Hey, guys. Welcome to the channel. Here's another call with one of our March Madness winners. Mark is going to join us in a minute for asking you a few questions for really helpful. Q And he played it here he is, actually, and he played a beautiful rendition of Summertime, which was voted on the Jazz Guitar Fellowship. So let's get started with a Q&A.
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 French accents, make sure to subscribe. Okay, So I know you have the three questions. Even if we depart from that, it's totally okay.
I'll let you take the ball or run away with it. Okay. So Marc, first question for you. As a kid, I actually did learn to play music because about nine years old, probably with some classical guitar. And then I started to get into jazz. I listen to jazz all the time at home. From that point forward, for some reason, I started to play by ear, so I dropped the habit of reading music and now I'm finding that that might be an inhibitor to my progress.
So I guess the question is, do I dig back into reading music and trying to figure that out? And I actually progress in your program working a lot with my ears and see if I can pick up the rest as I go. Great question. It's like two separate questions in a way, because the reading side of things can be thought of in the classical world, like reading sight reading, like you see a thing for the first time and you perform it as it's written.
This is not required for jazz, and I think that a lot of jazz players become fine approximate ears like myself or some like legendary players like West never read like, I don't want to read music, but they knew like, you know, West knew what he was doing. So I became a reader on guitar of, say, a lead sheet, more so as a cue card.
So it's not like I'm sight reading, it's reading it. I'm reading it, and then I can refer to it. I know which pitches are high or low. So that's a there's two components of your question. So there's two answers. One is which part is like preventing you from making progress? If it is reading charts like this and just things from the real book, you can develop a level of proficiency in reading that's high enough to tackle that.
But that's not taking me to Carnegie Hall to be like first oboe and whatever, right? And then the other side would be like, if you wanted to do that because you become a pit musician or you're drawing upon to play things that are written in front of you. And I'd say maybe developing a Jesuit Cavalier is not like your your current priority right now.
Like you would want to focus on that, right? So the short answer is like yes and no, but you can do very, say, guitar centric studies such as the, you know, the William Levitt. There's a Berklee modern method. There's a whole thing if you want to start from scratch. Okay. But you could also do lesser, lesser things, which I would grab the book off my shelves.
Now for, for the reference on camera one, I think it's called Melodic Rhythms, so it's exposing very simple melodic motifs in a single position, but they will tackle a different rhythmic figure every time. So we get used to seeing these subdivisions and execute them accurately. Is this reading? No, because beyond the first or second pass of reading it, you're not reading it anymore.
You're like remembering what you read, if that makes sense. So melodic rhythms and I'll grab the books just for that's like took it to two books. So this one melodic rhythms, some Berklee Press, that's really it. And that's what I mentioned with the rhythmic figures. Like they will coach you on a rhythmic figure on a single note. So one time you gotta take a rest and attack it.
You repeat that a few times and then after you do the study, the study is simply reusing these motifs. You, you found out about the other one that's really popular, but not with guitarists. Is rhythm rhythms complete by Buggs Bower, I think. Okay. Uh, Charles Collins and Charles Coughlin and Bugs Bower, and this is the same principle, but it's much shorter.
So we get a key rhythm here and then you get three eight bar phrases using that motif. Uh, this is more like four band instruments, six clarinet trombones, and drop it like in high school. So. Right. Yeah. But that could give you if you wanted, it would give you enough reading to maybe unblock your, your constraint and you're playing.
Mm. And if all else fails, you can just like look at a bunch of lead sheets and decipher them. And that's going to be plenty if that makes sense. No, it does make sense. That's great. Excellent. You mentioned playing in positions reference there too. And I remember I was watching a Kenny Burrell video last night and such lovely changes that he was playing, but his hand wasn't music on the fretboard.
I don't know if it was me. I'd be jumping down here, back up here and over here in my head to be doing gymnastics. So I think I've got to force myself to be a little bit lazy with my left hand, which wasn't one of my questions, but it just came to me last night. That's very economical compared to the way I play the guitar.
It is and it is not. So that's a whole I think it's a it's like a mirage, you know, you get like, Oh, I'll get water and I see the palm trees. But yes, at the same time I made a video about this like 15 years ago where there are patterns, say, within the scale, one, two, three, four.
