Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast. In this episode, I want to tell you about what's missing in free online guitar lessons and how you can fix that. I'll give you a formula that's actually four letters. That's super easy to remember. So you can start to implement these things in your playing right away and see massive progress. It's pretty simple.
Let's get started.
Welcome to Jazz Guitar Lessons, where we help guitarists to learn jazz faster, express themselves more fluently, and have fun along the way. My name is Mark, and if you're looking to learn jazz, form better practice habits, and especially if you enjoy French accent, make sure to subscribe.
So here's a formula I'll use through this episode and make it really quick and dirty. It's C plus plus a C or a R. And we'll dig into each of these letters. Because this is the paradigm I've been using to teach, to teach myself, but also to teach and coach thousands of students worldwide. And that's the stuff I think that's missing.
And I'll keep hitting back on this. Whatever's free online, a YouTube lesson, or a course or book, you may miss out on one or all of these elements. Even if you miss out on one of the elements, you're not going to see explosive results. So here we go C plus plus a equals R. C stands for clarity. O stands for objectivity, A stands for accountability.
And of course equals are the results. So I'm going to start with r the results to to see what's what's in it for me. Mark you listening to this podcast like what do we want. We learn more altered scales or bebop licks or do we have to learn a thousand more songs or pentatonic positions? Actually, you can do that.
But what we're after is, is what you have to remember. We want to feel like we're playing better. That's really nice. Especially revisiting old stuff. I have students in my program that come back after a three month or six month pause, and they play back the old stuff like, oh, it's like bicycle. It feels easier now. Yes, it does, it does.
So we want that feeling of playing better. We want a better technique, we want a better sound. We will want to be in the pocket more if we're playing with a band we want to have people want to have praise, you know, band mates or family or audience going loud. You know, you sound awesome. What are we in for as well?
We want to learn more songs quicker and retain the tunes. Hopefully. And ultimately, I'll tell you, for me, the R of the results is about self-expression. So I found that is that's going to be very profound and almost I'm like almost sobbing and crying, saying, this arts has a definite place in our society in that I think it can bring out in us stuff that wouldn't come out otherwise.
Like, I think the same thing with fiction, like movies and literature and poetry and dance and, you know, visual arts. I think it brings out in us, things that would not have been addressed, or in the words of the famous Dave Turner in Montreal, amazing sax player. One of my, teachers back then said, no, not him said that.
But one of my fellow students said, you know, you listen to Dave when crying is not enough. That's where you go. Right? And Dave sounded like, a modern version of Cannonball Adderley, I think, if I may say so. So are the result. That's what we're after. So why are we doing this? Where are we going after this?
In my case, I want to express myself better. I want to feel things. I want to have others share that feeling. Experience. I know it sounds it all sounds very woowoo, but that's typically what's missing from online guitar lessons going, well, we're going to do all of that. So what? So what in the end? Well, the so what is that.
All right. So let's go back to the formula C plus plus A. So clarity is our C. And that's typically what's missing if you're taking any sort of self-directed approach to watching YouTube lessons and trying to get better. It's the clarity. So clarity the best analogy to it I would have is like a semester in university, a kid goes to electrical engineering and he's got, I don't know, 120 credits to do what, University of Ottawa, which is right here.
So first semester is going to be five or 6 or 7 classes, and second semester is going to be X amount of classes. So it's pretty clear what the path is. And then after this first year of college university, there's a second year maybe a summer internship, I don't know. And you just make sure you don't fail any classes because then you have to take them again over the summer or whatever.
So that clarity is often lacking when we're learning, say in my case, jazz guitar or when we're trying to learn a craft or trade because there is not a methodical conservatory approach to jazz, although we try and people have done that, it's not as straightforward as, say, picking up a classical instrument and doing grade one, grade two, grade three, and then passing your juries and your exams.
In jazz it's a bit different, so clarity will often be lacking. And I'll give you the clarity recipe. I keep referring to this online and off. I call this a five step process. It's for free on the Jazz Star Fellowship. It's a school group and this is how I learned standards. And this is how I've been teaching it for over 15 years.
So look it up and that clarity is going, oh, I need to execute this at first knowing what it is. Secondly, perhaps executing these steps on a basic two, five, one and on a Blues progression. And then as the third step, do it again and again and again on five, ten, 15 songs with the same segments. So I can stop wasting time and just playing the good old things that I know, and actually learn something that's not more complex, but that's more like putting the blinders onto a horse.
