Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Channel Jazz Guitar Lessons. In this episode, it's going to be pretty off the cuff. Just, you know, me talking to you, a bit of tough love around the edges about a topic that's really dear to my heart, that when I speak about I have a lot of energy for and I would frankly say sometimes I'm pissed at it and it's it's not clickbait.
It's something I want to discuss that I have discussed. Again, that's probably the crux, like something so primordial with learning anything, but specifically here, learning jazz and guitar, that it's hidden in plain sight. So we'll talk about this today. I'll give you specific steps. Three main things that I think you should be able to do by the end of this video.
No kidding. That can have a drastic impact. I'll show you also how I do it with my students in the coaching program. So let's get going. Welcome to Jazz guitar Lessons, where we help guitarists learn jazz faster, express themselves more fluently, and have fun along the way. My name is Marc , and if you're looking to learn jazz, form better practice habits and especially if you enjoy a French accent, make sure to subscribe.
All right. The big reveal the topic of this video, super simple getting feedback or at least listening to your self on a recording. I don't mean like playing, you know. Yeah, I'm listening to myself. I mean recording one's self and getting either valuable feedback from experts or peers or mentors and or listening to your self critically. That's the topic of this episode.
Pretty simple, right? Often I will tell you guys, a lot of you will waste your time with one on one lessons. Yeah, and I've done it myself and I see a lot of people saying, Here's a master, I'm going to go and take private lessons with this guy. You charges 60 bucks per session and then I get a session.
It's like drinking from the fire hose directly. And then we do two sessions and I have enough stuff to work for six months and I go, Why? Why am I going say, small? Number one, information does not change behavior. Everyone together information does not change behavior. I think I'm going to write a symphony. Information does not change behavior or else you know, my body, my Greek god body, all these books I have on my bookshelf, I'm looking at about health and nutrition, maybe.
How about stock markets and whatever. I would already be rich and super fit, and I'm neither of these things, so. That's right. So the amount of information we believe was the missing link. And since we have the Internet and all the information at our disposal, we'll go, Oh, that's not the thing that's moving the needle on my goal.
If I want to improvise on jazz standards, the next 15 or 20 books I get, or the next 15 or 20 courses I get or the next 15 or 20 private lessons I get are not going to change that if it's based on just gathering more information. You dig me? Cool. So this is something that you see. I'm a bit frustrated in ways.
It's something that's hard to come across is something that's that's hard to sell because of course, I'm a coach and I have guitar lessons and I want to help people make the most progress. And the people that do make the most progress are the ones that are courageous enough to submit their videos to get a critique. So I think I went on a tangent here.
So we were talking about this guy taking to private lessons with the master drinking for the fire hose and going They I have enough for six months. That's good. Here's a thing. The big facepalm of one on one lessons to me is not having the master be able to listen critically because a lot of private instructors will just play and talk through the entire thing to go, I'm going to give you your money's worth.
I'm going to give you what you came here for right? And I'll tell you, quite frankly, I've been battling this online for for the past while it's quite the opposite, a a student really needs to be heard at the level at which he or she is like, oh, this is how you're fingering the shapes, This is your sound, this is your technique.
So this needs to be addressed. This needs to be assessed. So the most benefit you can get is if an expert is able to hear you. And I'm not just saying that that's fact. All right. And that's the drawback of having an expert that's going to blabber and not necessarily be aware of the needs that you have, not necessarily be aware of where you are in your journey that will just throw stuff at you.
And then while you have all this stuff to work on, you don't even know if you're doing it correctly. It may be a slight shift in your position. It may be a fingering issue with maybe a timing thing, maybe that you don't even hear the rhythm and people say, Well, that's the only way to do it. Look at all these orchestra players.
They've all done it with one on one lessons with Masters. But if you guys are scientists a bit like me, it's like there's Survivor bias involved here. Like, yes, this happened. It's like if I put all lottery winners and go, Look, all these guys, they've all bought lottery tickets, but we just don't include the people that did buy the lottery tickets that never won.
So I think there's a lot of wastage. There's a lot of things that could be made better. Okay, That's my sort of pseudo frustration. Now let's let me give you the solutions on how to move forward with this three main steps. I'll give them here and I will go in detail, in depth with each and with demo. And I've got some stuff around here.
You'll see number one is having a feedback, or at least a self-critique. Number two is not mixing the self awareness and doing it. So don't mix is the advice. That don't mix means you should definitely play and then there's a time to reflect and to critique it. All right. And number three is what's the Holy Grail you're looking for in terms of playing and getting the feedback?
And I have a team that Holy Grail and explain exactly what it is if you're striving for that. It doesn't mean that you'll be a legendary player, but at least you have what it needs to keep making progress for a lifetime. So let's get going with number one. Hey, guys, real quick, if you were enjoying this episode so far and you're interested in taking your guest or playing to the next level, please reach out to us.
