and it also allows to play these styles differently, both comping and jamming. I would surely recommend it, with the disclaimer that it needs time. But it is a very pleasant road to go through :)
The learning journey that you describe is very similar to my experience, an interest in more challenging music, leading to an exploration of Jazz. I may be wrong, but the thing that has stood out to me is that pop/rock styles tend to focus on scales, whereas I get the impression that Jazz musicians focus on chords and arpeggios and scales are secondary for adding interest between chord/arpeggio changes. That focus comes across in playing, it seems clear where "real jazz" seems to have very little interest in typical pop/rock scale based licks.
I remember my guitar teacher first introduced me to 5/4 time, Take Five. It was a total mind fuck for a young teen who did not know anything besides 4/4 timing. I am glad he did. It opened up my mind to a whole new type of music.
It’s just like asking if you should learn theory. In the end, it’s another tool in your arsenal for creating and implementing new ideas to something you’ve become established with.
You play jazz beautifully John. I'd like to recommend Bireli Lagrene's Standards album as a great way into hearing some fabulous jazz standards guitar playing. Phenomenal performances.
Robben Ford plays some jazz standards (and very well) on the amazing record by Ricky Lee Jones “Pop up”. And plays it on a nylon guitar! Listen to “My one and only love”
Great video John & I feel you've been tip toe-ing on the Jazz periphery a bit lately 🤔 I can totally picture you starting another Jazz channel, maybe even dressed up like Hirofumi Asaba! 👔
I like blues and as the years go by increasingly more the likes of Schofield etc, the players I like add so much from jazz and my teacher loves it so we went down the rabbit hole. You can learn so much from Autumn Leaves alone, just about how you can embellish major and minor 251s - we came at it from the arpeggios rather than scales. If you jump in at the wrong point it can be a bit overwhelming depending on what you’ve learned elsewhere.
Jazz is wide. I’d echo starting with the music you really like. I’ve never fallen for the classic 1950s ballad repertoire but it is obviously a rich seam.
Still new to improvising but the language between blues and rock is a lot closer together than either are to jazz. Jazz has its own language it appears.
Jazz is a fantastic repository of musical information. Totally agree with everything JNC says here. Even if you ultimately have no interest in performing the music, it certainly gives you a whole load of alternative note choices, which can be applied across many genres. I would say that about 80 - 90% of the guitar channels I follow on RUclips consist of playing that rarely moves away from the minor pentatonic. Jazz opens the door to many other note choices.
If you don't listen to Jazz on the regular - you'll never master it. You have to enjoy listening to almost all of it which is the struggle for me. I enjoy the groove and the changes, anything with guitar, but some of it is tough to get through. John Coltrane, Miles, Metheny and even Allan Holdsworth I do enjoy, but not most of it. I love Van Halen, A7X, Green Day, Bonamassa and EJ too much to go "full Jazz". Though after 26 years of playing I realized Jazz was a major oversight in my development. There are some excellent lessons, theory and techniques within the realm of Jazz that are worth learning. I just love the Jazz tone so much. Ugh....
Just insert jazz licks into solos and stuff that you do. Maybe pick some weird chords to make a progression around. Get creative with it. Don't learn jazz songs. :)
Listen to jazz guitar and see it it jives with you. Two albums recently inspiring my jazz journey are Solo Ballads by Pasquale Grasso and What’s It All About by Pat Metheny. And always anything by Herb Ellis, Charlie Byrd, or Joe Pass.
Have you checked out Bruce Forman at all? He has posted a bunch of 60 second improvs on standards -- he's really into bebop, but also has many other interesting ideas. I wouldn't consider him too "out there", but he's pushing it to the limit creatively, no question.
