Absolutely true Jens. It's why they are called Standards in the first place: truly songs that need to be learnt and listened to the most logical extent to be fully appreciated. After all Jazz would be very different without them!
All good stuff, Jens, and so true. Here’s another idea I like: Ron Escheté told me when he was young and learning all the songs he would intentionally double the bridge as he played through a tune in practice. His rationale: every time you play through an AABA tune you get the A part three times and the B part only once! When you’re finally ready to perform the song, you don’t want your familiarity with the A part to be 3x stronger than the bridge. And Ron is one of those older players who remembers literally 1000’s of songs, so I will take him at his word on that!
Jens, I have to half-disagree with you on the backing track thing. You probably use Band-In-A-Box, right? I do myself, and it was a major game-changer for me back in the day. Instead of listening to terrible MIDI backing tracks in iReal, I could now make my own tracks which are derived from sound samples from actual musicians. I can play them in any key, any tempo I want and they sound pretty much real. These features are great for learning new tunes as it's the closest you can get to playing with an actual band. However, the main problem I've learned to avoid with it is to not get caught up in LOOKING at the changes on the computer screen all the time. There's nothing inherently wrong with the idea of using backing tracks, but eventually it can catch up to a player if he or she is always looking at the changes instead of internalizing them.
I think you missed my point with the backing tracks and learning to hear the melody, the harmony, the form and the time internally. It's not about reading the chords off the screen, then you don't even know the song by heart 🙂
I'm struggling learning the song 'Wave' from Tom Jobim. I've listened to it many, many times. Can play the chords but I'm having a hard time playing a solo and improvisation ideas. Listening to other people actually playing the song helps a lot to figure things out.
Lots of good advice here. I've recently realized iReal Pro was becoming a bit of a crutch for me. Still, there's something about the cold, mechanical click of a metronome that just kills the joy for making music in me. I can't explain why. So, I may try using just the drum track on iReal Pro and not looking at the chord changes.
An essential discussion, Jens. I'm proud to say that I learned standards the old-fashioned way -- by listening! I often have the impression that many who are attracted to the idea of playing jazz guitar often have little genuine interest in the songs that formed jazz' basis. When I became interested in jazz (and swing), I was already playing guitar ('60s pop-rock), but I was attracted to the songs as much as I was to learning exciting new (old) techniques that had caught my ear. Looking back, I feel as if I spent all of the '90s listening to '20s through '40s music, both standards and now largely forgotten pop tunes -- and I had already acquired a good background in the standards through my parents. If you do that much listening to a certain period in music, you're bound to absorb both the instrument-specific evolution in the playing style within a genre (Lang to Christian to, say, Kessel) and the compositional formulas that commonly appear in the songs. I know that period in pop music inside out by now, and I can say that heavy listening is a big aid to tackling any kind of material, perhaps especially standards and '20s-'40s tunes in general. Listening to '30s-'40s swing records with vocals is a great way to learn the straight melody, as swing band vocalists generally got only one chorus and their job was to acquaint audiences as much with the unadorned melody as with the lyrics. Learning the standards is simply not a task to be undertaken by the mildly interested.
Amen to this! This is THE main problem of learning to play jazz. The IDEA of doing it is often what attracts new potential players, but frankly, one has to have a solid understanding of the standard repertoire and to modern ears (Xers, milennials and Gen Z) the tunes from the '20s through the '50s can often sound off-puttingly corny and old-fashioned at first listen. Let's be honest, there are a lot of tunes from that era that I was not interested in learning or even listening to because the original recordings sounded unbelievably corny to my ears (I grew up on classic rock/90s rock, etc). It was only through later exploration and learning some of those tunes did I come to understand just how great some of those old standards are. Delivered the right way, they can sound fresh and modern. That being said, the biggest problem I have with the modern jazz climate is that too often, pop songs written from the '60s onwards are completely ignored. There's a few true artists doing jazz interpretations of rock, R&B and modern pop repertoire, but jazz nowadays would get a MAJOR shot in the arm from young musicians interpreting more modern songs instead of regurgitating the same old 150 standards. It would attract a lot of new younger players if this was the case.