The da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. They're dead. If I did force myself to do that in positions, that's the opposite of economical, because I may get on the finger, that's. There's a hard transition between two strings that I could spare myself that by just moving up. So it's not it's not economical geographically, but it's economical in phrasing and.
Right. One of the best ways to go about this is to grab Charlie Parker tunes and attempt to stay in a position play that basically impossible. It's like you're not going to do it. It's like, why not just go for the shift that's phrased better so there's validity to doing the full box and thing. There's the other one jumping around, and I personally have segmented both in in my playing going yeah, full position caged and or Berklee system seven positions and then one string at a time.
I mean it is obviously you know Yes, yes. One Yeah. And then the blend of the two which is what's optimal for phrasing. But then that's not very so human mind friendly because it's not constrained, it's not segmented, it's like anything and everything. So I think there's value in, in all of the approaches, just depending on what again, what your constraint is for for that period and you're playing for sure.
Okay. Well, that's kind of a great segue into my next question that I had, which is I wish I'd learned to play piano in my earlier days because I would have learned theory. I've found the guitar to be very mathematical, almost. It's patterns on the fretboard and the piano gives me a different context. So I feel I've got a good basket of chord inversions that I could come.
I can do some soloing, but as soon as someone starts mentioning relatively minor scales and substitutions, my head is closed off. So the question is, can I is there a way that I can dig into theory? That would be I'd have to study, but it would be somewhat enjoyable, but also wouldn't distract from the seven step process that you've got.
Can I build on the theory while I'm doing the seven step process by split? How do you phrase it? These are working learned theory. So it's not like to not pleasant. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If I was 18, I'd be willing to take on the unpleasantness. But 61 maybe not. Yeah. Okay. Well, again, that. That's good news. I think it's two separate questions, and I want to answer the piano questions first, because I've.
My heart is in it right now. I, I regard myself I got my, my little gear, I got a couch. I like it electric. It's an electric piano. It's got a stand. Everything's in the house. I say it's for my son. That's for me, really. And it's not going to teach me theory to do, which I'm about to propose.
But if you have a keyboard lying around and you want to come up on standards, you can do that. And I picked it up from from downstairs just to show you on the skull because I saw your questions in the email. It's called Keyboard for the Penis and Non Penis by Jerry Kolker. And this was designed as a two semester class in I think it's Miami University or something, because keyboard literacy is important to anyone doing serious studies in music, all instruments, myself included.
I had to go through it and classical I had to go through in the in the in the jazz world, if you did half of that book, you could comp any standard with four fingers. So these two and these two, that's a two, that's your five and that's back to your one. It's root route seventh, third, fifth anniversary.
So you do that in a key to the next, you know, then they're like, okay, here's blue bossa in the book. Chunk chunk structure is magical. You can learn it in a month plus I know you know you're an achiever, so you just get you to pick it up. So it's not going to teach you any theory. That's why I say your question is so even my people I know that studied classical piano can't talk to them, but try it on subs in the Bolton six and going to go to the rest of my even these guys at play really high level like Mozart and whatever you don't know they're reading dots on a page
which is a thing you want to be a technician to do. That's great, but highly recommended. Unrelated to your question, however. Hey guys, real quick, if you were enjoying this episode so far and you're interested in taking your just 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 link in the description or visit JazzGuitarLessons.net to start today. Okay, back to the episode. If you want to do theory, I will recommend that you just take a dedicated class in in basics basics. And if it's too easy, you can just run through it faster. But I would say start from the ground up and just set yourself a limit.
So not to get completely swallowed in it because you could spend 3 hours a day on it and then what? Even if you do woodworking or golf, like anything that you'll spend 3 hours on it on, it will detract from my seven step process, just like anything else will not be conducive to doing that. But outside of cold between you and I have a resource or two that I can recommend that may be behind a paywall.
Either of mine or another one, which I'll. But my trifecta is this and it's hard. These things are hard to come by A class that would combine the knowledge of whatever it is you're working on. C Major equals a minor relative. Yeah, and the fretboard awareness of it and the hearing aspect of it. So you could completely know you're going from a minor.
