Beginner Jazz Guitar Practice Routine - Which Standards To Learn

Summary

This video by Denis Chang, filmed in Osaka, Japan, is a comprehensive guide for beginners interested in learning jazz guitar. Denis emphasizes the importance of understanding one's motivation behind wanting to learn jazz and criticizes the traditional approach to jazz education. He promotes starting with songs over scales and encourages finding one's unique style through exposure to various jazz standards. Denis highlights the importance of community and jam sessions in learning jazz, stressing that understanding and appreciating different styles will aid a learner's progression.

Highlights

• Denis emphasizes the importance of knowing why you want to learn jazz. 🎯
• He suggests learning jazz by playing songs, not practicing scales. 🎼
• Learning through songs helps you play music right away! 🎵
• Community and jam sessions are vital for jazz learning. 🤝
• Finding your jazz style is a personal journey. 🌟

Key Takeaways

• Focus on songs first, not scales! 🎶
• Find your jazz style through listening. 🎧
• Join jam sessions for real-world experience! 🎸
• Motivation matters more than tradition. 🔑
• Learning jazz is like learning a language. 🌍

Overview

In this engaging video, Denis Chang invites beginners to explore the world of jazz guitar with a fresh perspective. He challenges conventional jazz education methods, advocating for a more holistic and personal approach to learning. By sharing his personal journey, Denis connects with viewers who may feel overwhelmed by the vastness of jazz.

Denis describes the benefits of starting with songs instead of scales for those beginning their jazz journey. According to him, learning songs not only keeps the passion alive but trains the ears and builds an instinctive understanding of music. He shares insights into how learning jazz can be similar to mastering a new language.

Throughout the video, Denis underscores the importance of community and playing with others. Jam sessions provide an invaluable space for growth and real-world application of skills. He encourages learners to discover their personal affinity for different jazz styles, helping them develop a unique voice in this expansive musical genre.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction to Learning Jazz This introduction chapter sets the scene for beginners who are eager to learn jazz. The narrator connects from Osaka, Japan, extending a warm welcome to all viewers, and promises insights and guidance into starting a journey into jazz music. With background music providing a lively atmosphere, this chapter positions itself as a friendly starting point for jazz enthusiasts who are just beginning to explore this genre.
• 01:01 - 02:30: Philosophy of Teaching and Learning Jazz This chapter discusses the philosophy of teaching and learning jazz. The narrator assumes that the reader has some prior experience with playing the guitar and expresses a critique of the current jazz education system. The core argument is that the existing educational system fails to consider various important factors in jazz education. The chapter aims to introduce the philosophical aspects of why and how one should engage in learning jazz.
• 02:31 - 04:00: Importance of Life Circumstances in Learning The chapter discusses the concept that effective teaching extends beyond merely transmitting information. It highlights the significance of understanding the psychology of students and the context in which they are learning. This understanding is crucial in language learning, where teachers need to consider the broader 'psychology of language' to successfully convey information. The effectiveness of teaching, therefore, lies not just in the content delivered but in considering the circumstances and mental framework of students.
• 04:01 - 05:30: Choosing Jazz Standards to Learn The chapter discusses the importance of considering life circumstances when choosing jazz standards to learn. It emphasizes taking a holistic approach to music practice, acknowledging that while advice and information about learning may be accurate, real-life situations and personal circumstances play a critical role in how individuals can effectively practice music.
• 05:31 - 08:00: Personal Journey in Learning Jazz The chapter discusses the importance of realistic advice in learning jazz, highlighting how some advice may hinder progress. The speaker aims to provide a logical approach to tackling this issue. Additionally, the chapter addresses a closely related topic on which jazz standards should be learned first, indicating it as a significant subject in the jazz learning journey.
• 08:01 - 11:00: Approaches to Teaching Jazz The chapter titled 'Approaches to Teaching Jazz' discusses the complexities of determining must-know Jazz standards. It approaches the topic from various perspectives, especially focusing on beginners who are embarking on learning Jazz. The content creator encourages audience engagement through likes, subscriptions, comments, and shares, and offers resources such as courses on Sound Slice and DC Music School, as well as books available through links in the description.
• 11:01 - 15:00: Language Learning and Jazz To learn to play jazz effectively, it's important to understand your personal motivations behind wanting to learn it. People often start learning jazz for the wrong reasons, but persevering through those initial phases can reveal their true motivations and passion for it. The narrator reflects on their own experience, having learned jazz twice in their lifetime, emphasizing the importance of self-discovery in the journey of learning jazz.
• 15:01 - 21:00: Learning Jazz Through Songs The chapter discusses the idea of learning jazz through the music of Django Reinhardt. The author shares that initially, they decided to learn jazz because it was widely advised by magazines and teachers, although they believe this is not a good reason to learn jazz. The author emphasizes the complexity and vastness of jazz, suggesting the importance of a genuine interest rather than external pressure.
• 21:01 - 24:30: Building Jazz Vocabulary Jazz, with its numerous styles and techniques, can be overwhelming to learn due to its vastness. Typically, musicians specialize in a particular style. The narrator shares a personal experience of how discovering the music of Django Reinhardt and specifically gypsy jazz helped them focus their efforts, providing clarity on the path they wanted to pursue in the jazz genre.
• 24:31 - 29:30: Community and Jam Sessions In this chapter, the speaker reflects on their journey of learning and improvement, emphasizing that having a clear direction made the process more structured. Initially, the speaker faced uncertainty and aimlessness in learning music, but things changed once they found inspiration and direction. The speaker highlights the importance of genuine interest and inspiration in pursuing a style of music.
• 29:31 - 31:30: Conclusion This chapter concludes by emphasizing the complexity and diversity within jazz music, revealing a personal preference for earlier styles of jazz. Despite the various styles and approaches, the speaker finds teaching and learning easier when there is genuine passion and enthusiasm for the music. The chapter closes with a reflection on the emotional impact and personal enjoyment that jazz, particularly its older styles, brings to the speaker.