Agree I'm someone who has to be able to play any style of music, but I was a metalhead first. I don't have to think about speaking the language of metal, because I've spent my entire life listening to it. I just know what it's supposed to sound like. When I started learning Jazz, I approached it completely the wrong way. I tried to sight read tunes I'd never heard out of the Real Book. It took me some time and some good teachers to realize that made no sense. As soon as I started transcribing from actual tunes and jazz musicians, everything connected way better
A great comment. I quit listening to rock stations after John Lennon's murder, so I have a decade on you in listening to great American popular songs, but I couldn't have written as good a comment as yours.
@@drewserafini1237 Well said! It's absolutely true that some younger listeners are just never going to be attracted to earlier treatments of standards, because they don't relate to the arrangements or, when applicable, the lyrics. I'm an Xer ('66), who had older parents and baby boomer sibs, so I grew up hearing more from early decades than I did of contemporary. I consider that to have been an advantage to me as a musician, as the exposure to a variety of eras made me more open as a listener. There's a limit, I suppose, to how much effort some folks can put into trying to develop a taste for vintage pop, but for those who are open and patient and maybe have some sense of history, musically and generally speaking, I think there are rewards. I agree, too, that it might be helpful for more present day jazz musicians to see what could be done with post-'50s material. While I feel that in general, the quality and complexity of the material dropped off significantly by the end of the 40s, I'll acknowledge that there have been many good composers since then. I grew up listening to The Beatles and still love their work.
Chitlins con Carne, Kenny Burrell. Also, one few mention, Samba da Benção, by Vinicius de Moraes- three chords, beautiful and simple melody. Thanks, Jens!
Next up: learning grade eight classical piano with no recording and only sheet music. No chord symbols, no idea of the groove, no internet. Just you, a metronome, and hundreds of tiny dots. 🎹
Don’t get me started. I could rant about my dislike for classical music - or at least how it was taught to me - for hours. It’s a business in Canada. Take lessons to learn pieces to pay for an exam to grade your performance then advance to the next level. The number of people I’ve met who finished their final exam and never touched the instrument again grows every day. It’s why I defected to jazz and the guitar. Classical has competitions, jazz has festivals.
Apologies, I won't be able to make this premiere. Going to the country for a two day holiday. Will definitely check it out when I get back. ☕☕☕🍩🍩🍩 (PS: Wooooooooooooo !!)
the A-Train A section w/ the Ellington Bridge is a great description, hadn't really thought of using these larger chunks of information like this, thanks!
Jens, As a beginner guitarist, I would use tab quite often. This was different from my approach with piano and clarinet, where I would use sheet music. Lately I am avoiding tab no matter what, and have found my guitar playing and interpretation has really improved. My question for you is when it comes to learning songs, is learning by ear the best way, and then to verify with sheet music? Does a guitarist always want to know what note they are playing? I find I always know what note I am playing with clarinet and piano, but guitar allows me to play by ear a lot faster than I can analyze myself.
Thanks for the advice on learning the importance of melody which I find interesting and true of what you have said. I sing along to the melody and follow the rhythm that goes with the melody.
Mr. Larson, I have looked for that specific 'Video' with the title '5 easy songs to teach you Jazz' and cannot find it, wich one is it in the link below !?!
Sorry, I forgot to add it. Here you go: Important (beginner) Jazz Advice: 5 Easy Jazz Standards To Start With ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ifabQh-Liws.html
When I was a student all pieces where treated like short term objectives, regardless the difficulty, which I think it's wrong. Easy songs are short term objectives, hard ones should be long term. Beginners should play hard stuff with systematic chunking method, it sets the standard for the future while slowly making it happen
Well, hooray. A video of yours that is not esoteric to its goal, and sanctimonious in its approach. You are good. But there are those who are good at what they do, but are unable to teach it. One In A Row, but your efforts should be noted. So noted.
@@JensLarsen That's right. Sharp,too. I didn't think you read the comments, let alone reply to them. The videos I have seen of yours usually reeks of snobbery . This one was different, and I wanted to say something. Thanks for replying.
