Welcome to episode 292 where today we listen to a recording of me improvising over a popular jazz standard and try to understand what I'm thinking as I improvise. Improvisation can be a mysterious thing, and it can feel difficult to connect the dots between the scales, licks, and patterns you are practicing to actually improvising great solos. This episode will give some insight into how pro and advanced jazz musicians think. Listen to episode 292 Now the art of improvising and playing great jazz solos tends to be a mysterious thing for those on the outside looking in.  Like what are the advanced and pro-level jazz musicians thinking about when they improvise? How are they able to spontaneously create things?  Are they thinking about scales? Are they thinking about chord tones? Are they thinking about licks that they've learned? Are they thinking about a particular emotion when they are playing? What is creating this ability to create spontaneously and great improvisations?  Well, in today's episode, I'm going to actually uncover that in myself to see if we can get inside of what I'm actually thinking when I'm improvising so that hopefully, you can take that information and that knowledge and apply it to your solos so that you do create great improvisations. In this episode: 1. Improvisation is connecting the subconscious to the conscious 2. Great improvisers have often played what they are improvising before 3. It's important to practice things we want to play so that we develop our own "isms" that feel natural to us Important Links 1. LJS Inner Circle Membership 2. Free Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way

Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

What I’m Thinking About When I Improvise

Today I'm going to show you a tasty jazz lick that's going to make you sound like a bebop pro over minor 2-5-1 chord progressions. Listen to episode 291 In this episode: 1. What's a minor 2-5-1 2. How to get that bebop sound 3. What a Minor Bebop Altered Lick sounds like 4. What makes this lick so great 5. What are target notes 6. Importance of 3rds 7. Importance of 7ths 8. The altered notes 9. Tips for learning the altered lick Important Links 1. Subscribe to the Podcast - Apple Podcasts - Spotify 2. Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way 3. LJS Inner Circle Membership

Quick Win: Tasty Minor Bebop Altered Lick

Welcome to episode 290 where today I talk about 6 powerful reasons why you should record your jazz playing. You may have heard people suggest recording yourself, but have you ever fully understood why it can be helpful? In this episode, I go over in detail how this simple regular practice could reap great rewards in your jazz playing. Listen to episode 290 If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you may have heard me say before that recording your jazz playing is a great idea. But I probably haven't really dug deep into why recording your jazz playing can actually have exponential benefits as far as you getting a lot out of your practice sessions and speeding up the progress of your jazz improv, and jazz comping skills in general. So, in this episode, we are going to dive into that. We're going to go over six reasons why recording yourself is going to be helpful for you in your jazz playing, as well as some tips for recording yourself at the end.  In this episode: 1. Documenting your progress 2. Simulating a performance environment 3. Encourages repetition 4. Identify things you are good at 5. Identify things you need to work on 6. Get community feedback 7. 3 tips for recording yourself Important Links 1. LJS Inner Circle Membership 2. Free Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way

6 Powerful Reasons to Record Your Jazz Playing

So how do you play sick bluesy licks over top of minor 2-5-1 chord progressions? Well, I'm going to show you a very simple tool to make this really easy. Listen to episode 289 In this episode: 1. What is a minor 2-5-1 chord progression 2. What is tritone substitution 3. How to use tritone substitution 4. Comparing to a Minor Blues Scale 5. The Importance of Chord Tones 6. How to Use Over a Jazz Standard Important Links 1. Subscribe to the Podcast - Apple Podcasts - Spotify 2. Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way 3. LJS Inner Circle Membership

Quick Win: Sick Minor Blues Improv Hack

Welcome to episode 288 where today I talk about how to go from a beginner jazz player to intermediate, and finally to advanced jazz musician. I teach you exactly what I would do if I was starting all over, and how to speed up the process and cut back on practice time. Listen to episode 288 How do we go from a beginner to intermediate, to advanced jazz player in as little time as possible? Whether you are a beginner and you're just getting started to jazz, or you're somewhere in the middle of the road, how do we get to that next level? Well, I'm going to go through in this episode exactly what I would do if I was starting from square one. Right from the very beginning, what would I do to most efficiently, most quickly become a better jazz musician?  No matter what instrument you play, it really doesn't matter, this could be a huge key for you in your long-term success as a jazz player.  So, let's dive right into this. I would encourage you to get out your notes and to really pay attention to this one because this is going to be absolutely value-packed. In this episode: 1. Start Listening (and a key tip) 2. Learn a basic jazz blues (and 4 crucial steps) 3. Learn 1 jazz standard a month (and 5 crucial steps) 4. Learn 1 jazz standard a month (again) 5. Setting up regular jams/gigs 6. Analyzing problems and attacking them 7. How to speed up progress while practicing less Important Links 1. LJS Inner Circle Membership 2. Free Guide to learn standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way