Beginner Jazz Guitar Practice Routine - Which Standards To Learn Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 [Music] thank you [Music] hello everyone from Osaka Japan so today's video is about how to learn jazz if you're a beginner a beginner to Jazz
• 00:30 - 01:00 hopefully you've played the guitar before and you know how it works to a certain extent but you for some reason you got interested in playing jazz and this is the video for you it's a philosophical one and I think it's an it's an important video to make because in a lot of my previous videos I kind of criticize the current system of jazz education because it does it's not taking into account so many important factors and
• 01:00 - 01:30 there are a lot of analogies I can make to language learning because it's the same thing it's the same problem that I see in the language uh learning world as I've said in in recent videos teaching is not just transmitting information I think a good teacher takes an account into account [Music] um I guess the psychology of the student this is the psychology of language of inform transmitting information
• 01:30 - 02:00 and for me what's what I try to do is to take a holistic approach to teaching to consider life circumstances because they do affect how we practice music because actually from a very black and white point of view a lot of the advice that people give is not that it's necessarily wrong a lot of the information is correct to a certain extent but the reality is in certain life
• 02:00 - 02:30 situations that some of those uh the advice some of the advice that is being given out there is not realistic at all and a lot of people end up not getting good not progressing or even just giving up and so today I want to talk about that to approach things from hopefully a logical point of view and then the other topic we're going to talk about closely related is which standards should you learn first this is a huge topic and you go you type
• 02:30 - 03:00 you type on the internet like which what are the must-know Jazz standards and this is also a complicated topic and we're going to talk about from different angles from the perspective of a beginner but first if you like my content please consider liking subscribing uh leaving a comment sharing and all that stuff and if you want to support me somehow you can check out some of my courses on sound slice um on DC music school to check out my books you can find all the links in the description area all right let's get
• 03:00 - 03:30 started I think if you want to learn to play jazz you have to figure out why it is you want to learn to play jazz and there are a lot of wrong reasons to start but sometimes by toughing it out you eventually find out why you do want to play jazz but let me give you an example my own personal story is that I learned Jazz twice in my life
• 03:30 - 04:00 for the there's the real way that I learned to play jazz which is through the music of Django Reinhardt and a few years before that I decided I had to learn jazz because everyone magazines teachers said that I should learn jazz to be a good player and so I think that is a very very bad reason to be learning to play jazz because you may not realize this now as a beginner but jazz is vast there are so
• 04:00 - 04:30 many styles of jazz so many approaches where do you even start it's not realistic to to learn everything very few people are that versatile people actually specialize and when I discovered Django Reinhardt and then gypsy jazz through Django Reinhardt for the first time in my life the path was narrowed down I knew exactly what I had to do um
• 04:30 - 05:00 I knew exactly what I had to practice more or less and from then on it was the The Journey has been fairly organic in and uh I wouldn't say easy but whereas before it's like oh where do I start what do I do like it was aimless for the first time in my life there was a direction I think the best reason to ever do something to learn a style of music is if you genuinely like it you hear something and you you are inspired to do
• 05:00 - 05:30 it and when you have that it becomes so much easier to teach and it's so much easier to learn and like I said the problem is that there are so many styles of just so many approaches and I can't I would never dare say that one way is the right way but I do have a soft spot for the earlier styles of jazz for the simple well for the simple reason that because I like it I love it it sounds great to my ears it touches me
• 05:30 - 06:00 but another practical reason is that a lot of styles that came later on uh actually came from the older styles of jazz and understanding the older styles of jazz makes it easier to learn newer styles of jazz but still you play something because you like it so if you love Fusion which is in my opinion quite removed from earlier styles of jazz then
• 06:00 - 06:30 of course that's what you should do and then you should check out that community and check out what the best way to learn it might be but if you were to come to me if I had a saying things if someone came to me without knowing why they want to play jazz well already that's already that's already a bad start but I would suggest okay we're gonna learn older and older style of jazz simply for the reasons that I mentioned one that's my main area of expertise and
• 06:30 - 07:00 two a lot of the more contemporary styles of jazz came from the older styles of jazz and what I would do in the beginning is not make students practice scales arpeggios chord tone stuff nothing like that we're gonna play songs I'm gonna have the student learn songs because by learning songs you're playing music right away because that's usually the point of playing a style of music you want to play music