Haha. The Helmet version of Beautiful Love is awesome! That's what made me want to learn that tune in the first place, although I play it much straighter 😂
Hi Jens, just curious about your guitar course prerequisites. How fluent I need to be in order to get something out of your courses ? Very interested in learning jazz but it sounds just too difficult
I started learning guitar back in 2012 and I was 13 yo back in the time Finding a teacher basically wasn’t an option for me (was not in a good financial situation for my family,to say) I got the chance to learn guitar only after I am a grown up and capable of finding a teacher
It is difficult to give too specific advice because everybody is different and at different levels, but maybe check out this post: jenslarsen.nl/how-to-learn-jazz-guitar-suggestions-to-begin-studying/
Great Video Jens. Critical Listening to Certain Singers, Transcribing the Melody and Chord Progression, Playing the Melody then Chord Progression by themselves, then bringing it all together in a simple Chord Melody Arrangement is a Great way to really Internalize a Song. As you said, many Jazz Standards have recurring Chord Progressions. For anyone that's interested, Chord Tone Soloing For Jazz Guitar by Joseph Alexander covers many of the Chord Progressions used in Jazz Standards. As far as Fakebooks go, its been my experience that the Jazz/Standard Fake Books published by Sher Music Co. are more accurate than the Jazz/Standard Fakebooks published by Hal Leonard. Also, Drumgenius, Play Jazz Tracks and Jazzbacks are in my humble opinion the Best Backing Tracks for Jazz. Although it's important to Not let these Resources become a Crutch. In other words, Learn and Internalize the Song first without the Fakebooks and Backing Tracks. Then use them. Thanks.
Every time you post a new video / I ran into a video from you, I'm almost amazed how good you are at teaching. thanks for the works. I hope you keep produce content so the new musician can all improved to new level because of your existance.
Watching Jens Larsen videos is tight!! 😅 No seriously, thank you so much for all your videos, I've been playing guitar on and off for almost 30 years and only this year I decided to study it for real. Very early in my learning I discovered I had the ability to get chords from songs very easily (talking about Beatles songs that I already knew from heart) and that was incredibly helpful but in turn it has also hindered my playing really bad since it was so easy for me that melodies and soloing I have always left aside to some degree of frustration, since when I'm trying to do that I just can't. This approach is really helpful since like I said I always go straight to chords, knowing the full instrument (neck, scales, arpeggios) from your other videos has made a lot things perhaps not easier but understandable and reachable for an old dog like me, and I can't wait to apply this method to songs I learn from now on, thank you so much Jens. Greetings from Mexico!
I think the key to all of this is your comments with respect to fast and easy learning. As you clearly state, it takes time to play well. We must have a musical work ethic if we want to be a musician. I have not found any effective shortcut and have been at this for years!
Spot on. I play mostly rock, pop, and country. I developed my ear for this by reading first, but remembering what was played. When you hear it again someplace else, you know it. By knowing the relationship between the chords, transposition is easy enough.
Learning from listening to someone who embraces the articulation and meaning of the lyrics is important. Lot of nonsensical elaboration happens otherwise. Just sounds weird [not referring to the Sonny example here; he knew the tunes before exploring them!]. Love that it’s so much easier to pull up the original performances these days. Cheers Jens, all, D
Another great one Jens, especially about the idea of lazy ear softly relying on a backing track (I am a backing-trackoolic... I'll try to quit), but please cool down: A video does not absolutely NEED to be below 10 minutes, that one was rushed in 9'15'' and at times I felt like if you had to take plane shortly after. Give it a 11'30'' or even a 12'24'' and we will still listen until the end! ;)
One thing i could never ever understand is why schools everywhere always put kids to learn and play Stella by Starlight in the first jazz ensembles. There are no easy standards they're all awesome and challenging, but indeed, there are some that are a lot more difficult and tricky than others and Stella is definately one of these. It is a long song, full of changes, hard to memorize, very melodic and tougher to effectively go through. So yeah... i strive all the time... as a teacher to bring Stella only after i confirm the student has gone through many others, before. Starting with stella is pretty much the same as starting with Round Midnight... it takes some prep and time... cheers.
In the thumbnail you're holding the 5th edition. I hope you also have the 6th, which is actually legit. (I have both, I keep the 5th for sentimental reasons.)
No I think it's more books, video and internet. I also wonder if it's not really a good thing that more people get to learn and actually also more people get to a higher level
I've been a fan for a while, and like always, I love the advice! Well, most of it. Like, you mention how these books will often have different versions of "the chords." I've got a weensy pet peeve with the reharmonization "telephone game" that happens to a lot of old standards. I love the point to listen to Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald tracks, but half of these songs come from musicals and movies, why not listen to the OBCR or the movie recording? Or better yet, look at what the composer actually wrote? I know it's not practical to do for every standard, but I always find when I compare the Real Book or similar against sheet music (mostly Rodgers and Porter) I'm left with all sorts of questions. Like, whose "take" of this song are these chords based on? Like I appreciate good reharmonization and, as you say, interpreting the song, but I feel like if I *really* want to get to know a song, I want to see why and how that song is what it is, y'know what I'm saying?
