Your First 5 Jazz Licks (Beginner's Guide To Arpeggios)

For every beginner with Jazz it is is the same: Everywhere you look a Jazz teacher is telling you that you should practice arpeggios if you want to play Jazz, but it is just as important that you know how to turn that arpeggio into jazz licks into something you can play that also sounds like Jazz.

Why Barry Harris' Approach Is So Much Better Than Bebop Scales!

The Most Important Scale Exercise For Jazz:

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Content:
00:00 Arpeggios are Everywhere
00:37 The Most Basic Arpeggio
01:17 Rhythm and Phrasing
02:30 There Are More Notes!
03:12 The BEST arpeggio Exercise
04:00 Chromatic Notes - Outside The Scale Are NICE!
05:22 More Arpeggios On Every Chord?
06:31 One of the Best Things Barry Harris Taught Me!
07:35 The Source Of Amazing Bebop Techniques!
7:48 Like the video? Check out my Patreon page!

My name is Jens Larsen, Danish Jazz Guitarist, and Educator. The videos on this channel will help you explore and enjoy Jazz. Some of it is how to play jazz guitar, but other videos are more on Music Theory like Jazz Chords or advice on how to practice and learn Jazz, on guitar or any other instrument.

The videos are mostly jazz guitar lessons, but also music theory, analysis of songs and videos on jazz guitars.

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[JensLarsen]

What is your advice for beginning Jazz? 🙂
The Most Important Scale Exercise For Jazz:

[DerekLam-fxsp]

hands down the best jazz teacher on the internet

[citizen]

Jens Larsen's lessons are the best I have found on the interwebs. He's not only a wonderful jazz player and teacher, his lessons have perfect (for me) pace, clear explanations and useful visuals. Jens also has an ineffably positive energy that says, "you can do this!"

[HeyitsEric.]

Great guitar lesson, cool way to look at making jazz licks..

[CrispySonOfA]

I can’t explain how much you have helped me along expanding into jazz!

[damonshanabarger]

I listen to your videos at least on average three hours a day. I've gotten to the point that when I listen to lines like these, that I can hear the chord changes and other lines also. Although I haven't been able to use all of your material in my compositions, it is very exciting when I can alter functional harmony and melodic phrasing to join various music genres together to form different kinds of music. New and exciting musical ideas. Although I have become more knowledgeable in so called technical terminology in music, the vast majority of the time I still rely on my ears. I get in pretty deep and find that stopping to try to explain what my ears are telling me just slows me down. This particular video does seem to go a long way towards a simplified approach to using my ears. I can't possibly imagine how anyone could write the lyrics to popular music without studying Jazz. Jazz is pretty much everywhere you could possibly look over the last sixty or seventy years in popular music.

[willygambe]

I have great respect for those who can do a lot. But I have even greater respect for the way of working to make a lot out of a little.

[neiles]

This is awesome stuff Jens... I can play all the arpeggios, but didnt know what to do with them! This gives me a basis to work from. ThankS!

[jasonhaberl]

Discipline yourself to become as good a music reader as possible. There’s so many great books to read 📚

[jmoses]

Thin guy is the very best! If you're a jazz beginner like me he is so great to listen to! Some stuff is way over my head but I ALWAYS get something out of his videos I can learn and then go back later for more!!! Fantastic playing and puts it at a level that even I can understand! I may not be able to play it yet, but I understand exactly what he is trying to teach! GREAT STUFF!!!

[benkatof]

Great lesson Jens. Advice for begining jazz... Be patient, good things take time.

[ssk]

This is the essence of basic jazz approach, thank you for great lesson

[Boston_Matt]

Great lesson Jens! I can see myself replaying this video many, many times. Full of great ideas yet so concise.

[davidtardio]

Always good to come back to the basics. Love the idea of just sticking with the arpeggios and work on making your lines more rhythmically interesting

[GGutierrez]

Thank you. So much to work on starting with basics. Ties in with bass basic patterns.

[LikeaRolandStone]

So grateful for these lessons mahalo Jens and mahalo Barry

[ericstrauch]

Great lesson Jens! You've taught these concepts before separately, but seeing the together, here and how you can connect them is very instructive. Thanks!

[throckmortensnivel]

More than good lessons. I find Jens Larsen's videos inspire me to try harder, and learn more. I always find something in the video that I haven't tried, and that prompts me to work harder on my playing.
Thanis, Jens, for giving me this knowledge and inspiration!

[leroynkang]

God Bless You Jens. You’re an inspiration.

[billa]

This is a marvelously topical supplement to Jens' "Jazz Guitar Roadmap." It's easy to be consumed by YouTube "Learn Jazz" rabbit holes. I strongly recommend saving time and money by getting Jens' "Jazz Guitar Roadmap." Do that first and his "YouTube" videos will really resonate. Cheers!