JazzGuitarLessons.net, improve your jazz guitar playing with a real Teacher podcast on being overwhelmed and having too much materials to practice. And this is answering to a question a visitor asked. Michael asked. You know, am I alone feeling that there's too much material in the world that I feel like I cannot, you know, make it all the way? After a week of practicing the stuff I didn't touch at all. And so I have to reassure everybody. This is a very general topic. And yes, Michael, you are not alone. And we've been I mean, I've been struggling with this and everybody faces that reality at some point or another. 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 Mark, and if you're looking to learn jazz, form better practice habits, and especially if you enjoy French accent, make sure to subscribe. I really wanted to make a video out of this, but recently people told me that, I was rambling too much in my videos, so I said, hey, a podcast is the perfect place to ramble for 20 minutes like I usually do. So perfect . this is a problem I see. Probably 95% of students, or 95% of people that are learning anything. And it can be chess. It can be going to the gym, it can be jazz, guitar can be something else, and it's totally fine. I think in the case of jazz and, you know, playing improvised music, the fear is often, you know, will I reach that point, at some point or will I be able to play a good solo on Giant Steps before I die? For some people, it's that for other people is will I reach, will I win a Grammy Award for my jazz performance or will I be accepted in my circle of friends as a good jazz improviser and so on? So I think we all have to make peace with that. Think about it. There's only a fraction, a tiny, tiny fraction of the whole musical universe that you'll be able to grasp in your whole life. If you started playing guitar when you were a baby, like at six or at five, and you died at 100 years later, you would not even reach 1% of all the music there is in the universe. Make peace with it. Be cool. There's no. There is no way. Okay. There's too much stuff. Same way as if you're learning a language. Let's say you're writing in Spanish and you want to write a novel. There's no mean in going to learn all the words at once. And be prepared for that and say, Will I be able to memorize every word and every sentence in my whole life like, no, you will not. And it's totally fine, because music is an art form. So your goal is to find your own expression in all of this, to find your own cry, to find your own music, to find your muse. Right. It's like your voice. I'm speaking to you right now using my vocal cords and super sophisticated computers could tell the difference between my voice and your voice, because we're all different. It's it's unique. It's it's your instrument. So whenever you're playing jazz guitar, the correctness of what you're doing doesn't really matter. So that's my introduction. And, you know, I want to to give a bit of, a history background because this is a really interesting situation we're facing here with development of new technologies and with, you know, the web, especially in all of the connectedness of every part of the world, is instantaneously connected to any other part of the world. So the history of jazz and not just as a style, but as a lifestyle, as a way to improvise on for progressions and to play together. This thing really started in America, and there was no such thing as I mean, I don't want to give you a historical background of the music, but I just wanted to say there was no such thing as a jazz school. I mean, Duke Ellington did not go to jazz school. Neither did Charlie Parker or Miles Davis. Although Miles Davis went to classical school, Juilliard for a while . that's because it's. That was rich, of course. That's a completely other story. And then you go on to players that are astounding. They did not go to school up until a certain point in history, in maybe late 60s and 70s, where there was this thing called Berklee. Oh, wow. Berklee College of Music. And of course, the curriculum was jazz because, you know, if you study in a university or a big college, it's either classical or jazz and that's it. Those are the two. Well, art, music, if we can say it like this, not to discriminate any other type of music. So jazz as a school is a fairly new trend here in Canada. I think the first jazz program was established in 1978 at Concordia University, which I attended, by the way . it was great. It was different in the 80s. And when I attended, of course, but that was born in the 80s. So, the idea with jazz like this is, you know, things nowadays of deejays and hip hop music, there is no schools. I mean, although you can take Berklee classes in deejaying now, like turntables, but just reflect on what this AcDc mean or Salvador. That means there's no school for that. It's just something that's soared, you know? That's so true, that's so pure. That is not yet formalized. So jazz is a bit like that. It became formalized and there was a a way to do it. And then during those like 70s and 80s, there was a bunch of book publishers. Think about it. For me, I was born straight in that area when I was a baby. When I was born, you could walk into a music store and buy VHS of all those, like Joe Bass videos and all those books and the real book and stuff. But those things did not exist back then. So now we're assisting, into we have an overflow of people that are really connected, that are really good, that can write books, that can have jazz guitar, websites that can