Beginner, to Intermediate, to Advanced Jazz Musician – How to Do It

Welcome to episode 287 where today I talk about musical "failure" - how to think about it, how to deal with it, and ultimately how to appropriately use it to your advantage. In this episode, I talk about how there is only really one type of true failure, and how to adopt a mindset that sets you up to win everytime. Listen to episode 287 Inevitably, somewhere along the line in your journey of becoming a better jazz musician, you are going to fail. There's going to be something that goes wrong, maybe even in your mind, very wrong, like you get lost in the middle of the chord changes at a jam session or gig and it's embarrassing, or you completely flob a solo. It doesn't sound good. It sounds absolutely horrible. You may, even just in the practice room by yourself, disappoint yourself with the progress that you're making. And you'll look at it as a failure.  But how do we deal with that? How do we deal with those failures and how do we come out better on the other side of them? And how do we reframe our thinking about what musical failure actually is and what it means? Well, that's exactly what I'm going to talk about in today's episode. We're going to dive deep into that topic so that we can start reframing the narrative and improving our jazz skills with the right mindset. In this episode: 1. The only type of true musical failure 2. How to use "failure" to help you make gains 3. Adopting a mindset that helps you win everytime Important Links 1. LJS Inner Circle Membership

How to Deal With Musical Failure

Welcome to episode 286 where today I talk about 3 different ways to spice up minor 2-5-1 chord progressions. Minor 2-5-1s can be found everywhere in jazz standards, so how do we make our comping, bass lines, and improv more interesting over them? I give several different ways we can utilize harmonic movement in our favor. Listen to episode 286 Minor 2-5-1 chord progressions are found all over the place in jazz standards, and so you'll be able to navigate them with relative ease. But how can we spice them up? How can we make them sound interesting when we improvise or walk bass lines or comp over top of these chord progressions? Well, that's exactly what we are going to talk about today in today's episode. We are going to talk about 3 different ways we can spice up minor 2-5-1 chord progressions. In this episode: 1. 1. i-bI7-tritone sub of ii-i 2. i-IV7-tritone sub of ii-i 3. i-IV7-II7-tritone sub ov V-i Important Links 1. LJS Inner Circle Membership

3 Ways to Spice Up Your Minor 2-5-1 Playing

Welcome to episode 285 where today I talk about how to play more melodic jazz solos. What separates the amateurs from the experts is how melodic a jazz solo is. So if you are stuck with boring solos, or solos that sound like scales, this episode will give you actionable steps for transforming your solos into memorable ones. Listen to episode 285 If you're like 99% of the people that come to me for help with their jazz playing and their improvisation, you are not happy with your jazz solos right now. There's something about them that is missing and you are not quite sure what it is when you compare yourself to other great jazz musicians you know or your favorite ones that you listen to recordings on. The key is that great jazz musicians are always playing melodically. And they don't sound like they're playing scales. They don't sound like they are playing chord tones. They don't sound like they are playing mechanically at all. They sound like they're playing organic, living, breathing melodies.  So how do you play jazz solos that sing and that are melodic?  Well, that's exactly what I'm talking about in today's episode -- how do we improvise melodically. I'm going to give you some practical advice, some steps, and some things that you can practice today. In this episode: 1. What makes a melody great 2. Strategy for making the chord changes come out in your solos 3. Voiceleading as a tool for developing melody 4. Making your solos singeable by practicing creating them. Important Links 1. LJS Inner Circle Membership

How to Play More Melodic Jazz Solos

Welcome to episode 284 where today I talk about how to know whether you are ready to start learning jazz. I hear from musicians who wonder if their skills on their instrument are up to par, ears good enough, or in general, have the talent necessary to learn and play jazz. I discuss how to know if you are ready, and several things you can do to set yourself up for success. Listen to episode 284 Am I ready to start playing jazz?  That's the question that someone asked me recently and I've been asked this question many times from different subscribers over the years. And sometimes I am asked in different ways like, am I technically proficient enough in my instrument to be able to play jazz? I'm a classical musician. Am I able to play jazz even though I've never learned anything by ear before and I'm not even an improviser? So many different iterations of this question, but all kind of come down to the root of is jazz a step above where I am right now and therefore, I have to sort of bridge that gap before we get there, before we actually start diving into jazz and enjoying ourselves playing the music. Well, that's exactly what I'm going to answer today. I'm going to give you the answer to that question directly and then give you some guidelines and some helpful tips so that you can be prepared to play jazz and really start taking off on the right foot.  In this episode: 1. How to know whether you are ready to play jazz or not 2. Tip 1: Know the basics of navigating your instrument 3. Tip 2: Know basic scales and chord tones 4. Tip 3: Be willing to fail Important Links 1. LJS Inner Circle Membership