We've helped thousands of guitarists improvise on standards at a level they didn't even think was possible. So Lincoln Description or visit Jazz guitar lessons dot net to start today. Okay, back to the episode. All right, Number one demo. I have a suitcase. I haven't found that it was somewhere in a drawer right there. Look at this. So this was my old, I don't even know, jam session, April four, 28.
Cool. Awesome. I got this demo. Look, it's written by hand on top, and this is where I would go to coffee shop and go. I played Summertime and so notice I played solo and I Guitar Festival, Ornithology, Days of Winter Rose. Look, it's written by hand. I went to a coffee shop here locally, 2006, and I was like, you know, can we get a gig through?
And that was recorded. That guy, bass player, his name is Jake Burnside. This is Happy birthday to my dad. Thank you. Give it back to me. So it was classical guitar pieces for about ten years, even though he told me I sounded bad. So that's a story for another time. How about this one? Another Jake recording. That was my demo.
There's this picture looking at us. Three guys. What do we play that's printed like at home? Sick of the Harrison crap. That was crazy. Elegy. An artist. Simple matter of conviction. Stella. Stella is our version of Saw Lauren. Stella. Yeah. So what else? All a gem. University of Montreal 2009 Baby steps. I'm just waiting beyond them to swing.
Take the Coltrane. So that was just a demo. So you see, for me, even so, that's just like bootleg stuff. So jams with friends practice sessions. I did record an EP in 2011. You can see my my websites called The Time It Took. There's five songs. Guys that played on this are amazing. Alan In the end. Marchant Thanks, guys.
So there's that and also the full length record that I did in 2018. So all that to tell you as a teenager, I would literally take that tape deck, you know, the one with two tapes. I was 14 and I just pressed record and I would play Sweet Dreams or Led Zeppelin songs or I play I learned some AC DC riffs and I would play it back.
I was a fan of what's her name, Pat Benatar. Right? So we're just like, learn these things and just listen and go, Oh, interesting. I didn't even know, but I was doing this. Not very consciously, but I knew it was important to play and then assess myself. So I've, I've always done that. So, number one, that's my history of self-critique and listening to myself.
This beats by a thousand miles just playing and not having any idea external idea, idea how I sound. Okay, Number two, I've already told you my first frustrated introduction. This is a really hard to sell concept, especially when I tell guys on my coaching calls. Guys got to submit videos of your playing and you go like, why? It's embarrassing.
I'm ashamed. I don't think I sound good enough Exactly that. That's why you need to send that in, because you'll never be able to make progress if you're not aware of the thing that you need to improve. Right? So it's like at a soccer game or hockey game or football game. You need the tape. You need to watch the game to see how things worked out.
So it's a football game. There's a perspective from the top, from the audience that you're never going to get. If you're a player on the field, you'll never be able to see all that. So that's one of the reasons we do it. And just some screenshots here on the screen for a while. One of my mentors have been compiling the data on how many video submissions we have each month, so some are very short, like an eight to like 45 seconds.
Some are full recitals, but you can see on the screen that we are tackling that data because it matters. And I haven't completed that yet because it's not going to be very scientific. But I would bet that there's a really high correlation with the degree of improvement one feels in their ability and the number of videos to submit for feedback, especially if the player, the student is able to implement the feedback somewhat or go, I see, I recorded myself, I sent it to you.
There is a an expert or expert routes or mentors or peers that watched it and went like, Oh, you need to pay attention to this and go, Oh, I'm the student. I never noticed I was doing that. Let me change it somewhat. So that's intelligence. It's not just information, it's implementing the information for better change. All right. So in a nutshell, that's step number one.
Do it. You can use your phone. There's a on iPhone, there's an audio recording app. You put your phone right there. You play for a minute to see what are you able to achieve This thing. This thing never lies. You'll play it back and go, Oh, I'm not in time. Oh, there's a string ringing out. I never knew my first finger was in the window and never notice.
My amp was so loud I never noticed. Like, I cut the end of chords short. I don't know what you're going to find out. Things that are the things you should be working on. Because while say, I'm busy playing, I'm not necessarily aware because my focus is somewhere else and I think I would go as far as saying us humans, we have a feature.
It's not a bug, it's a feature. We can only point our attention the attention on one place, right? So if I tell you, hey, big toe, your left, big toe, you're there now. Yeah, but it's really hard to count the changes to giant steps while you're doing that. It's like your attention is going to be in one place.