• 07:00 - 07:30 and jazz music is a community music it's usually played with people and there's even this jam session culture sorry people get together they might not speak the same language but they know the same songs therefore they can communicate with each other uh so I would start by teaching songs to the students the chords I would teach them how to play a very very basic accompaniment depending on their skill level and then I would teach them
• 07:30 - 08:00 the melody have them play I would play the rhyth the chords for them and they can play the melody oh and the following can come a little bit later it just depends on which songs we work on first some are harder than others and also I would try to spend time with the student to get them to listen to different players to see what they like so which let's say we're working on Autumn Leaves we'll look at different recordings about
• 08:00 - 08:30 leaves different players it's like hey does this player does this sound good to you and I try to encourage the student to listen to different recordings of the song so that's how it would start and by working on playing music first and foremost Above All Else well it's fun right but it's also training your ears to hear the sounds and to absorb them at the instinctive level you're not necessarily thinking two five one blah blah blah although
• 08:30 - 09:00 that's great but you just knowing that this is going this it's going through this and then if I taught you another song like Honeysuckle Rose you realize oh wow at least on the guitar it's the same shape so there's something happening there that's similar well this is called a 251 but even before even knowing that it's a 251 you have that subconscious uh understanding of the music which is what I talk about in my
• 09:00 - 09:30 in my book and even if you learn to to just play the melody over the chord progression you also hear instinctively over time how the melody is relating to the chords [Music]
• 09:30 - 10:00 thank you [Music] [Music]
• 10:00 - 10:30 foreign super hot here's the thing if I started my lessons by showing you like all the scales all the modes all the arpeggios that you can play all over Autumn Leaves because you're not experiencing just you don't even know what Jazz sounds like especially if you're starting from uh blank slate and I'm the one introducing
• 10:30 - 11:00 you to Jazz you have no idea what it sounds like you can practice these skills I can tell you all right over C minor you play C Dorian F7 F maxillary flat iron Etc low Korean blah blah blah blah blah or even arpeggios thank you [Music]
• 11:00 - 11:30 no real jazz musician at least in the early older Styles plays in this way at all no one at least no one famous no one that's respected so you can practice all those shapes as well as you want and even like the teacher will tell okay now try to practice aim for the the guide tones [Music] okay that's a little bit musical there
• 11:30 - 12:00 but still I can't think of uh jazz musician famous one in the early styles who plays exclusively in this way what I hear is language vocabulary coherence stylistic coherence this is something that you can only absorb by listening to the music by checking out the community check out my previous video that I've made in the previous weeks
• 12:00 - 12:30 it's kind of like learning a language it's exactly the same thing I think a lot of language teachers are really really bad and um actually for those of you don't know I live in Japan now and I'm not Japanese Japanese is not my mother Tangles it's a language I'm still working on but I've reached a certain degree of fluency but um actually before even knowing that I was ever going to move to Japan when I was in college I actually took a course in Japanese and it was such a bad class
• 12:30 - 13:00 really really bad because the teacher she was pretty mean too she insisted that we don't learn Japanese she insisted that we learn the Japanese alphabet and actually there are three alphabet systems she wanted just because she was taught that way through a book or something just because uh other teachers taught that way she insisted that we learned this one system which is called hiragana yeah that's the American pronunciation hiragana
• 13:00 - 13:30 and um the problem is in Japan Japanese there are three systems and are used together so if you just even learn that one system you go to Japan you're screwed you will only be able to read uh uh I don't want to say a percentage but like a small percentage of what's there and you're gonna be missing everything else and furthermore just learning the alphabet like that it makes doesn't make you understand the
• 13:30 - 14:00 language at all it's kind of like I don't speak Spanish but from what I understand this the way Spanish is written you guys tell me it's uh you pronounce it the way it's written so it's not it shouldn't be too difficult to learn how to read in Spanish you might butcher the the intonation the accent but by and large I think it's it's easy to learn to read Spanish but that doesn't mean you'll understand what
• 14:00 - 14:30 you're reading in understanding what you're reading makes all the difference because I got nothing out of that class so we just spent the whole 12 weeks the entire semester learning to write hiragana and I forgot it all anyway because I couldn't use it even if you know how to pronounce words you can like recognize them if the words that you're reading have no meaning it's all pointless and it's the same thing with music I can