How to Know If You Are Ready to Learn Jazz

Welcome to episode 283 where today I talk about 3 powerful mindsets that you need to adopt to start improving faster while practicing less, and setting yourself up to win everytime. If you can start recognizing the less helpful mindsets that many of us musicians have, and then replacing them with these, it could be huge for you. Listen to episode 283 Too many times, we musicians set ourselves up to fail.  We set ourselves up to fail so that we are not able to improve in our jazz playing, in our skills, in our comping, in our walking baselines, in our single note lines. Whatever it is that you are working on right now, we set ourselves up to fail because we have the wrong mindset. We have the wrong mindset for how to actually improve and because we've adopted some of these bad mindsets for how we approach actually going about learning this music, we dramatically decrease the way that we improve and how we are able to improve. So, in today's episode, I'll be going over 3 powerful mindsets that if you can adopt these mindsets, I can pretty much guarantee that you are going to start making more progress in your jazz playing while practicing even less. In this episode: 1. Mindset 1: You can make huge progress with only the amount of practice time you have (without giving up anything) 2. Mindset 2: The simple stuff is the BIG stuff - you don't need to practice harder and more things to improve 3. Mindset 3: Perfection is the enemy of progress - when we get stuck on perfecting one thing, we miss out on the other lessons waiting for us Important Links 1. LJS Inner Circle Membership

LJS 283- 3 Powerful Mindsets for Improving Faster While Practicing Less

Listen to episode 282 Chances are, some of your favorite jazz musicians and the amazing solos that they play, are influenced by the style of jazz that emerged around the 1940s called bebop. Now bebop was pioneered by musicians like Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie and a host of others, of tunes like "Moose the Mooche", "Relaxin' at Camarillo", "Anthropology", "Ornithology" --  the list goes on and on of all these amazing tunes that are just wonderful and just the amazing solos that came out of this period. But you may have noticed that playing bebop is quite difficult. It's a virtuosic style of music, it's very hard but we need to know how to play bebop lines in order to improvise as a jazz musician in a way that is typical of the dialect that is played today. So, in today's episode, I have a very special guest, member of team LJS, Brett Pontecorvo, on the show, to talk about the 3 pillars of bebop so we can understand it better and you can start soloing over it better as well. In this episode: 1. Pillar #1: Melodic Chromaticism 2. Pillar #2: Altered Harmony 3. Pillar #3: Syncopated Rhythm 4. The one thing you should do to improve your bebop solos Important Links 1. LJS Inner Circle Membership

LJS 282- The 3 Pillars of Bebop for Improving Your Bop Solos (feat. Brett Pontecorvo)

Welcome to episode 281 where today I talk with a musical mentor of mine, Justin Nielsen, all about his 3 track system for accelerating your jazz growth. Justin has taught hundreds of students, some of which have gone on to be world-class jazz musicians, and his powerful 3 track system will make sure you are practicing the right things and moving the needle. Listen to episode 281 Today's episode is one of those episodes where I know I'm going to be pointing back to this one all the time because it is absolutely filled with golden advice, golden systems for truly improving your jazz skills much faster than you normally would. In my opinion, it's a great secret sauce formula for truly improving your jazz skills in a way that will yield huge results. And I'm excited to have on today my jazz mentor, Justin Nielsen, who's going to walk us through his 3-track process that he talks all of his students through, so many of his students have gone on to become world-class musicians, and it's going to blow your mind. I'm really excited to share with you. He's going to show you real strategies, real ways to practice to get amazing results in your jazz playing.  In this episode: 1. Track 1: Apply new concepts to these 7 chord progressions, take through all 12 or multiple keys -Maj 2-5-1 -Maj 1-6-2-5 -Blues -A section to rhythm changes -Minor 2-5-1 -Minor 1-6-2-5 -Minor blues 2. Track 2: Pick your "Tune of Destiny," commit to it for a year and apply everything you learn to it. 3. Track 3: Choose 10 tunes, including your Tune of Destiny, that you will apply everything you learn to them, and commit for a year. Important Links 1. Justin Nielsen's Dive Colors album 2. LJS Inner Circle Membership