We rarely Play the songs with the original Harmony. Don't underestimate how much you learn from checking out the song from a version that's just like Sinatra and Ella and Natick called because you learn phrasing and you also get a set of usable costs which you won't get with your checking out the musical version. If you already know the song I think it's fine to go back and check out what the original harmony is that can be interesting and also sometimes surprising. But it's really useful and then you just better off learning from a version that has great phrasing
@@JensLarsen But see "already know the song" is my beef with Real Books and the like. For instance, Night and Day sometimes has the first chord (in C) as a Dm7b5 and sometimes as a AbM7. I don't know whose idea the Dm7b5 was but I like it much less than the AbM7, and lo an behold, Cole Porter wrote it with the Major 7 (made clearer by the fact that the verse ends in a Am7). So now it's been decades of this game of telephone and maybe half of jazz musicians got this idea to play it with the Dm7b5, which pretty fundamentally changes what the line is doing. Like that one *someone's* reharmonization idea that's gotten too baked into how the song is played. So that's my pet peeve.
@@ForestCityMusic Nobody plays Night And Day with realbook changes around here. (Oddly enough I just remember that Joe Pass has a version starting with a m7b5 chord, but I forget which one, the virtuoso one starts on a maj7 chord I think) I wouldn't make chords too important, or try to find the "right" or "best" changes. Stuff like that is very subjective, and it quickly becomes a waste of time especially when the original chords are not that great which is often the case as well.
@@JensLarsen "stuff like that is very subjective" that's exactly my point. I have no problem with Joe Pass for starting Night and Day withe m7b5 but I have a problem with whoever wrote that down as like "the" Night and Day. So I'm not worried about finding the "correct" or "best" Night and Day, but I'm not satisfied telling my students "well there are just two versions and that's how it is." There's a song that Cole Porter wrote, which became a standard for good reason, and then there are some other ideas other people have put into the song in their own interpretations, which is great, but that's not what the song "is," yknowmsayin? Not like you *have* to play original harmony or anything, but like if I told you Happy Birthday goes A6, Dm7b5, Bm6/F#, E13 because that's my reharmonization, is that a useful way to communicate to someone how to play Happy Birthday.
I was intrigued by that 3 seconds of comping beginning at 7:51. I more or less figured it out but the main lesson I took was to dance around a chord pattern with a melody (the thing you did on what seemed to be an Fmaj9) and then what looked like an Ab7 triad on the DGB strings as an approach to a G minor, which is a natural idea that I need to use more, but I think the G minor was maybe only 2 strings? (the D string and A string 5th fret) which is a cool idea for a voicing I wouldn't have tried, but it works. (even if I got this wrong, it's still a cool voicing that I will use!) Thank you!
This is the way I learn jazz standards as I'm too lazy to read music. I tend to think of it as cheating and taking the hard road. There are certain songs I just can't wrap my head around like Stella and I listen to the old Columbia Sinatra recordings which are a great help. I admire those who can sight read and play any song without hearing it. But it really does take a lot of listening to find all those special things that make for a great performance. As for easy songs, I heard Dave Stryker do a nice bossa nova version of I Wish You Love and I've always loved that song and went to learn it. It contains all the basic essentials and changes that could help one learn a whole host of other songs. I've been an impressionist ever since I can remember and I think most musicians/singers are at heart. Imitate before you innovate can take you places
I pick up the guitar and play around with lots of wrong things until I hear the right thing - slow way of learning but I'm not trying to learn jazz standard i am trying to learn the instrument
Jens your videos are really useful in learning Jazz. I wanted to learn Jazz and checked many websites and channels, only to land on your channel and I really got direction. Can I play Jazz with minimum number of notes or a lot of notes need to be used to sound like Jazz. Because the Jazz solos I see are full of notes and seem complicated.
@@JensLarsen Yes. Sorry I didn't put the Question mark. That's the question, can I sound like Jazz with minimum number of notes or a lot of notes need to be played to sound like Jazz ?
If you can't just listen to a song, and know the key it's in? Stop thinking you're a musician. You're more like a very good book reader, reading books, not a writer of one. No one can teach you how to hear.