Why you should learn jazz is - so you can start to learn how to improvise over complex harmony. Much of rock and pop, you can get away with using a single scale. With jazz, you have to ''spell out'' the chords. So your using a different scale for every chord. So, you need to know scales to cover every type of chord that you can think of. To do it well is a lifetimes work. Also, music is half harmony and half rhythm. So you also need to develop interesting rythmic figures to make your phrasing interesting. Its really really hard. For me there are two kinds of guitarist - what I call ''pentatonic players'' who basically use a pentatonic scale over pretty much everything, and then there is everyone else that dives into the harmony. What makes SRV so great is that he is spelling out the chords rather than hacking around with a blues scale. It's a world of difference.
I'm a Jazz Guitarist and in my humble opinion any Guitarist can benefit from learning at least some basic Jazz Language and Phrasing. Their isn't just one way to Learn or Teach Jazz but, there is one method that has stood the test of time. Critical Listening with Transcribing by Ear. In my opinion the best place to start for someone that's new to Jazz Guitar is the Kenny Burrell album Midnight Blue. The reason is its so accessible. All the songs on the album with the exception of one are 12 Bar Blues. Also virtually all of Kenny's guitar solos on this album are Minor Pentatonic/Blues scale solos. This is why this album is so accessible to someone just starting out with Jazz Guitar. Most Guitarist are already familiar with the 12 Bar Blues form and the Minor Pentatonic and Blues Scale. After this album you can move on to other Traditional Jazz Guitarists and Concepts then Fusion if you want to. This has worked for some of my students. Thanks.
Wrong question: Learn the Major Scale, then listen to Jazz, (Schofield, Lage etc) makes it interesting and actually approachable, then curiosity makes you question the 10/15% that doesn’t work … triads then the H and M minors then follow etc etc…
For me, easy-listening jazz is great, although I can't really play it. More "out-there" jazz (e.g. Allan Holdsworth's style) is less accessible, and I don't enjoy that. Since I don't read music, I can't learn jazz from sheet music, and I do wonder whether if I'd been a reader, I'd be able to play jazz. the thing is, my brain isn't wired for jazz, and I think that goes for a lot of us.
Plenty of the jazz greats didn't read music, that won't stop you. That said, I think it's fair to say that a little more knowledge of theory is required as the tunes tend to have more going on than, say, a blues tune or a rock/pop song. You can still learn this by ear in the way that you probably learned whatever you currently play. Also there's a difference between enjoying listening to jazz and wanting to play - one isn't better than the other, it's just personal preference. If you want to play, identify your sub-genre and there are plenty of books and RUclips vids available to get you on your way without reading music. At the end of the day, it's all about tunes. Spend less time worrying about Giant Steps or Holdsworth and pick tunes from the Great American songbook. These were all written as vocal tunes so you will be able to play the melodies, and there are lead sheets and all manner of books where you can learn the chords. The worst case scenario is you'll be playing playing a tune you'll like and other people may like it too instead of 'shredding for hours to play Eruption' which is great, but when are you going to use it? Hang in there!
I think if you are a true student of playing guitar it doesn’t do any harm. My experience is I started to learn the jazz standards and advanced music theory. I stopped when I realised that I was never really going to use it playing live.
guitarist Bruce Forman has a list of 10 jazz tunes that if you learn them, will make the next 100 much easier to learn. There are patterns and types of jazz tunes -- so the idea of being able to play 300 tunes isn't quite as massive as it seems, though you have to put in work to get there. But if you have a higher level language to describe what type of tune it is, then much easier.
likewise being able to play in every key. You don't learn these tunes in every key, you learn the numeric changes (like Nashville changes) once and then you can play them in any key.
My jazz degree doesn’t mean I am a jazz player today- far from it. All the jazz lines help with Robben Ford. All the music theory helps with songwriting and advanced improv in any genre. All the transcribing helps with your ears. And just all the playing helps with all things guitar.
Don’t ask questions like does it worth especially you are playing music, there is not much economic benefit you can generate from only playing music, you put your practice time of 10000 hours of playing jazz to Uber delivery you get at least 200-300k, and if you put that amount of practice time into other areas, it definitely generates more. AI can easily replace most musicians within a short period of time. Does it worth playing jazz? Does it worth playing music? Do we still need human playing music? I don’t know but it makes me happy, so I play it.
