How do I learn standards? How do I get better at playing standards? How do I not forget standards now? I have learned these tunes and I've got in my ears, my fingers and whatever, and I let them go for two weeks and then they vanished. Poof. So let's talk about this today. 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. Hey guys, my name is Marc from Jazz Guitar lessons are that for a quick video tip on learning centers. Also, there's a few areas of problem. People would say, How do I learn standards?
I can't play standards. I want to play five or ten or 15. So that's an issue we sort of address. If you haven't read that already, there's a link. A description below is for free. It's called My Process is a seven stage process, which I invite students to implement on standards. Still, the way I do it on my cell phone standards and the way hundreds of students of doing are doing it.
That's my recipe. It's of course I give away the secrets. It's pretty obvious learn the cause or the melody, etc., so you can find out all about it. So that's how do I learn standards? How do I play standards? That's one problem. Then people have another problem with go, How do I get better at playing standards, which is sort of another thing which entails, well, maybe you need more voicings, maybe you need more scales, maybe you need certain arpeggios, right?
So it's like anything you start and then you get good enough and then you want to get better, you want to get good. And the other question I get from the people going, how do I get better is how do I not forget standards? Now, I have learned these tunes and I've got in my ears, my fingers, whatever, and I let them go for two weeks and then they vanished.
Poof. First main thing I want to tell you, if you are not yet able to understand how the seven step process works, these seven stages, just go read it out. It's a three page super long, it's on the website and you can also go to the fellowship, which is my free community and it's explained to the format of the course.
All right. So it's seven videos. We do it on cell by satellite and autumn leaves, and then you totally get it. Once you get it, your mission, shall you accept it, is to learn to implement this on at least five tunes. So take the tunes you want to maybe take a blues like Tenor Madness, take Autumn Leaves and Blue Bossa, and maybe a ballad and maybe something else.
And then you're all set. Maybe two standards, one ballad, one bossa. And you're set. All right, after you can do this, it means that minimally, you'll be able to play what I call a jam session over the songs. Meaning you can show up and play the head in and head out. You can play some coughing, you can play some improv minimally, minimally, but at least you can do that.
All right. So this is the first order of business. And before you get this, it's in a way useless to try and tackle lots of alternate skill positions and lots of Barry Harris Gordon versions. I got in trouble for seeing this on YouTube a while back. It's like you don't have a repertoire, so you don't have the laboratory, you don't have the footings to sort to implement these things into your own playing.
But I want to talk about in this video is what do you do once you reach ten, 12, 15 standards and you start to get them? Okay, so I'll give you the recipe. It's one of the first times I go public with this. I'll tell you super simple while back. So that's 15 years ago. 20 years ago I had a gig back.
It was a Levi's or Lizzy gig bag. I used to have a good time flat five carrying on my back. I had the sheet in my gig bag, always, so I played cocktail gigs, I played restaurants, some cocktail parties for corporate or for weddings, and I played jam sessions and I jammed with friends. But jam like public jam sessions.
So I would carry this piece of paper. It's too bad I lost it because I rewrote it several times. It was full of coffee stains and undisclosed beverages, beer stains, and it was awesome because I had this list and someone would say, What do you want to play? And I don't know, What do you want to play through the lesson or face and go pick one?
That was scary because of course I had this list and someone called something I'm not too confident with. I'm not I'm a bit shaky on. So I went back home and goes, Yeah, if I look at this list and I'm like, Oh, I hope he doesn't call that tune. What is this thing called Love? I'm not sure. Remember the bridge or body and soul?
What if he's wanting to do that version with the Android? Like, whatever. So that was an amazing tool and I have to admit, I went I went on my students. I should recap this. So I have this journal. It's called the Bullet Journal Not affiliated. Amazing concept is free of charge to use it and I sometimes I looks like the guy in a Beautiful Mind.
I track everything you know my work out and what I eat. And I started this list of tunes. So this is now my new fresh list of standards. No kidding. The page. The page is not full. So at the height of my glory, when I played a lot of gigs, I had about 100 tunes I could play from memory.
And now there's this list that I have that would say at least nine tunes out of ten. There's maybe 20 or 25 on there, 90. So the ten I could play the head, the comping and the soloing, not forgetting. These are like totally anchored. But there's this one. I'm going, Hmm, I'll tell you, anthropology, it's a rhythm change.
But it didn't do that very well, Do they Indeed? There was a fingering for that. I'm playing in my head. Sort of. I'm like you. Woops, I need to review it. So if I would show up to a jam and be scared that the drummer calls that tune, then I know what I got to practice. All right, so back to you.
Create your list. When you have five, ten, 15 tunes. You can also create a separate list on the flip side and go, Those are the tunes that love to play or those are the tunes I can play if someone puts a church in my face. But that list is just play me song. Bob You played a tune, right?
So that's super important. That list will now be used as far of your as far as your maintenance strategy. Hey, everyone, just a quick break here. If you're loving this episode and you want to elevate your own, just our skills, reach out to us. We've gathered thousands of guitarists and becoming accomplished jazzers beyond their wildest dreams. So check the link in the description or visit jazz guitar lessons dot net to get started today.
Okay, now back to the episode. So here's a maintenance strategy. When I'm building between zero and ten tunes and I can't play any standards, I will 100% of time work on 100% of implementing getting up to step five, which is the jam session in that process. Doc I talked about, which is played ahead and played ahead out at the end comping solo.
I just want to learn the new tunes. As soon as I have ten, I will put the songs on that list and I will go in retention mode. Retention means playing the tune at least 2 to 3 times a week in a format that is what I call a faucet. Faucet is for course, core courses, for course exercise.
First course is the head or chord melody. Second course is skipping, third course is soloing or bit of improv. Last courses head out. So the melody again as soon as you have that concept. So you set up the metronome and you play it without stopping. So this is now your maintenance strategy and it is a measuring stick. So knowing that I will take this tune I'm scared of, I said Anthropology could be any other tune.
I will just confront myself with What if someone showed up and we had to play together? It's a great measuring stick to see which cause I'm forgetting if I am not in time, if this or that is just. It's a measure of where I'm at with that tune, right? So I perform to foresee and then I may use some of my time.
So here's a time split and I'll let you go with that. Guys. It's been super simple video I will use now the last 20% of my practice for retention. When I first start to practice, I want to tackle the songs I'm just learning that are fresh. My mind is fresh and I can retain and I'm like really up to go for technique or hard stuff.
I do this first. I work on my new tunes. I do the bulk 80% of my practice as being focused and then the last bit is on retention is just making sure I don't forget. So if you can put your tunes on a rotation to play them in a retention mode 2 to 3 times per week, Caveat you don't need to reinvent the wheel, you don't need to play amazing solos, don't need to play anything on that.
You just make sure that you can hold your own and then you can maybe set up another song to go, Well, I want to go from 15 tunes to 20 to 25 that I can call from memory, and that's it. So I hope you enjoyed these videos, these videos. Let me know the description in the comments if you have any questions or anything you'd like me to cover about standards and make sure you see the just our fellowship free link in the community description below and also the way to do the process.
A seven stage process. That's all in the description below. I'll see you soon on the website and on the channel. Thank you guys.
