The Secret To Soulful Jazz Guitar Lines: Ballads 

Denis you are right. I learned singing technique as well, one of the things stop me from the beginning is the same thing that stop me from improving my jazz playing, people don’t understand that their speech habit affects the vowels they made and vowels are the actual range physically. Which means learning to sing requires a longtime lifestyle change, you have to be aware of how to adjust the way you speak or produce sound and stop swallowing tongue or having any muscle being tensed. But people generally assumed you just need to practice so-called vocal technique then you can sing, it is so absurd but it is a very popular idea😂 I understand what you talking about, I watched a lesson made by Barney Kessel years ago( it is available on RU-vid) he talks about practicing making up melodies that’s exactly what we need to do. Learning to improvise is really learning to express yourself through melody, the song is the context, different song forms are similar to a set of vocab that you need to use for a particular social context and interaction. In actual performance or improvisation, how is it even possible to start to think about theories again or techniques, those things you should have practiced a trillion times so they become an automatic process that you don’t need to think anymore. To really absorb and internalize a sound you have to be emotionally engaged with whatever materials you are practicing, it is the emotion that connects with your whole body, your neurological system that allows you to absorb whatever information that you can sense with your senses. To play and to improvise really requires a re-engineering process of activating your authentic emotions that are connected to the music(the language). Without this connection, you can play whatever difficult piece but you don’t feel a thing. I believe that why people want to improvise in the first place, I want to express my self through music. Another thing I wanna say is I just keep buying your lessons your lessons are too good to be true. 😂

we love you Denis

I moved to Germany years ago and I can related 100% with the analogy you’ve made. I am terrible with grammar so in the beginning i skipped a lot of formal learning and jumped into the experience of learning the language in an intuitive way, like children do, I am now confident with the German language. On the other side I started playing the guitar many years ago and although I play in a musical way I am not able to play jazz … it’s really frustrating… I think the difference is that here I have 90 million people how speak German but I know just a couple how play jazz, that means I cannot socialize my jazz playing…maybe your advice on picking up licks and phrases is really important. I just purchased your book by the way. Really like your lessons Denis thank you!

Great lesson Denis!

Great video! At the end your emphasis on recording yourself is SO important. For me, it’s one of the best tools i have to narrow down what needs work. Thanks Denis! 😎

Your a baaadaaassss Denis !

The proof of your advice is in the playing of a solo over a ballad. Without a good melodic conception, it just doesn't work. In my opinion, part of the problem with learning jazz is the idea of everything being improvised. The goal of a musician, in any form of music, is to play something that catches the listeners ear and that won't happen just because it is "improvised". Jazz playing can be just noterrhea. At the other extreme is memorizing everything. This can be a monumental task, although rewarding too as with classical guitar pieces. Relying solely on memorization, however, leaves you with little opportunity to develop your own compositional sense and that is a big part of musicality. Your video caught my attention because, while I can play an okay solo on medium and up-tempo tunes, on ballads it is another story. So I'm working on that and I have to prepare ahead rather than just improvise. Hopefully at some point I will be able to get by with less preparation and can just rely on my skills to do it quickly. I'll buy your course on jazz phrasing as that should help. Nice video!

This is THE WAY!

Thanks for this priceless information 🙏🙇🏿‍♂️

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Maybe you have a vid already but I Would love to see a vid about trio vs quartet or having a rhythm player . Any thoughts would be amazing .

couldn't agree more.

Great concept

17:30 In Spain it is called «El baile de los pajaritos», i think it comes from a Swiss melody...it was the last thing i expected you to play 😜

Nice denis

Scat sing a solo away from the guitar. That’s the ultimate litmus test. What do you hear in your “mind’s ear”?

Which tunes do your recommend to start with? Thank you Denis!

What is the song you play first minute !?

Dennis,,,,Great video! Many thanks. Question: is that an Altamira N700F Flamenco guitar you're playing?

That lick works over Gm, Bbmaj and C7 because it's basically all extensions right? So C7 is really Gm add11add13, and Bb maj is really just Gm7b9? Or mainly because all those chords just share G and Bb and maybe has nothing to do with the chord extensions but the notes in the lick?

Is it really improving memorizing Licks ? True improvisation to me is playing melody that never play before and able to play over whole song without using phrases that been memorized , creating completely new Melodie’s , just my opinion ,..