My favorite living Jazz player is John Pizzarelli. Definitely go see him if he's in your area. I think learning some Jazz can definitely improve your musical vocabulary and challenge your knowledge if music in general.
If you don’t actually enjoy listening to jazz it’s unlikely that you’re gonna enjoy the process of learning to play in a jazz idiom. It’s very challenging compared to other styles and you really need to be INTO it to be any good. Listening to a LOT of it is probably the place to start. Otherwise, just learn some more advanced harmonic concepts than are usually found in pop or rock.
I’ve started going down the Jazz rabbit hole, after a diet of Radiohead, Oasis, Stone Roses, Ocean Colour Scene music diet growing up in 1990s. There’s loads of jazz music variations but some, to me just sounds as boring as a blues rock guitar wailing endless pentatonics for 10 minutes. Tried listening to the Miles Davis stuff but not for me. I always prefer the actual song stuff with the old jazzy swing bands like Frank Sinatra or even Nat King Cole. Something that’s going somewhere, instead of just messing around making sounds for 20 odd minutes. 😄
I think the core motive for learning jazz is to publicly evidence mastery over one's instrument & the largest array of musical expressions possible I mean, let's get real here. Maybe the most important jazz musician of the 20th century, Louis Armstrong, committed fully to music as a means to escape the excruciating poverty & oppression he experienced as a kid. It's obvious that his cultivating virtuosity in his playing, singing, public presentation & even relationships with others was to accomplish this goal when one does hear him play, sing & perform. Fact is, being a musician especially a music entertainer is HARD & it's so commonplace to see people having endured extreme poverty & oppression be among say the YJMs & EVHs, Chet Atkins, etc of virtuoso guitar -- all because they have tasted far worse alternatives. The legacy of European orchestras -- e.g., the Vienna Philharmonic, the London Symphony -- is built on horrific world wars, mindboggling economic depressions & deep, deep suffering to find, inspire & cultivate the very best musicians among us as they nay all of us are able. In especially the US, musically that means jazz hence, e.g., even Hilary Hahn's outreach towards modern compositions amongst her own virtuosic classical repertoire but especially Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Christian, etc especially Louis Armstrong hence the reverance still today by so many for say John McLaughlin whose own hard work & dedication in kind still doesn't go unnoticed. Yes it haunts as a sport not art but I don't personally regard that a conundrum...
Seems a tricky one to advise people when jazz is such a minority interest in UK. Music plays second fiddle to sports like football and jazz is a minority musical interest compared to pop, rock and country.
I am an amateur who pays jazz and I think you make a point. I do think Robben Fords jazz chops are underrated though. Listen to this mental outside playing here ruclips.net/video/tts1eDzeQ80/видео.htmlsi=6gcefDu-RVlXYJXI
If you don't already love jazz I don't think you should learn jazz guitar. It's very difficult, compared to blues, rock, reading music, whatever. There's a whole world of music-theory sort of stuff you have to master. Now once you've done this you'll be a much better player in all other genres, but if that's the only reason you're doing it, it takes quite a while to get to the payoff. The smart move is to learn jazz for it's own sake, and if you don't love it enough to want to do that, it's probably not for you.