So a trifecta of these three things is something you should be looking for. It used to be in books and be very dry conservatory based. Just do all the clefs and it's like you can do that. Uh, actually, I'm not affiliated, but, uh, you know, Duolingo. Yeah, yeah, that, that they have math classes now for kids and stuff.
I saw the piano slash music. Course it is pretty good. So interesting. Very interactive. You can do 5 minutes while you're waiting for the coffee to brew or something, so that could be worth giving a shot. But the other resources, they'll be in touch or ask me because super. Okay, good. Good question. So within my coaching, I do it as the step after, which is all right, here are the 5 to 7 progressions we tackled Stella, all the things whatever, and I break them down, I tear them apart on paper, I reconstruct them.
So my prescription to you would be like, Yeah, watched the videos I made and watch them like three times within a month and then repeat and repeat and repeat and eventually you'll, you'll click on most of these things. Super. I must admit I'm quite lazy when we get a challenge in the fellowships because I go and look around on the Internet.
So somebody else's harmonic analysis just to get an idea of what that's like so that may be cheating a little bit, but it does actually distill into my head. Ultimately, I start to figure a few things out That's good. And through tackling more standards, the recognition or the awareness that this thing came by and I already knew this, like, you know, even if it's C be a minor or C major, A minor, but if you're an f your f e D minor on these, that relationship is the same relationship relatively right.
That can only be done through use and exposure, like a lot of exposures like learning in language, lots of exposure to common vocabulary. Get awesome. That's pretty much it's okay. So very occasionally I get asked to play in a local restaurant and the first time I bombed, I mean, I actually thought I was going to play with the owner who had a saxophone.
I thought we were going to jam. And at lunchtime I thought, Oh, maybe he means I'm playing on my own and I've never done that. So I downloaded a few backing tracks and I think I got a $10 tip. So that was it. But I had a lot of fun. So you're a professional now? You got paid to play.
Exactly. Exactly. The weird thing is they asked me to come back and so I'm thinking, well, and thank you so much for designing the program where you learn jazz standards, because I've never done that. I've got some favorite tunes that I've played in the past, but I've never committed to learn standards. So now I know several jazz standards.
The question is with the I wouldn't say regimented with the guide that you have for practicing, where do I sit in rehearsing a set? Is that completely separate from learning a practicing? Oh, that's a good question. I would say it's not distinct. Uh, the goal now, when I bring the new You new program, I called Catalyst, by the way.
So to to promote this, I changed the name a little bit and we just aim to complete the five steps, the first five steps of the seven steps over five tunes, which brings us to synthesis. The jam session, which is essentially, I can hold my own on the repertoire, I can do the copying, I can do the head, the copying, the province, the copying.
Again, wrap it up. So that's what you would perform in a restaurant if you decide not to solo on the song, not to improvise. Cool. If you decide not to do a round of copying, also cool. But all the pieces are there. I don't believe it is distinct from my approach in that beyond the knowledge of 5 to 10 tunes, the problem of retention arises which is a problem you don't have when you don't know any tunes, when you don't know any statements.
But now you start to forget them faster than you learn them. So retention should be part of your plan. And I use a tool called a4c4 course exercise just to go through step five, do a full thing as a measuring stick in my my prescription for current coaching students is after you got your five tune, once you get to the sixth one, your previous five, you should perform them three times a week.
Add the variables and at the very least do a4c on each. Even if you don't stop to correct the mistakes. Whatever the force T sees the measuring stick like can I do this or not? And then I play through them. Oh shoot. Forgot the bridge. There's this chord introduction. There's right and I can pinpoint and then go, okay, now I know what I got to work on.
That work is crucial and there's no means or way to maintain a large group of 12. If it's not used, it will just not, you know, it will just not be maintained, just by sure. It's not like bicycle people. So you'll, you know, it's not it's got to be played and played and played and played again. Yeah. If that person that was brilliant, really super helpful And thank you for offering the Jess Guitar fellowship for free everybody.
