Hey guys, it's Marc. And for a slightly different video this morning, and just in my car, of course. And I don't have the blue shirt, the blue guitar. And you'll see why the topic of this video, really aligns with the fact that I'm not necessarily ready and I'm not necessarily in a premium prime position to shoot a really good video with guitar in hand and the simple topic is this there's no really a curriculum or straight line.
And that's the thing I've heard a lot from you guys with YouTube comments teaching for the past 15 years online, and dealing one on one with students that people are really typically trying to look for a straight line curriculum like what's A and B and C, and I want to be sure I do it in the right order and that it's organized and there's a syllabus and everything as much as, say, as an instructor and, and books and DVDs and online courses want to do.
Well, there is no such thing. All right. That's the whole that's a whole lesson here. There's not a straight syllabus or curriculum that will put everything in the right order to achieve a certain, goal or aspect. It is if I want to have a certain certification, if I want to become an engineer or something. But music is not quite like that, right?
It's a language. And I'll tell you that the curriculum basically is the songs, the songs I want to play in the style I want to perform. And in my case, it's all okay. I want to be able to comp and improvise well and standards and just have these progressions as a, an outlet or a place of self-expression. and by the way, you don't see moving my other hand.
It's because it's holding the phone right now. And I'm sitting at, this beautiful national park. It's really near my place. I see a golfer or, you know, I see animals. I saw a cardinal fly by. It's, like, really beautiful and calm. Just what I needed this morning, quite frankly, because things get hectic and the kids got a good the day care and know.
Haven't showered or shaved. But. Hey, Sylvie, push forward. And there's a few things I want to talk about in this episode in that there's no straight curriculum is a thing. Also, people wait for conditions to be perfect, to practice, to make sure they're in the right mood, that they know exactly what they have to practice, and what kind of outcomes going to give.
Also, my students look for the perfect understanding. Like, I can't really rehearse the scale of this thing unless I fully understand why this minor 11th and this and that. So I think all these things are fallacies because ultimately, look, I'm I'm walking the talk. I'm not effectively ready for a full fledged YouTube video in my studio with the lightings and the blue shirt and the in a that right.
I still went through with it and that that's a way I like to define discipline for myself. Discipline is doing it regardless of how I feel about it, or if I feel ready, or if conditions are perfect. So that's a that's a quick insight for anyone going picking up the guitar and doing playing and not stopping and not like bothering a head scratching is a big, big part of the puzzle is like, pick up that thing, then pick up the guitar, play it, pick up the guitar playing, pick up the guitar.
planning is important. Playing the right things is important. Having the exercises and the understanding and the study is important, but not as important as the sheer volume of stuff I'm going to play. Right? There's a point where it's like, well, now you may be wasting your time because you're doing too much, or we can refine the plan.
But let me tell you, that's through sheer dumb luck, we typically stumble upon the things that are necessary for growth. And that would be, songs in our case. And there will always be something in my studies that I will discover that's going to be the next thing I want to look into, the next obsession, the next thing I never heard of old practice and it and it's fine.
And I want to bring back an analogy with this. People say learning a language which I consider more of a parallel to learning jazz, but assuming we are looking into the curriculum analogy again, the syllabus. So I find that one, there's no syllabus. And if there were just a thought experiment, we could look into questioning and interviewing maybe 100 or 1000 jazz guitarist, not necessarily like legendary jazz stars, but the people that have achieved the sound and are able to improvise and know the standards and play the gigs.
Ask these guys what was the step by step approach, structured approach and you'll have a thousand different answers right? So it doesn't mean that the straight line does not really exist, or else most people will tell you, oh yeah, absolutely. You have to do this before you do that, which is just simply not true. Right. And a a good analogy to that would be I'm sitting in my car, which I love, and drive every day.
This thing I learned to drive when I was 16, right. Imagine having a curriculum that goes, no, no, no, like, Marc, you have to do all of the stop signs. Do stops where before you get on a highway or you need to be driving in these zones and having this curve before you do any left? Or it's like, no, you know what the journey is.
Well, get on the road and you'll encounter the signs that you're supposed to know and encounter other people's behavior, like cyclists and pedestrians, like people walking other drivers. I mean, motorcycles, right? Or, you'll encounter weather. Oh, my God. Right. So I think it's the same with learning tunes and learning jazz would be, well, get going with the thing and you'll encounter the thing that you want to do, which is playing songs.
Right. And you'll encounter traffic signs and other people's behavior and the stuff that you have to encounter. Regardless, while doing it. Which brings me to another analogy, another little topic of the fallacy. So often the fallacy is I have to do x, y, and z before I have to do before I can do A, b, and C, I'm not allowed to perform body and soul before.
I have studied and nailed all of the arpeggios and all of the scales and all the positions and all the chord inversions and all that and all the rest. And this is just it's just not true. And it just thinking about it, it raises my anxiety level. I go like, oh my gosh, body and soul. And yet I just want to sit down and play better at the idea that, you know, that's the intention.
So an important thing is to get going. I took a few lessons back then of 20 years ago with, a gentleman by the name of James Williams. He's in Montreal. Look him up. Great guitarist, great guitar, sort of great tone. And I asked him I was a getting down on myself, going, like beating myself on the head.
I don't have kings. People don't want play with me. I when I'm struggling with these scales, altered scales. And he said, you know what it is. I think it's persistence. His words and there was response is persistence. The longer you stay in the game mark, the better the game is going to get. Words of wisdom, which was tremendous on that.
Enjoy your day. Practice hard. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll see you in the next video. Take care.