How come I hear people using this term “ jazz just for the sake of it”. JNC seems to me to have coined this phrase on here. Well it’s his channel and cool 😎 he can say whatever, but I wonder if that’s a way that certain types of players (or nationalities?) think like that? Let me tell you you won’t get far if you don’t get into jazz like you mean it! The result of “I want to get a bit of jazz in my playing” ends up sounding like pretty noodly BS. I taught jazz for many years and heard that so often when getting calls for lessons, “I just want a bit of jazz” …. I used to tell them you can’t do “a bit of jazz” you go all in or forget it. There were times when I could tell that the student was putting a wall up. And “reading music” doesn’t mean you have to play fly shit at a hundred paces… you automatically will start to recognise note and rhythm patterns and key signatures. Get a competent professional teacher who will guide you through the process, someone who can pick up intuitively where you’re at and give the right material for whatever is the next step. The student is accountable and in my experience, enjoys the buzz of the penny dropping when they get the sudden satori… that was one of the most satisfying part of teaching for me. One young guy (c 18)I still remember getting some such realisation, going quiet for a minute and then going “ oh f### f### f### yeah!” FWIW I come to this site to get schooled by a digital native in the tech stuff, and it’s pretty mind boggling for me…. I’m likely older than John’s dad, but I stay in my lane… the learning never ends in tech it seems as it is in jazz. Every committed jazz player no matter how far on they are knows this, you’ll hear it continually…. but it (Jazz) won’t hurt you, it’s like truth, at first it will piss you off. 😁
This is a good perspective, but I think you turn off a lot of people by using the term “jazz” to describe - when it comes to “standards” - music that was and is simply pop music. Jazz was the furthest thing from the minds of the pop songwriters who wrote songs like Misty and Fly Me To the Moon and Skylark and the show tunes like those written by Gershwin and Rodgers and Hammerstein, and became “jazz standards.” They are just pop songs. Pop songs written by piano players as opposed to the guitar players who wrote the blues and rock songs. Paul McCartney grew up with a piano in his house and the pop music of the 40’s and 50’s on the radio, and once the Beatles outgrew playing 3 chord R&B tunes, they just incorporated a bit more of the earlier pop music and that’s what the new generation of music fans thought was so “revolutionary” when they heard it from bands like the Beatles in the 1960s. Rather than thinking about it as “jazz music,” I think it makes more sense to think about it as pop music when pop music was written by piano players.
I’ve been playing with Jazz ideas for a while now. My dad was a professional jazz guitarist, and when he passed I inherited all his amazing old archtops. But I grew up in the Van Halen 80s, and Jazz did little for me until recently. Despite attending Berklee. Jens is my favorite jazz RUclipsr. He has a lot of great lessons for those folks who want to dip a toe in without necessarily taking the full plunge. youtube.com/@jenslarsen?si=NpzIXXSpvszVR8dM
I always say transcribing was the main thing that changed my style of playing big time, so id recommend that.
And its not literally writing it down, its by ear.
Also not whole solos, just the pieces you like the most and take them as exercises all over the neck. Basically figuring out the fretboard by the shapes of those lines.
I’m currently in a “jazz curious” midlife crisis phase 😂 It was sparked initially by listening to a lot of Robben Ford and wanting to add a bit more complexity to my solos. I felt a bit like I was following a trail of breadcrumbs like in the old fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. I got a bit lost just exploring this whole new vocabulary of music and listening to jazz almost exclusively. I’m not sure if I’ve actually really studied jazz but my solos are a little more sophisticated, I’ve learned some new chord voicings and I’ve had a lot of fun so I’d definitely recommend anyone who feels the pull to dip a toe in the waters of jazz. It’s a sea that goes deeper than anyone can ever possibly explore but it’s still nice to just paddle up to your ankles 🌊
I studied jazz with a great teacher a few years back..... I agree John, learning standards is the way. The changes and the melody,chord melody and then soloing. Taught me so much coming from blues and rock. Voice leading chords and bass lines opened up music to me. Totally worth it and enjoyable, and helped when I'm out doing blues, rock and country gigs!
One of the best decision Ive ever had was committing myself to the endless journey of learning JAZZ GUITAR. never look back since. And Thank you for the video!!
The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine is still the best one stop shop, after that transcribe your fav bits from fav solos from fav artists, be super focused, preferably only start with what you deeply love, life is too short to look into everybody you're supposed to
Add Bert Ligon's Jazz theory resource, is really good as well.
This answered so many questions that I have had that I have not been able to easily find answers to in other places. Thank you so much!
Beautiful playing on the intro dude. X
I’ve found learning to play jazz so invaluable to my playing. Not only improvising but also harmonic knowledge, rhythm, well everything. Start with whatever you like, there’s something for everyone in the jazz genre if you look hard enough.