Right? This we do that on the song. Okay. So the clarity is one of the things that's missing clarity on what it is that you're supposed to do at this very point in time, because everything is up for grabs. And frankly, everything is probably good or good enough for you to practice. However, the big, big caveat is, is this the time?
Is this now the right time to work on this specific technique or topic or song? And that's the thing I can help with, of course, on the coaching. If you're interested, head over to description link in description for Jazz Guitar Lessons dot net to join us. so that's the clarity. So see it's done C plus zero plus A equals R C plus O is for objectivity.
And I'm going to go with my rant again here. Typically if people feel stuck they haven't really been objective about what they're playing and where they're at. They're a component. There's a component of denial. Denial goes both ways. I honestly, I've seen this go both extremes. One way is I think I'm better than I am, that I know everything and I've already mastered the stuff.
While frankly, you haven't at all. And the other extreme is I don't think I'm that good and I don't think I'm I'm ready to move on to the next thing, which is perfectionism, if you may, if I may call it that way. So both extremes of denials are denial or bad. So the objectivity solves that. And I don't know where, an online jazz guitar lesson or a YouTube video or a book could give anyone objectivity about where they're at.
Objectivity comes from self-assessment. And it comes from, again, that's my rant. filming yourself. We all have phones in our pockets. I'm. I'm recording to equipment right now in my home studio that I would not even have dreamed of having 20 years ago. And it's dirt cheap, and we walk around with thousand dollar iPhones in our pockets with the most amazing cameras.
We film our kids, we film the sunset or happy moments or whatever, but we sort of forget that when we're playing music, it's a thing. We could also film and get feedback on, or at least get a realistic view. people will take before and after pictures of bodybuilding competitions or, you know, weight loss stuff and like, why not just do a before and after of, or, you know, home remodeling?
I remodel my kitchen before and after. Why not do before and after guitar? No. So that's really objective. Like I was here. I'm going there. I am at this moment. I am at that point. And the camera, the filming does not lie. It will be the most awesome. If you've never done this, this is the most awesome thing you could ever do for yourself.
Trust me. The objectivity is brought about being realistically assessing where we're at. Not I'm terrible. I'm never going to do this or I'm awesome. I don't need to learn anything. Neither. Extremes are good somewhere in the middle. And hopefully you can have a coach or a mentor, a private instructor or a colleague or your family bringing up more objectivity also for the objectivity.
So after you have the clarity, the C in my equation followed by the oh, these two, may eradicate a piece of denial
if you think you have the right process, because that's a thing. Also, I've noticed with students that they will believe they need a certain thing. Like now I need to do G major scale and 12th positions with all chromatic passing tones with all possible fingerings.
Before I do x, I'm like, okay, you think you do that? You think you need that? why? Well, because I want to achieve XYZ. It's like, well, what if I told you that to achieve that, there's multiple routes, like perhaps the route you picked is perfect, but just be open that there's there's more than one ways to go about it.
So that's the other side of objectivity. Is not being dead set on your ways of learning your ways of seeing things and being open to experiment. After the clarity, the objectivity of the see the old then you get a plus a equals are, are the accountability. And that's a big, big one. Accountability was the missing link in my own playing for 10 plus years.
Now, I'm lucky I have friends, colleagues, I teach full time for 15 years now and I play with people so accountability can be is like I'm not letting myself down, but accountability often comes from the outside. So you have a gig. There's your accountability. There's people in the audience. You're accountable to the bar owner. So this is one of the thing that I've been missing.
I wanted to record this podcast like two days ago and I forgot. So I'm like, Oh, I have to because I have to post it on that day. So accountability from the outside is good. If you have an instructor, if you have a band that you play with, if you have just friends to play with and jam accountability is awesome.
If you don't have accountability, then it's much, much harder to keep, to keep going. And I realize, in my own practice regimen when I don't have accountability. I tend to stagnate and do other things and just waste my time, and waste other people's time and not advance. So when you have accountability and you're honest about what's needed, and we are clear about what we're doing and we're objective about where we're going.
Then that's how you get results. So a plus a equals. The reason I'm ranting about this for so long is because I hope this will help people realize that the the paradigm we have about online guitar lessons is it could be fantastic. I've met people who taught themselves by listening to records and by watching videos.
But that also have met people that have a hard drive full of guitar courses and they can't play a song to save their life or jam with someone to save their life. So where's the balance? Right. So, again, clarity, objectivity, accountability will help you stay on the straight and narrow path to getting the results.
All right. So if you're interested in learning more, make sure you head over to the website or jazz guitar lessons that on that. And don't forget to subscribe and like and comment if you found this helpful. I'll catch you in the next episode.