• 14:30 - 15:00 teach you in the beginning all the skills all the modes and arpeggios but because you don't even know what to do with it you're not making anything coherent and you won't learn as fast whereas if I started to teach you the songs and I started to show you some vocabulary at least you have something coherent to work with let's say over this chord and this chord goes over both [Music] even without having to understand the theory behind it just know that it sounds good over this that would be a
• 15:00 - 15:30 really good start but then eventually I'll explain that theory of why this phrase works over this has a lot to do with common tones but I'll explain the theory as much of the theory as I need to explain to get you to understand the meaning behind it so that you can apply it elsewhere in other situations and that's a better way to start so when it comes to language learning I think it's more beneficial to learn basic vocabulary usable vocabulary in day-to-day situations for example going
• 15:30 - 16:00 to the convenience store what to say like can I pay by credit card can I pay by cash um can I get a pack of cigarettes whatever if you smoke things like that then I'll teach you what to say then eventually okay we can start to dissect those sentences like the grammar even how to write it so then you can actually recognize it when you're reading so that's actually how I learned to read Japanese I started uh by
• 16:00 - 16:30 learning to speak at first and then after I learned the alphabet and then all the words that I knew already I started to write them and then I had meeting as opposed to just writing the alphabet from like in order in in Japan like a b c d e f g h i j k it makes no sense why not make actual words read actual words that have meaning so that's something I would highly suggest beginners do is to find a reason to want to play jazz and to find out who
• 16:30 - 17:00 which style of jazz that you like and you go to your teacher and tell them hey I wanna I like this maybe your teacher give them all if you like this maybe you would like this and then slowly you you expand your mind and you start to focus on the things that you like because like I said there are so many ways to play jazz there is not one correct way not one correct system and that's for me that's the beauty of it like each um when you start to study like um the the styles of individual players
• 17:00 - 17:30 you'll notice that they each have their own way of interpreting the harmonies it's something that I talk a lot about like harmonic Direction everyone has their own approach and that's that's how everyone ends up having their own distinct Styles Wes Montgomery had things that he liked to do Joe pass that things he'd like to do Charlie Christian Django Reinhardt and then you check out what you like and you take what you like and that's how you come up with your own style as well rather than a teacher telling all right
• 17:30 - 18:00 over uh this card you should play this because that's what the theory says no you play something that you like because it has meaning to you it touches you does that make sense so that's what I would do in the beginning with beginners um I would encourage them to to just learn songs and I would play the songs with them and then start to show them a little bit of basic vocabulary that they can plug in and depending on their talent level
• 18:00 - 18:30 start to show them actual real improvisation Concepts as well but everything at a progress level and everything according to the level of the student but always prioritizing making actual music first but then which songs should you learn that's like the million dollar question well the truth is you should learn the songs that you like that's it but then can you find people to play with that is
• 18:30 - 19:00 the next question and do the people that you play with know those songs are they willing to play those songs with you let's say for example you like a song that's super obscure I can't think of one right now but no one in your town or no one in your area knows the song or even wants to play the song So then unfortunately you're kind of screwed in which case you maybe move to another city and actually people will do that for music people move to other countries to other cities
• 19:00 - 19:30 just for the music like here I'm in Japan all the young people have moved to Tokyo so there are very few young people playing jazz music outside of Tokyo there are but like compared to Tokyo it's it's really really small and they all move there for that specific reason just like some people will move to Paris to play swing music some people move to to Europe just to play gypsy jazz Etc people do that people move to New York to play this people move to Nashville to play country they move to
• 19:30 - 20:00 XY City to play bluegrass to play Brazilian music Etc people do that so that's a that's a choice you can make life is unfair that way uh if there's no one to play what you want to play with and you badly want to play it it's something you have to consider anyway let's say where you live there's actually a jazz scene like a jazz jam session that happens once a week or even once a month well you should attend every at every single opportunity
• 20:00 - 20:30 you go there you don't even have to play just go and listen and befriend some of the musicians Maybe and take note of which songs are being played and if you see that every week x or y song is being played and your goal is to be able to play with those musicians then you should learn those songs and you can go on the internet you'll find a list of all the songs that people tend to tend to play I've been to Jan sessions uh kind of all over the world