It has taught me so much, coming from blues, rock, pop and it also allows to play these styles differently, both comping and jamming. I would surely recommend it, with the disclaimer that it needs time. But it is a very pleasant road to go through :)
Thanks for raising this topic. Very helpful to hear your views and of course, your playing in this genre. Still sounds like you. Happy New Year!
The learning journey that you describe is very similar to my experience, an interest in more challenging music, leading to an exploration of Jazz. I may be wrong, but the thing that has stood out to me is that pop/rock styles tend to focus on scales, whereas I get the impression that Jazz musicians focus on chords and arpeggios and scales are secondary for adding interest between chord/arpeggio changes.
That focus comes across in playing, it seems clear where "real jazz" seems to have very little interest in typical pop/rock scale based licks.
I remember my guitar teacher first introduced me to 5/4 time, Take Five. It was a total mind fuck for a young teen who did not know anything besides 4/4 timing. I am glad he did. It opened up my mind to a whole new type of music.
It’s just like asking if you should learn theory. In the end, it’s another tool in your arsenal for creating and implementing new ideas to something you’ve become established with.
First thing you notice when going from traditional rock playing to jazz songs is SO MANY CHORDS
How did you deal with all the finger picking? I have no idea how to even get started on that.
Nice video John! I’ve been going through a lot of your old jazz videos lately, loving the Herbie songs.
You play jazz beautifully John. I'd like to recommend Bireli Lagrene's Standards album as a great way into hearing some fabulous jazz standards guitar playing. Phenomenal performances.
Robben Ford plays some jazz standards (and very well) on the amazing record by Ricky Lee Jones “Pop up”.
And plays it on a nylon guitar!
Listen to “My one and only love”
Great video John & I feel you've been tip toe-ing on the Jazz periphery a bit lately 🤔
I can totally picture you starting another Jazz channel, maybe even dressed up like Hirofumi Asaba! 👔
I like blues and as the years go by increasingly more the likes of Schofield etc, the players I like add so much from jazz and my teacher loves it so we went down the rabbit hole. You can learn so much from Autumn Leaves alone, just about how you can embellish major and minor 251s - we came at it from the arpeggios rather than scales. If you jump in at the wrong point it can be a bit overwhelming depending on what you’ve learned elsewhere.
Jazz is wide. I’d echo starting with the music you really like. I’ve never fallen for the classic 1950s ballad repertoire but it is obviously a rich seam.
Still new to improvising but the language between blues and rock is a lot closer together than either are to jazz. Jazz has its own language it appears.
The more you learn the more tools you have to underscore your own style and music. Go for it.
it's amazing how you can make every style every pedal every amp every guitar sound the same
Jazz is a fantastic repository of musical information. Totally agree with everything JNC says here. Even if you ultimately have no interest in performing the music, it certainly gives you a whole load of alternative note choices, which can be applied across many genres. I would say that about 80 - 90% of the guitar channels I follow on RUclips consist of playing that rarely moves away from the minor pentatonic. Jazz opens the door to many other note choices.
If you don't listen to Jazz on the regular - you'll never master it.
You have to enjoy listening to almost all of it which is the struggle for me. I enjoy the groove and the changes, anything with guitar, but some of it is tough to get through.
John Coltrane, Miles, Metheny and even Allan Holdsworth I do enjoy, but not most of it.
I love Van Halen, A7X, Green Day, Bonamassa and EJ too much to go "full Jazz".
Though after 26 years of playing I realized Jazz was a major oversight in my development.
There are some excellent lessons, theory and techniques within the realm of Jazz that are worth learning.
I just love the Jazz tone so much. Ugh....
Just insert jazz licks into solos and stuff that you do. Maybe pick some weird chords to make a progression around. Get creative with it. Don't learn jazz songs. :)
Listen to jazz guitar and see it it jives with you. Two albums recently inspiring my jazz journey are Solo Ballads by Pasquale Grasso and What’s It All About by Pat Metheny. And always anything by Herb Ellis, Charlie Byrd, or Joe Pass.
