Hey, guys. Welcome back to the podcast. It's Marc back here again with you from jazz guitar Lessons. And in this final bonus podcast of the mini series revelations 2025, I share what my quote best students unquote have in common. And when I say best students, I don't really like that term. But I want to say the people that had the most radical transformation, the people that had, the more most surprising results, the people that are the happiest with their coaching and where their skills started.
This is what I'm going to share with you what they have in common and how you can implement in your playing. So this this mini series. To recap, there was three previous podcast episodes that you can go back that I called my revelations 2025. and I'll sort of recap quickly here before we get into the fourth one.
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 Marc, and if you're looking to learn jazz, form better practice habits, and especially if you enjoy French accent, make sure to subscribe.
The first one, I talked about a system to become, sorry, really confident that jazz guitar. And it takes only 45 to 70 minutes a day. If you know how to do it, you're not going to waste time. You're not going to be an aimless practice and scratch your head. Right. So I fully described how this came about and how you can do it in the full explainer and the the caveats and the pitfalls and everything.
So after you got a good practice plan and use that system, good. Secondly, I told you how you can master a dozen standards really quickly by teaching, taking five steps and basically removing like 90% of what you've been told you should practice. You know, we could take that out and focus on the tunes that's described in the podcast.
But at length you can see jazz guitar lessons, dot net slash process. It is a web page. It's the exact system I use with my students. It's all there for free. You can do this, implement it on your own and or with your own private instructor. And or you can ask me for help. You can, jump on board with a link in the description to see if you want to be part of my next cohort to massively transform your playing.
Right. So you got your work plan. You know how to pick up a bunch of standards relatively quickly with the systematized version. And then last podcast, which was the third revelation, which is probably the last five years of my coaching. I tell you about getting input and feedback and how this is pretty much the only way. And I'm not saying this lightly.
I'm saying literally the only way to make steady progress and to see what's missing, because you'll have blind spots and it's normal. You're caught up playing. You can't know what you're doing right or wrong from being caught up in it. So one of the best ways to do this is to get feedback so it can be feedback from yourself.
Just film yourself on a phone and watch back intently in Non-Judgment just be your own coach. Or you can work with a prep instructor. Or you can have coaching through my my website or another website or another platform. Right? So if you have these three things, there's one, linchpin, I will say that all my best students have in common.
And when I say best students again, it's not the the to say that some of them are not good and some of them are good. All my students do amazing for where they are, and I think everyone is exactly where they need to be in order to learn the most. I think that's how the universe works, which is fantastic.
So don't worry and don't think that, oh, I should be along further. I should play better in this book. No, you should, you should not. You're exactly where you're supposed to be. And here's the reveal. The common element between all these guys is commitment. Yeah. It's sad. It's that simple. Right. So here's the commitment. You have the plan.
You know how to tackle the standards and you know how to get feedback. This is foolproof in and of itself right. Look at all these things like yeah if you did just did that it would work. But you don't. And that's okay. So if you commit and know that it takes, it takes five years to become an overnight success.
That was like some actor who said that. Right? So it's going to take a while. So the guys that I saw have the best transformations and fastest turnarounds. Again, as I said in the past, the previous podcast, these guys are the ones we can watch our videos from day one. It's like you came in the program here, here's your icebreaker video, and here's your last video from last week.
Can you hear that? You're a totally different play. You're a transformed person. You hear better, you play more cleanly, faster. You don't get lost in the form. You're able to improvise and or, play chords, melody and or comp and or, play chords behind your wife that sings and or do these, solo gigs. Right? All these things happened because you you stop worrying about the when is this going to happen?
And you, you committed to the transformation. Stuff's not going to happen in one week or three weeks. Stuff's going to happen over a period. Give yourself six months without regards to where you're at. Of course, if you take my coaching, I'm going to tell you where we will measure your rate of progress. How much did you improve? How much time are you spending usually up?
What tunes have you tackled so far? Where are the the rougher spots in your technique and posture? Where do you do super well and where do you want to go? Of course, we're going to be very, objective in looking at all these things and become aware and have a better, skill of noticing how you're doing, of course.
But the dedication to the long haul, the long haul, meaning, you know, a six months or a year, the dedication compounds, that's the thing. And if you know the definition of compounding, it's crazy in that it can become exponential, like the skill set. You will evolve. Will. It's not even funny how fast it goes, but at first it looks very slow, right?
But then it pick ups really fast. And I've done this through and more seriously in 2022, where all my coaching guys, I had a limited amount, maybe 20, 25 people, they all, jot down their progress weekly like week to week basis. And if you guys know me, I'm a statistician by training, I love math, I'm also an actuary by training, and I love to look at data.
So I looked at data. I go look at that within just under 90 days, the average degree of self improved, self-reported improvement, meaning. Hey, did you improve? Yeah. How much? That's been self-reported over, weeks for three months, week by week. And the average. I'm not even talking about the outliers. I mean, the average guy has a 400% increase.
I I'm not even making that stuff up, guys. It's on the it's online. It's on the blog somewhere you can radically transform your playing. So it means you play four times better with four times more ease and four times more hearing abilities and four times more speed and agility in your record transitions. That's not me that decided that.