have jazz guitar podcasts like this one. And we are literally drowning in information . well, not let's not use the word literally here because it's a bit heavy, but we are surrounded with information and this guy is going to tell you to practice the arpeggios in this way. And this other guy thinks that, you know, you must use your scales like that, and this other guy will tell you chords that you must know. And it's and you know, you going to take everything with a grain of salt. So that's the background. It's just that we are in a period where there's information and you go to find your music there. It's not a problem. As artists of any generation in history always made the best of what they could find with the technology of the time when there was no such thing as a valve on a trumpet, they simply played the cornet and adjusted the pitch with their lips. And our industrial era came by and we had no valves on the trumpets. Nowadays you in the 50s or there's no, electric bass. And then there was an electric bass and an electric guitar, and the best artists in the world started using those instruments in their group and making new music with it. So now with all this information, we assistant, we have a generation of younger, let's say people my age and even younger that are creating the new music from acoustic instruments, from electronic instruments accessing all this wealth of information that's accessible anytime, anywhere. I mean, you can watch a show by Miles Davis in Paris sitting right here, right after I record this podcast. We are the first generation or second generation to experience this kind of freedom. So, that's a bit for the background. And the big problem. Let me get back to the guitar. And you, Michael, the way you ask your question, the biggest problem with guitar and being overwhelmed is the thing with positions. Okay, slowly but surely, you'll learn the guitar and you'll be confronted with the idea of learning all the positions and how it matters. So much. That is the biggest problem because people spend so much time trying to master something that it detracts from the actually playing the music and doing what they love . here's an example. There's a website, somewhere, jazz guitar stuff, and they tell you learn to speed up the melody. But I did do that. The tutorial they did or put the pedal to the left, but it'll do better to do that. You know, this thing. And I say, okay, now learn it now learning in five positions. Then I start clapping immediately. I just start twice now. You can't be serious. It's not possible. I mean, the time you'd be learning is in five position. You can learn 22 people, so that's a problem. Don't let yourself be discouraged by saying, oh, I got to learn seven positions. Just learn one position and tomorrow you'll learn the second one. Or maybe you still need to polish your first position. Don't be bothered so much . playing everything in every possible location on the guitar. That was a problem for me to for while trying to say if I learn something, then I got to learn in all physical locations. So I'm going to learn 1 or 2 locations that feel comfortable. The sound is good. That's it. That's all. Which ties into my next topic. The issue is you're sitting there, you're practicing, and your mind goes, what else could I be practicing? Now that's the culprit. You should be enjoy each moment of your practice. Each moment is unique. And even though you're you're striving for some sound, for something bigger than in life, it doesn't mean that it has to be a source of stress. You have to enjoy the journey. I know it's cliche, I know it's Zen and people say, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm serious. Do you think Bill Frisell is having a hard time practicing and being in his mind? Oh my God, I got to practice all this stuff now. Do you think Pat Metheny sits down and is overwhelmed with his practice room? No, but Pat Metheny started with one note at some point, picked up the guitar and played a single note. Then he played a second one and third one and probably a trillion, 1 trillion more notes after that. But that's fine. And the same thing goes for anybody. So let's say, Pat or West or I don't know who. Scofield. They picked it up and you liked it so much, became addicted to the sound, and it wanted to pursue it so bad that it didn't matter what else. It was there to play it all that matters. What was that? Right now I'm playing, and that makes me smile. And I like it. So that's that's a big, big thing. Just when you take your materials, study it and forget about whatever else there is. So let's jump into more, so, you know, talking to Michael in many ways, practically speaking, you probably have too much on your plate. Clearly, if you if you spend a week and it takes a whole week before coming back, it's because you have 90% too much material and that you learn that as you grow in a jazz improviser sense, you realize that your practice list cannot be 20 point forms long. It has to be five points long . and you have practically you have to organize your sessions so you practice everything, well, quote unquote everything on your list every time you practice. If you don't have enough time or let's say you have a list of six things you want to practice and you get and you practice for a month and you only practice five things. Or I mean, the sixth thing, that the last one is always pushed to the side. It's like washing the dishes. You don't want to do it. Right. Well, this thing should jump off more and come back to five things and then go for a