Have you checked out Bruce Forman at all? He has posted a bunch of 60 second improvs on standards -- he's really into bebop, but also has many other interesting ideas. I wouldn't consider him too "out there", but he's pushing it to the limit creatively, no question.
Why you should learn jazz is - so you can start to learn how to improvise over complex harmony. Much of rock and pop, you can get away with using a single scale. With jazz, you have to ''spell out'' the chords. So your using a different scale for every chord. So, you need to know scales to cover every type of chord that you can think of. To do it well is a lifetimes work. Also, music is half harmony and half rhythm. So you also need to develop interesting rythmic figures to make your phrasing interesting. Its really really hard. For me there are two kinds of guitarist - what I call ''pentatonic players'' who basically use a pentatonic scale over pretty much everything, and then there is everyone else that dives into the harmony. What makes SRV so great is that he is spelling out the chords rather than hacking around with a blues scale. It's a world of difference.
I'm a Jazz Guitarist and in my humble opinion any Guitarist can benefit from learning at least some basic Jazz Language and Phrasing. Their isn't just one way to Learn or Teach Jazz but, there is one method that has stood the test of time. Critical Listening with Transcribing by Ear. In my opinion the best place to start for someone that's new to Jazz Guitar is the Kenny Burrell album Midnight Blue. The reason is its so accessible. All the songs on the album with the exception of one are 12 Bar Blues. Also virtually all of Kenny's guitar solos on this album are Minor Pentatonic/Blues scale solos. This is why this album is so accessible to someone just starting out with Jazz Guitar. Most Guitarist are already familiar with the 12 Bar Blues form and the Minor Pentatonic and Blues Scale. After this album you can move on to other Traditional Jazz Guitarists and Concepts then Fusion if you want to. This has worked for some of my students. Thanks.
Wrong question: Learn the Major Scale, then listen to Jazz, (Schofield, Lage etc) makes it interesting and actually approachable, then curiosity makes you question the 10/15% that doesn’t work … triads then the H and M minors then follow etc etc…
Great video.
I think as a guitarist, start with Holdsworth…
…y‘know, something attainable.
Jazz is an amazing platform to learn dynamics and great tone
The tone. Man. That is one of the major drawl.
For me, easy-listening jazz is great, although I can't really play it. More "out-there" jazz (e.g. Allan Holdsworth's style) is less accessible, and I don't enjoy that. Since I don't read music, I can't learn jazz from sheet music, and I do wonder whether if I'd been a reader, I'd be able to play jazz. the thing is, my brain isn't wired for jazz, and I think that goes for a lot of us.
Plenty of the jazz greats didn't read music, that won't stop you. That said, I think it's fair to say that a little more knowledge of theory is required as the tunes tend to have more going on than, say, a blues tune or a rock/pop song. You can still learn this by ear in the way that you probably learned whatever you currently play.
Also there's a difference between enjoying listening to jazz and wanting to play - one isn't better than the other, it's just personal preference. If you want to play, identify your sub-genre and there are plenty of books and RUclips vids available to get you on your way without reading music.
At the end of the day, it's all about tunes. Spend less time worrying about Giant Steps or Holdsworth and pick tunes from the Great American songbook. These were all written as vocal tunes so you will be able to play the melodies, and there are lead sheets and all manner of books where you can learn the chords. The worst case scenario is you'll be playing playing a tune you'll like and other people may like it too instead of 'shredding for hours to play Eruption' which is great, but when are you going to use it?
Hang in there!
8:52 if any of you look into adam levi listen to his solo on the live version of i gotta see you again... it changed my life
I think if you are a true student of playing guitar it doesn’t do any harm. My experience is I started to learn the jazz standards and advanced music theory. I stopped when I realised that I was never really going to use it playing live.
Nice !!!