So that's why we work on stuff to put them in automated or semi-automated roles so we can execute on it, so we can start to focus on different things. So jazzers do a lot of techniques and chords and harmonies so they can now focus on expressing themselves with ideas that are fun. I think while most of us get stuck into learning the vocabulary, we're like, I need more syntax to say the stuff I say while I'm like, No, let's just try to express ourselves and come back to the drawing board if you're missing vocabulary.
My $0.02. So number one on my little notes, feedback and self-critique is what you should be doing. Feedback is ideally when someone else listens to recording and you, you know, you trust that their advice is going to be good and the self-critique is just listening intently. Would have called mine. If you're doing a jam, whatever, don't listen to the same day, wait a few days, listen to it, and then be as distant as if it weren't you.
That's playing. That's the advice. So, number one, feedback and self-critique. Listen to yourself. The more the better. You're not going to believe the results. All right. Number two is promise. Don't mix it up. And here's what I mean by mixing it. Mixing it up. The problem will be that I will say I because we all do it, I will use it, statements I will play and be very aware that I'm recording myself.
If you put on a video on your phone and you try to record it, you'll see the camera goes on and suddenly you can't play. Yeah, me too. So while I play, I'm not trying to be the self-critique aware feedback person. I'm just playing. I'm trying to get lost in the moment of doing the thing I'm trying to do, which is playing the tune or the changes or whatever.
And I'm doing that and I'm giving this as far as advice because the opposite is health, which means I'm trying to do the thing. But at the same time, that darn voice in my head I'm going to listen to is like, Oh, it's not swinging. You should have done this on the change. Why are you playing so high?
Note while you're playing solo? You shouldn't play that many low notes. Why is that? Didn't you see that the alter scale was better for the flat nine? Why did you like that voice? It's skinny kill you, right? And we all have it. Stephen Press Field A great new I discovered this author recently. He calls this resistance and there's also a name for that in the Kabbalistic literature.
So very spiritual things like it's the shadow for a certain part of the world is the the union Carl Jung shadow. That concept, that thing is always there. So here's my second advice is not to mix trying to be self-aware while I do the thing, while I do the thing, while I'm playing a football game and a player on the field, I'm focusing on my role of what my purpose is and execute that to the best of my ability and and in football, they say, throw a Hail Mary.
That's what I'm doing all the time, right? Or I'm expecting of myself to do that. And that's where I'll recommend another video that's about 2 minutes long. It's called Finished Not Perfect. It's from a cartoonist or someone that does visual arts. Right. And it's such a deep, profound lesson. Finish the thing. It's not going to be perfect, but put it down.
Once it's done. So do a take and just just make sure that you don't try to be as self aware. You're not attempting to implement anything. Just let yourself go. Let yourself be carried in the moment. That's the lesson. One thing of note before we go to the third tip. So it's okay to jot down how you felt like Wes Montgomery in the studio would say, Oh, well, I felt like my soul wasn't as good.
Could we do a second? Think it's okay to jot that down? But then don't let that be a direct reflection of the self critique. It should be put, put on hold, but at least try again to put that voice on hold and just to execute what you're you're about to execute. Now let's move on to the third dip.
So the third tip is what I call the Holy Grail, which is your your standard of what you're striving to do for the perception. And again, just to recap quickly, feedback and self-critique, by the way, we are revamping the way I'm going to do the coaching on the website and blogs. See the link in description below. There's currently a waitlist, so that's going to be early September of 2020 for jazz guitar lessons on that slash wait list.
One word no iPhone. And that's going to be to uncover a new course offers and also ways of having a hybrid feedback ing program along with a very barebones, simple, easy, song centric process which avoids people doing years and years of skills and arpeggios and theory and not wanting up, being able to play a tune. Yeah, you know that one too.
Which is like, Hey, play me a song. You've been taking jazz lessons five years. Yeah, play me a tune. Yeah. So my program, my new stuff, remedies that. But right now I'm just building a list and I'm building the products so you guys can get that, get a bit of coaching, a bit of my advice or the other peers advice at the same time is a very focused, accountable accountability class.
So this is all in the works. Join the waitlist below. Thank you. And so back to the Holy Grail. So here's here's a standard. You get feedback and you get used to listening to yourself, which can be horrible at first, as I've done with my tape deck as a kid. Well, you know, you could record on top of another tape or you could record the FM radio playing.
Yeah, I've done plenty of that. And then don't try to be the self aware person. Don't mix, don't mix the self aware. Just play, play and then listen to yourself. And number three, what you're striving to do with the Holy Grail is to completely match what it sounded like while you were playing with what it actually sounds like when you're watching a recording, when you're or listening to yourself, when those two things merge, which they've done for me, it's fantastic.