I think it's genius. And the, the competition was great. I was just a bit surprised to even have the chance to come close to the shop and it was really great. That's great. I think you everyone did super well, but also you got a lot of votes because I think you you played well. And Elena also, it was fantastic.
Ed, you saw Ed's video. It's like classically based good sound and like the counterpoint. It's like this. This is what it's for. Yeah, just Ed is so consistent, too. I thought, Yeah, brilliant. And thank you. Thanks for being a part of it. And once you leave the call, I'll make it lucky. Thanks to Marc for being you. So I'll make a little like a outro.
That sort of thing. You betcha. Yeah. Did you have anything off the record you wanted to talk about? No, I don't. I don't think so. I think I've just got to I've got to go actually back to basics a little bit. I did years ago. I did a quick lesson with Stu Goldberg, who used to play people to John McLaughlin.
And and I didn't realize he lived in the next town. So I called him and said, Hey, can you do a quick lesson? And I remember him telling or asking me, you know, show me where the B Flats are on your fretboard. Well, that top string, I know what that is in a string. I know where it is.
And then I'm starting to scratch my head a little bit. So it's some of those fundamental allergies that I know it in terms of modes. But if you asked me to put the major together in a different inversion, I couldn't just look at the cable and go, I was there's a bit there's a note, there's that note that sounds cool.
So I think I've just got to go back to some very basic stuff to help expand from there. Yeah, I think the whole coaching, what we talked about in January would be yeah, really good to be. Yeah. Taken by the hand and and just so weren't very technical topics Have you ever built scales with Tetra chords. No I haven't.
Okay. Well you know, maybe there's going to be stuff to ponder while while you can't fall asleep at night or something like know totally. So attach record is four notes, etc. The chord has no h, it's C or D tetra chords, meaning for notes. It's a Greek term, I guess. Okay. Greek or Latin? Yep. Greek. And if I look at CD e f, that's the first step record.
It's called a major Dutch record because what we have is a whole step between C and D, a step between the end and a half step. So it's all half. Uh huh. You're with me, right? Yeah. So if I build a death record there and then I build a tattoo record on the fifth of that so strongly and I build a major Dutch record again, then I get the major scale go, right?
Yeah. And then you can select any other starting note. But I recommend you start with the ones that are close to concert on a C and do that. You can start on the genome. So if you do G, A, B, C, you get a major tetra chord, right? Yeah. But then you start on the fifth. So you go D Theo DSG, you're, you'll wind up with your half step, not in the right place.
So you need an F sharp to get that. So with me. Yeah. Okay. So now the key signature to G Major is handed to us on a silver platter going. You need to raise that F2 in f sharp. And if you keep consecutively ascending a fifth like this, you'll have to add a sharp every time. But the previous sharps carryover because of the way the Tetrick also built.
If you did it in the opposite direction down the face. So if you went C major result you know oh white notes. But then if you did F major right you go down this then you would need a flat somewhere in there. I'll just tell you surprise, it's a B flat. If you start with your major Tetrick so you can have two Major Tetrick words side by side and build all the major skills as you get acquainted with the order of appearance of these sharps and flats, these things, then it's a cycle force like you to cycle their relative major and minor like everything is already in there, including chord progressions.
But it takes it all, it takes a deep, hard look at it for months till it's like, Oh, I see this. Yeah. Got to become a bit schizophrenic about it. It's all there for. But first principles, Tetra chords. Yeah, it's definitely an uphill slog. And then you plateau for a while, but once you've got there, you're looking for the next slug.
So I've got to get to that plateau. But yes, I'm getting that. There's definitely been an improvement in my playing since I started, so I'm happy. Very good. Excellent, good. And then, uh, the resource I mentioned it, when you get there, if you have extra time, just shoot medium or chat. I built these courses. I want to bring them back and put them in the accelerator and they're called Harmony.
One, two, one, two and three. And it's that's what's that trifecta I mentioned. Yeah. I made these classes, I used to sell them. I don't sell them anymore. I sell coaching because. Yeah, because. But I can give you access and you, you may find like everything in your three questions, that was like the advances in there, reading, hearing it, knowing the theory of this, playing the fretboard like it.
So that's, that's the answer. Fantastic. Marc Great. Brilliant. Thank you.