Good advice.
guitarist Bruce Forman has a list of 10 jazz tunes that if you learn them, will make the next 100 much easier to learn. There are patterns and types of jazz tunes -- so the idea of being able to play 300 tunes isn't quite as massive as it seems, though you have to put in work to get there. But if you have a higher level language to describe what type of tune it is, then much easier.
likewise being able to play in every key. You don't learn these tunes in every key, you learn the numeric changes (like Nashville changes) once and then you can play them in any key.
I'm going back and forth with jazz for the last 20 years , the one thing I struggle with is to hear the changes ,always a big block for me
Hi John, I think you forgot one guitar that was specifically made for jazz when it was created. Wouldn’t that be the Les Paul?
Nice video
I you love jazz, learn it. If you don't, don't.
is candle jazz?
Miles had a date with Hendrix to collaborate..but Jimi checked out too soon.
It would just be another musical style for me to murder. It's beautiful when played well.
My jazz degree doesn’t mean I am a jazz player today- far from it. All the jazz lines help with Robben Ford. All the music theory helps with songwriting and advanced improv in any genre. All the transcribing helps with your ears. And just all the playing helps with all things guitar.
IMO, no. But you should definitely learn theory in whatever style you play. Ultimately it leads you there
Don’t ask questions like does it worth especially you are playing music, there is not much economic benefit you can generate from only playing music, you put your practice time of 10000 hours of playing jazz to Uber delivery you get at least 200-300k, and if you put that amount of practice time into other areas, it definitely generates more. AI can easily replace most musicians within a short period of time. Does it worth playing jazz? Does it worth playing music? Do we still need human playing music? I don’t know but it makes me happy, so I play it.
My favorite living Jazz player is John Pizzarelli. Definitely go see him if he's in your area. I think learning some Jazz can definitely improve your musical vocabulary and challenge your knowledge if music in general.
If you don’t actually enjoy listening to jazz it’s unlikely that you’re gonna enjoy the process of learning to play in a jazz idiom.
It’s very challenging compared to other styles and you really need to be INTO it to be any good.
Listening to a LOT of it is probably the place to start.
Otherwise, just learn some more advanced harmonic concepts than are usually found in pop or rock.
That’s a very simple answer yes
I’ve started going down the Jazz rabbit hole, after a diet of Radiohead, Oasis, Stone Roses, Ocean Colour Scene music diet growing up in 1990s. There’s loads of jazz music variations but some, to me just sounds as boring as a blues rock guitar wailing endless pentatonics for 10 minutes. Tried listening to the Miles Davis stuff but not for me. I always prefer the actual song stuff with the old jazzy swing bands like Frank Sinatra or even Nat King Cole. Something that’s going somewhere, instead of just messing around making sounds for 20 odd minutes. 😄
I think the core motive for learning jazz is to publicly evidence mastery over one's instrument & the largest array of musical expressions possible
I mean, let's get real here. Maybe the most important jazz musician of the 20th century, Louis Armstrong, committed fully to music as a means to escape the excruciating poverty & oppression he experienced as a kid. It's obvious that his cultivating virtuosity in his playing, singing, public presentation & even relationships with others was to accomplish this goal when one does hear him play, sing & perform.
Fact is, being a musician especially a music entertainer is HARD & it's so commonplace to see people having endured extreme poverty & oppression be among say the YJMs & EVHs, Chet Atkins, etc of virtuoso guitar -- all because they have tasted far worse alternatives. The legacy of European orchestras -- e.g., the Vienna Philharmonic, the London Symphony -- is built on horrific world wars, mindboggling economic depressions & deep, deep suffering to find, inspire & cultivate the very best musicians among us as they nay all of us are able.
In especially the US, musically that means jazz hence, e.g., even Hilary Hahn's outreach towards modern compositions amongst her own virtuosic classical repertoire but especially Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Charlie Christian, etc especially Louis Armstrong hence the reverance still today by so many for say John McLaughlin whose own hard work & dedication in kind still doesn't go unnoticed.
Yes it haunts as a sport not art but I don't personally regard that a conundrum...