And when I'm saying this, it's not like boasting or not like bragging. It doesn't mean that you're at the end of the road musically or that you can't get any better. But for me, for me, me, when I play and I record myself, sorry. And I recorded Watch It later, I remember. I'm like, Oh yeah, There was a second course of Girl from Ipanema.
I've done this with a scale and this with arpeggio, whatever. There's no surprise. So it means that my, my awareness of the during and my awareness of the recording is the same. Well, what you'll notice over time is you'll play record yourself. And that's one end of the spectrum. You may not be far off the end of the spectrum, but you're here and you listen to yourself.
And most of it you're like, Oh yeah, that's how I played. And then surprise, I didn't know I played that chord this loud. I didn't know what. Right? So the recording uncovers these areas. So the the great thing about being less and less caught up with the technique and less and less caught up with that darned voice in my head and less and less caught up with whatever other musicians or if the bartender is cute or whatever, the more aware I am during the playing becomes almost like a meditation so that when I listen back, there's no surprises for me.
Right now. I have it. There's no surprises. I did the four or five gigs in the past, say seven or eight weeks and all the recordings and again, it's like I knew, like I knew how good or how bad it sounded. I just knew because I was there while doing it and I wasn't preoccupied with other things. It will not be your case as first because the recording will uncover all these beautiful things that you were not aware of.
And guess what you're going to work on in You're playing to become a better player. Yeah, Yeah. 20 minutes to tell you guys that. Exactly. The stuff that comes up is your syllabus now and your syllabus going to be different than my syllabus and any everyone else. Although we play the same tunes, we know the same vocabulary, we know the same arpeggios and songs.
The stuff we love is all there. Okay, so just one tiny experience I have to share with you. There's a an event in my last gig actually, where I listen to the recording and my awareness during is slightly different from the recorded awareness and I'm not making up excuses or B, I'll tell you what happened. I'm playing a blues and it's just a bass player and another guitarist accompanying me and clearly the guitarist and I were not in the same place.
So I'm improvising and taking a solo. But he probably fudged a beat or two beats like he's a bit behind. So me, I purposely block them off for my hearing and I just follow the bass player because I know me and the bass, we are in the same place in the form and it's just a blues in B-flat.
And I know the other guy, the other guitarist is going to catch up eventually is going to go, I got lost. So at that time, when I listen to the recording, I'm like, Oh, it's interesting to hear me and Bass totally go for it. And then this guy being sort of in a limbo and the mix is pretty interesting because it's like you didn't expect these hips or these escorts to be in this place, but it's like pretty cool.
So I'm like, Oh, I, I could not have been aware of that because I was so intensely focused on the bass player. But that's again, the future of the human consciousness. Like, I could only focus on my things, always focusing on myself and listening to the bass player. And I leave you with wise words again. If you're interested in more coaching.
I do these videos for, of course, promotional stuff, marketing stuff. It's very difficult to teach these kinds of concepts. I know that's been the bane of my existence since 2009, but it is a fascinating world. Just learning how to learn is sort of my jam, and if you're interested in finding out more, just join the waitlist before we we really start new materials in later this year, probably late September, October, November, depending on when I finished that said, the last anecdote is I believe it's either Pat Metheny or Herbie Hancock.
That said, there's a point where you can have different perspectives on hearing yourself, and I'm going to miss that quote. But it's probably something along the lines of I hear myself as myself, then I hear myself sound from within the band. So I hear guitar say from the perspective of how the other guys in the band hear me, and then I can go even further back in my awareness and be aware of how I sound from the standpoint of the audience listening to me, playing the band.
And then you can, you know, you can play with that. It's just a thought experiment or it's a figure of speech, but there's value in hearing these different layers. It sounds the same. The mix is the same, the song is the same, the scales are the same, like everything is the same thing. The nuance, everything is the same.
But where the attention is put feels a slightly bit different. So the best players in the world, the Herbie's and the Batman series, of course, they sound awesome regardless of where you listen to them from. So it's a it's a great little paradox because you may play with a group and if we isolate your parts like this, perfect.
You're doing a great job, you're in time, you're playing all the chords or whatever. And if you zoom out like, Yes, but you're part in this, maybe you're copying was too heavy for the sax solo, or maybe you don't feel it wouldn't just listen to yourself. But when we scroll back, you're like, Oh, you're just a bit behind, you know, you dropped a beat or something.
You added the beat to the bar, you dropped the beat, you're behind or you're rushing, or you're way more busy than what the singer needs or the drummer's way too loud for you or, you know, all these things you can only be aware of when you sort of take a step back. But in auditory step back and not like a physical step back, although both would work on that note.
That's it. I'm Marc from Jazz Guitar lessons. Please like and subscribe. If you enjoyed this content, let me know if you have any questions and I'll see you in the next episode. Take care. Bye.
