Jazz guitar lessons often that improve your jazz guitar, playing with a real teacher on listening to pop music or whatever floats your boat. Welcome to JazzGuitarLessons.net, 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.
So this is going to be a very short podcast in which I would I want to discuss something that I find important. But once again, as usual, you can take everything I'm telling you here, but it's stirring the trash. I don't mind even, well, in our modern society, say you put in the recycling bin or something like that.
In any case, I've been listening to quite a lot of non jazz music for the past, say six months, and I strongly believe it's important for anybody learning jazz guitar to get out of this small cage or this small and golden cage of listening to only jazz music. And I'll try to explain it quickly why I think it's important.
Important, of course, when you're trying to learn jazz guitar, it's necessary. It's and it's totally normal and understandable that you will listen to a whole lot of Kenny Burrell and Joe Bass and Wes Montgomery and those guys that you admire and that you wish to emulate. People that you want to get inspired from. But for the vast majority of you, and that's me included, well, basically, everyone except Pat Metheny, right.
As usual, we have listened to other types of music before learning jazz and from probably before even being in contact with jazz. It's very strange because, myself included, we tend to forget all about everything else and we tend to focus all our attention on jazz music. And it's very odd because there's this thinking that we can rationally say in a rational way that jazz is better, better, quote unquote.
Right now it's really better music, but because we have strong intellectual reasons for telling ourselves, you know, it's such a challenging music to play. It's difficult on the instrument to learn improvisation and comping and all those standards. It takes years. It takes patience, It takes a very good ears, it takes a lot of technique and everything. So we say, Well, this is the this is an art form, right?
We are beyond all this pop crap. And we are we are above all this stuff. So we listen to jazz. We become jazz snobs, which is totally normal. But I came into contact with some of the stuff I really enjoyed when I was way younger, as I was saying so in the past six months, and I realized what really made me tick when I would listen to music is this you find a chord or a chord change and it tickles you in a certain way.
It not it's not intellectual. It's not, Oh my God, that was a great solo. Look at all the extensions and all the substitutions it did. No, no, no, no. You listen to a guitarist and you. You just go, Wow, this really sounds good, man. It's amazing. And we we tend to forget about it. So I think it's a it's always a good time to go back.
And of course, if you want to learn jazz, I think I'm repeating myself here. But it's normal to listen to jazz nonstop for ten years or something like that. But you always have to come back to do what's good to you and what you just find good, whether it be blues, rock music, pop music, funk or anything. So my advice is to get back to your collection of music, your things that you cherish, and that you don't have good reason to cherish, because it's not, I don't know, jazz or classical music, right?
Not intellectual or not proper, quote unquote, music. So my advice go back to this stuff. And furthermore, if you're puzzled as to what you should listen to and what you should not listen to, because between you and me and this is that might be a quick judgment, but you don't want just to turn off the FM, to turn on the FM radio and listen to that crap all day and get all these ads played right in your face.
You don't need that. But what you can do is look at what's stood the test of time in terms of music, not just in terms of pop popularity, the things that have been listened to the most, but two things that have been around and that are the had an impact on our culture. For instance, I'd say and don't laugh, James Brown, you know, this guy has been around, Of course he passed now, but his music has a huge it's still has an impact on people and on the sounds that we still hear to this day in any type of music.
So or the Beatles or Elvis Presley or country music. It all all had an impact on everybody, including jazz players today. Right. Hey, guys, just a quick note. If you're enjoying this content and you're eager to boost your own jazz guitar playing, then connect with us. We've transformed the jazz skills of thousands of guitarists. You can find a link, a description or head directly over to jazz guitar lessons dot net to begin your journey.
All right, let's dive back into the episode. Go back to the stuff that you that you like. Or if you don't know where to start, just go back to the stuff that had an impact and why. Here's the reason why I think it's good. And first, because it's just for enjoyment and there is no pressure to understand the form or know what type of scales the guy was using is just you listen in your car and step on the gas and you feel good.
That's the first reason. The second reason is I think we can all learn from the groove. Oftentimes pop music is based on it, on a not necessarily a fab or a groove, but at least it's in time and there's a good beat, there's a good feel to it. And I think any learning jazz musician can rely on this and get more of this in your ears.
And the other reason is pop music is often constructed like a little package, like it's a little box, a little present that you get. It's all shiny and the package looks really good. It's been polished and republished and mixed and remastered and etc. And the final product is something that has been made for you to enjoy and the sound is not like a jazz trio where you, you just, you know, have my guitar sound and the bass is sound and here's a drummer sound and just put two microphones in a room and that's it.
That's it, That's all. No, no, no, no. Pop music is recorded and mixed with good care of what instruments do, what in terms of mixing, Right? So that's just my $0.02. Of course, you can all say I'm crazy, but I think it has a positive impact, especially on the level of arrangement and sonic songwriting. If you listen to really good jazz solos, they're constructed.
It's like architecture, right? Well, well, if you listen to a Beatles tune and look at the care that has been taken and the arrangement and the format of this is the chorus, and then we'll have this bridge and we have this and have this, even if it's not in terms of musical material, even if it's not complicated or complicated or not based on crazy chord changes, it's still a craft.
Whatever you think of, whatever you say about it, it is it is what it is. So by getting more of this in your ears, at least a little bit or once in a while, you can always improve your jazz guitar stuff, your jazz guitar playing by listening to pop music. So it's all that's all I had to say about that.
I hope it helps you and I'll see you in the next podcast on JazzGuitarLessons.net. Improve your jazz guitar playing with a real teacher. Take care.