Seems a tricky one to advise people when jazz is such a minority interest in UK. Music plays second fiddle to sports like football and jazz is a minority musical interest compared to pop, rock and country.
If you don't love jazz, don't bother. You're gonna have to absorb an awful lot of jazz music before you can put the theory to practical use.
I am an amateur who pays jazz and I think you make a point. I do think Robben Fords jazz chops are underrated though. Listen to this mental outside playing here ruclips.net/video/tts1eDzeQ80/видео.htmlsi=6gcefDu-RVlXYJXI
Idiot Sandwich! I reckon that’s a good name for a Jazz Trio.
If you don't already love jazz I don't think you should learn jazz guitar. It's very difficult, compared to blues, rock, reading music, whatever. There's a whole world of music-theory sort of stuff you have to master. Now once you've done this you'll be a much better player in all other genres, but if that's the only reason you're doing it, it takes quite a while to get to the payoff. The smart move is to learn jazz for it's own sake, and if you don't love it enough to want to do that, it's probably not for you.
How come I hear people using this term “ jazz just for the sake of it”.
JNC seems to me to have coined this phrase on here. Well it’s his channel and cool 😎 he can say whatever, but I wonder if that’s a way that certain types of players (or nationalities?) think like that? Let me tell you you won’t get far if you don’t get into jazz like you mean it! The result of “I want to get a bit of jazz in my playing” ends up sounding like pretty noodly BS. I taught jazz for many years and heard that so often when getting calls for lessons, “I just want a bit of jazz” …. I used to tell them you can’t do “a bit of jazz” you go all in or forget it. There were times when I could tell that the student was putting a wall up. And “reading music” doesn’t mean you have to play fly shit at a hundred paces… you automatically will start to recognise note and rhythm patterns and key signatures. Get a competent professional teacher who will guide you through the process, someone who can pick up intuitively where you’re at and give the right material for whatever is the next step. The student is accountable and in my experience, enjoys the buzz of the penny dropping when they get the sudden satori… that was one of the most satisfying part of teaching for me. One young guy (c 18)I still remember getting some such realisation, going quiet for a minute and then going “ oh f### f### f### yeah!”
FWIW I come to this site to get schooled by a digital native in the tech stuff, and it’s pretty mind boggling for me…. I’m likely older than John’s dad, but I stay in my lane… the learning never ends in tech it seems as it is in jazz. Every committed jazz player no matter how far on they are knows this, you’ll hear it continually…. but it (Jazz) won’t hurt you, it’s like truth, at first it will piss you off. 😁
This is a good perspective, but I think you turn off a lot of people by using the term “jazz” to describe - when it comes to “standards” - music that was and is simply pop music. Jazz was the furthest thing from the minds of the pop songwriters who wrote songs like Misty and Fly Me To the Moon and Skylark and the show tunes like those written by Gershwin and Rodgers and Hammerstein, and became “jazz standards.” They are just pop songs. Pop songs written by piano players as opposed to the guitar players who wrote the blues and rock songs. Paul McCartney grew up with a piano in his house and the pop music of the 40’s and 50’s on the radio, and once the Beatles outgrew playing 3 chord R&B tunes, they just incorporated a bit more of the earlier pop music and that’s what the new generation of music fans thought was so “revolutionary” when they heard it from bands like the Beatles in the 1960s. Rather than thinking about it as “jazz music,” I think it makes more sense to think about it as pop music when pop music was written by piano players.
jAZZ OPEN THE INSTRUMENT TO YOU IT BROADEN YOU HORIZONS . IT FREE YOU SOUL .
I’ve been playing with Jazz ideas for a while now. My dad was a professional jazz guitarist, and when he passed I inherited all his amazing old archtops.
But I grew up in the Van Halen 80s, and Jazz did little for me until recently. Despite attending Berklee.
Jens is my favorite jazz RUclipsr. He has a lot of great lessons for those folks who want to dip a toe in without necessarily taking the full plunge.
youtube.com/@jenslarsen?si=NpzIXXSpvszVR8dM