• 20:30 - 21:00 and often revolves more or less around the same like 20 30 songs and then a few like special ones out there but start there everything I try to do I try to do with purpose and it's the same thing when it comes to learning there has to be a reason to learn something so for example a song that gets called very often uh uh there will never be another for instance because it's it's such a
• 21:00 - 21:30 universal song it's called all of it's played all over the world so maybe it's worth checking it out that's the reason why I would learn that song actually in the beginning I didn't really like that song I just felt like the melody was strange it didn't really touch me but now I like playing it because I played it so much Stockholm syndrome and it's the same thing with chords sometimes certain songs have different harmonizations it can be played with
• 21:30 - 22:00 different sets of chords which ones should you learn and I have I'm I tend to be very obsessed with Harmony so I've learned so many different versions of the same song but often I use my ears I go to the jam session and I listen to all right these are the chords that these people are using I'm gonna use these changes so I learned that one unfortunately or fortunately it depends how you see it things have gone so standardized that people often even
• 22:00 - 22:30 professionals have forgotten that songs can be played in different ways another thing you can do is organize private Jam sessions with people who are like-minded and then here you have a lot more control over the changes over the songs and you decide democratically which songs to learn and then maybe start playing gigs together I don't know that's how I feel jazz music should be learned or any style of music what do you guys I'm curious to to hear your thoughts on this
• 22:30 - 23:00 hopefully you can find teachers who can guide you in this way it'll make things a whole lot more enjoyable in my opinion not only more enjoyable but also more logical and if you watch some of my previous videos from the previous week's recent videos I talk about how even though jazz is a seemingly complex style of music it's not as complex as you one might think it to be but you don't have to be soloing at the beginning especially as a guitar player
• 23:00 - 23:30 you can be playing chords you can be a company and if you can find a mentor who agrees to let you accompany them while they solo they get to practice you can learn a lot about sewing just by listening to them and asking questions eventually they'll start to show you little things here and there that you can uh incorporate that you can start to work on slowly in my case if we're working on Autumn Leaves I would be showing students like basic vocabulary I'll tell them hey you know over the C model of the F7 Pro here's a nice phrase
• 23:30 - 24:00 foreign [Music] [Music] a nice place and then you realize hey G minor is the same as C minor like the same chord family minor what if I did
• 24:00 - 24:30 [Music] and then [Music] back [Music]
• 24:30 - 25:00 slowly introducing vocabulary one piece at a time encouraging them to to to use them at any given opportunity well then as I see they start to understand the language there's a little bit of coherence then I start to show them a little bit of the grammar and explain why it works etc etc everything always though according to the the the ability of the student to absorb the information some students
• 25:00 - 25:30 we'll need to spend more time maybe just acquiring basic vocabulary some others will be able to start to improvise right away because they have the talent for it watch my video from a few weeks ago it all depends and when I when I spend time with someone I try to get to understand them to know what their level is what they can handle what they cannot handle and we work from there so that's basically my curriculum I think it's important to learn to play music as soon as possible and then how we get there it will depend
• 25:30 - 26:00 on the student's level and as soon as possible I would want the student to go out there and start to jam with people at Jam sessions if there is such a thing hopefully there is if there's not the less of an environment there is the harder it is to learn it's not impossible but it's life is like I said life is unfair that way ideally you should have people to play with a community player the bigger the community it makes sense right why is it
• 26:00 - 26:30 that in certain parts of the world uh there's a high concentration of high level players because they're all there together so a huge pool of musicians learning together but uh what was I gonna say yeah I would encourage the student to go to the jam sessions and I might even go with the students like and um because obviously the student might feel super nervous and I would actually go on stage with the students so that I can be there to back them up in case they start to feel too nervous
• 26:30 - 27:00 because some people don't know how to play with beginners they start playing all these substitutions or messing around with the tempo or the Rhythm and that freaks students out I don't know why people do that either they're deluding themselves they're they're jerks or they're completely unable to read the air so to speak to read the room read the air as a Japanese expression but in English they read the rule so
• 27:00 - 27:30 there we go that's how I think Jazz should be approached um let me know what you think thank you