It's the guys that I worked with, the students the guitarist went. I've always wanted to make this change. I'm ready. I'm going to follow Marc's plan. I'm going to work on the standards. I'm going to get the feedback and implement it. That said, that's 400% rather. That said, there's a bit of you know, caveats and pitfall. The the guys that do the best I invite to be mentors to the next cohort.
So it's a really happening like community program where people yes, it will learn the tunes. Yes, it will ask the questions. Yes, they use the video classes. The stuff I put on sounds like I send, you know, the chord melodies for sure, and then they get feedback. But what I noticed is that the the biggest transformations that occurred were the ones that had the least, I will call them energetic ties because someone it may be you or me, get a piece of feedback and it really triggers, a feeling.
It may be, hey, I'm not good enough. I should be further along, right? Or it's maybe, I'm jealous because I got this piece of feedback, and the next guy seems to be working faster than I am. And there's this jealousy or envy. Or maybe there's going to be another part where, I think it's not fair.
I call it injustice. No, it's not fair that I've been told that my second finger is buzzing the second string in it. Right. So all these things will come up. And the people that I work with that seem to progressive faster, just take the feedback at face value, implement it without the emotional trigger and go, yeah, it's just a comment on this chord or that tune.
They try to do their best to implement it and get feedback again. See? Is this what you meant? Marc? Did you want me to play the scale this way or that way? And then I'll go and do another round of feedback so it becomes an, iterative infinite feedback loop, like, hey, positive feedback loop, right? Not a downward spiral.
I mean, an upward spiral, right? It's like you get this. Oh, you you heard what I told you, right? Yeah. You're smart. So this is what you need to do. Oh, okay. I thought I needed to do x, Y and Z in the kitchen sink or whatever. You don't need to do any of that. Do just what I told you.
And then they do. And then they get better. And then once they get better, they get another piece of feedback and they get better again. And then and then and then and then this stuff is and most tangibly, the thing that has the most impact for sure. My four, three previous revelations, need to be stacked up.
So I don't know if you noticed, but in my shares of that these previous podcast episodes, it's been all right. I first was working with guys. It was pretty disorganized, and I found out I was a therapist of jazz guitar, and I just answered a bunch of questions, and I catered to my students emotions, which is fine. Right?
And then, oh, we have a plan. This is what you need to work on.
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 the link in the description or head directly over to Jazz Guitar Lessons dot net to begin your journey. All right, let's dive back into the episode.
And then I went like, well, the plan should be mostly work on the standards. That's the second step going. These guys work way faster and it progressed faster if their focus is on the tunes because there's an upcoming gig or something. Wow. So by happenstance, I discovered this about myself and students and I, I did this myself too.
Like there's periods of just like six months that my practice was basically tunes. That's it. I was not trying to learn more chord inversions. I was not on bebop scales and inversions and scale position. I was just trying to perform the tunes and develop the skills that the tunes told me. I needed, if you will. Right? So I built a system over to three or 4 or 5 years of teaching at first, and then I built.
So the system is you need a practice plan. Then the practice plan. Secondly, the system for learning standards, five steps. You can find this at jazz classes on a desk slash process and third element through discovery. Yeah these guys need to be heard. Like they're playing needs to be heard. We all fall in the trap of taking a private lesson, and then we just talk for an hour or ask about this or that or whatever.
And the master, the teacher, talks or plays through the lesson. I flip this model on its head with my coaching. I just went, no, I need to hear the student. The guy was wanting to get better. We need to have an objective and reality check version of what they're doing, what works and what doesn't, and then tailor what they're working on from how they're playing.
Throw some stuff on the wall, see what sticks. Right. That's the approach. And then fourthly, which is the current podcast, is to be in it for the long haul. Dedication would a compound effect. The skills are not you're not going to be a little better. You will be like four times better on average. And that's just within 90 days.
And this is just for my very nonscientific measure from my little studio here with a black background, I'm sure that there's people I worked with for a year or 2 or 3 that are ten x like ten times better or more. And you can see this at, jazz guitar lessons on at slash reviews. There's like, I don't know, 50 videos and these guys, but I've been working with me in my programs and go, I had expectations and this stuff is over and beyond all expectations of transformation.
So this is, I think, pretty refreshing in terms of student success because the promise with guitar and improvization and jazz always like, oh, it's going to take you a long time. It's really hard. You have to make up, learn all the skill positions, you know, and all the series like, yeah, you will, you know, by by osmosis you should learn that stuff.
But if you, you follow these, these sort of revelations which I fully intend on pursuing in every of my coaching offers and courses and everything to get that stuff to you guys, the stuff that worked. Because why would I share just scales and flat lines and stuff. If it doesn't have an impact in playing? All right. So on that note, I'm Marc from Jazz Guitar Lessons.
Thanks a lot for watching and listening. If you have any comments, you're watching this on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform, leave me a comment in the replies below. leave a rating and ask me questions about this whole process. And of course, see the link if you'd like to embark on more serious coaching at, any degree that suits you, there's a link in the description to see what we have to offer, so enjoy your practice.
Stay tuned. I'll be with you in the next podcast. Thank you.