LJS 281- The 3 Track System for Skyrocketing Your Jazz Playing (feat. Justin Nielsen)

Welcome to episode 280 where today we talk about jazz gig set lists and how to create ones that keep you and the audience inspired. A great set list can make a huge difference in both how you and the audience feel about your gig. I talk about 3 guidelines to consider when creating your set lists, and then I walk you through a 7 song set list that I created. Listen to episode 280 Alright, picture this. You're at your jazz gig, your bandmates are there. Everybody is set up, everybody is ready to play. And right before you are about to start, someone asked, "Well, what tune are we going to play first?" And dead silence comes over all the other bandmates. No one really knows which tune to play. It takes a while to come up with one. You play the first tune and then... dead silence again. What tune do we play next? Or perhaps you do start coming out with tunes and calling tunes and eventhough it takes some time to come across them, you notice that everything sounds the same. It gets boring for you. It gets boring for the audience, and in general, it just kind of lowers the quality of the gig and the performance.  Well, my friend, that is exactly why you need a killer set list for your jazz gig that actually has variety, that is actually interesting to the audience and is interesting to you.  That's exactly what we are going to talk about in this podcast. We'll go over some guidelines and give you a 7-song set list to consider. In this episode: 1. Guideline #1: Add stylistic variety 2. Guideline #2: Add emotional variety 3. Guideline #3: Consider what kind of gig you are playing 4. I walk you through a 7 song set list and why I made each song choice 5. Bonus Guideline: keep variety in your song keys and don't play the same key back to back Important Links 1. LJS Inner Circle Membership

LJS 280- How to Create Killer Set List for Your Jazz Gigs

Welcome to episode 279 where today I share with you 6 reasons your jazz solos may sound bad. These are things I commonly witness in the playing of beginner and intermediate players, and even with some slight changes and focus on these areas, you can start taking your jazz solos from bad to mediocre, to great. Listen to episode 279 Alright, I am back after a 2-week break from the podcast, I'm ready to come back and serve you guys. Hope you guys become better jazz musicians. And to get right back into the swing of things, I'm going to be talking about six reasons why your jazz solos may not sound so good. And I'm not just going to tell you why they may not sound so good, I'm also going to give you actual solutions so that you can start fixing them and taking your jazz solos to the next level and iron out those little bits that are just holding you back from sounding like the great jazz musicians that you love and you admire. In this episode: 1. You're not outlining the chord changes 2. You haven't learned enough jazz vocabulary 3. You are trying to copy and paste licks 4. Your time feel is bad 5. You're not considering the arc of your solo 6. You're only practicing things you already do well Important Links 1. LJS Inner Circle Membership

LJS 279- 6 Reasons Your Jazz Solos May Sound Bad

Welcome to episode 278 where today I share with you 4 important lessons I learned from learning 100 jazz standards over the course of a year. Struggle with remembering standards? Maybe you learn them but feel like you don't know them very well? These 4 lessons will help. Listen to episode 278 There's a year in my life where I had a lot of time on my hands and I actually learned 100 new jazz standards in one year. That's right. I'll say it again. I learned 100 new jazz standards in an entire year. And while I wouldn't necessarily recommend someone to do this, in fact, I wouldn't really ever tell my students to learn 100 jazz standards in one year and I'll explain a little bit about that in this episode, I did actually learn a lot of lessons about jazz and learning music very quickly because I went through that process. So, in today's episode, I'm going to be sharing with you 4 things that I learned from learning 100 jazz standards in one year so that you can learn from them, so that you can avoid doing that yourself and just take the lessons that I got from them. In this episode: 1. Learn standards that you genuinely enjoy 2. Listen obsessively 3. Recognize common harmonic patterns 4. Play standards with others as often as possible Important Links 1. LJS Inner Circle Membership

LJS 278- Lessons From Learning 100 Jazz Standards in a Year

The LJS Podcast is the podcast where you get weekly jazz tips, interviews, stories and advice for becoming a better jazz musician! Hosting the show is the jazz musician behind learnjazzstandards.com, author, and entrepreneur Brent Vaartstra, who’s one goal is to answer any question about playing jazz music you may have. Jazz can be a challenging music to learn and play, but it doesn’t have to be so hard. Each episode features a specific musical challenge that jazz students may come across, where it is discussed and answered. Special jazz guests frequent the show, sharing their expertise on an array of different musical subject matter. Listeners are invited to call in with their jazz questions to the podcast hotline, where it could get answered on a future LJS Podcast episode. Join thousands of other listeners getting free jazz education every week!

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Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

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