month. And if you practice five things and there's always one that's pushed to the side that you don't have time for, you go down to four things. Make sure that your your sessions are realistic in terms of how much you can sit down and play on any given day, like an hour or an hour and a half, two hours. I don't know. And then if the sense of a full week, if you do that three, 4 or 5, six times, I don't know you. You must practice everything . almost always. Right . so that's that's really practical. The other thing that's really practical, same sense, is that don't think that you need all of it. I mean, it being the big it, you know, the modern method for guitar, all the drawer bass chords, the badminton, the exercises, memorizing 50 tunes, playing older skills. Don't think that you need all that you don't before playing. All you need is plugging in your guitar, sitting down and have a good coffee and go play. You have to play tunes often. You have to do what you want to do with the music, which is play tunes, take a solo, perhaps can't play good golfing. I don't know what what your aim is. Play chord melody, you know. But if you don't do that, then what's the use? If you spend your whole week practicing arpeggios with a metronome? And then on Friday you allow yourself to play on tunes for ten minutes. It doesn't work. You really have to see this. Here's an analogy, okay? You're trying to play chess. All right, pick up a book of chess problems . and you solve all the technical problems. You spend a whole week and you solve it. Test or tactic. You reread the best games of the best Russian players and stuff, and then you get Friday. You play a quick game with your friend, and that's it. And you don't play chess. You just read about it. You practice that this is not the way it works. You got to play a game of chess to know what the tactics are about. So arpeggios and scales and chords and tunes are just tactics. They're not. The practice session is not just about, you know, practicing stuff. It's about playing the tunes. So depending on where you are at and where you want to go there, there could be practice sessions where all you do is a mini gig that you do just for yourself or your family . for me, that I had a phase meant maybe six months. I was just playing on tunes. I said, wow, now I'm playing in cafes a lot. The trio jazz duo. I was playing with different bands, writing music. As a man, I don't have time to practice my scales and arpeggios. I'm giving myself a while to apply all the stuff that I picked up at school from teachers. I'm practicing now. I'm going to just go like under fire and go into trenches and get nailed and just get stuck there. Oh my god, altered, scaled. I missed it again. Oh, this chord, this thing, this rhythm. And sometimes it's that's what it takes. But doing this is far better than keeping practicing arpeggios for six months when you know that you already know a bedroom. So that's a I think two last things, you know, as I said. So one last thing. As I said, less stuff on the point form if you have a point form for your practice. And, tying into that, you need general topics for your practice versus precise exercises. Here's what I mean . you pick up a jazz guitar magazine off the shelf somewhere, and you flip the pages and you see an exercise, you're like, I'm going to practice that. Yes, exactly. That's being very precise. I don't like this so much because you're very confined in your choice of materials. Your choices of materials should come from an assessment of your weaknesses, which is something I talked about in another video and other podcasts. See where you're weak and where you need the most urgent, repairs. Right. You need the most urgent attention in your playing. You think of those as general topics, and it could be as simple as copying on tunes, playing scales, playing the right scales over tunes. It can be a topic, transcribing. That could be a topic. But the topic is so general that any given time that you sit down to practice, you can put anything in the box. You may transcribe this solo, you may transcribe zero one, you may be practicing copying on a tune. It could be any tune, but that's fun with having a general, general topics . instead of having precise exercises that the general topics are flexible enough that you can keep modifying your practice routine slowly. It's flexible, and after a while you you get to a point where you're satisfied with how you improve. And when you're not satisfied anymore, you can still change it a little bit. But it's flex able. It's just topic is general areas, not precise exercises. I mean, for any general topic that I would pick, I could probably find 20 exercises to practice that if I say, oh, I go to work on my time and my rhythms, you know, I get lost in the form a lot. I could sit down here and practice 20 different exercises just for that, for the same sake. And there might be 2 or 3 that I really like that have been ingrained in practice for a while. Well, there's a few ones that I'll try once I've got. Yeah, you know what? Not it's not for me. So that's where I'm, you know, I'm saying you're got to use everything with a grain of salt. So there will be all four. Podcast number 42. I hope it helps you, Michael. And it helps a bunch of people that are listening to this. Not to be overwhelmed, not to freak out, and to really enjoy the journey as you're practicing. So I'm Mark from Jazz Guitar Lessons dot net improve your jazz guitar playing with a real teacher and I will see you next time in podcast number 15. Thank you.
