3 Important Things To Learn From Other Styles

Even if you are really trying to learn jazz guitar, you probably don't only practice and play a single genre of music. When you practice different genres then you learn skills that you can take use it to strengthen the way you play jazz. Of course this works if jazz is not your main genre as well. A lot of musicians check out jazz to learn more about playing over harmony.

For me using other genres as a way of developing skills has been extremely useful. So I want to talk about what I have learned from playing other styles and hopefully you guys can also share some good ideas as well if there are skills you have picked up from other genres.

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Table of Contents:

0:00 Intro
0:36 Skills I have trained using other Styles of Music
1:14 Funk/Soul Strumming - What you Learn
2:33 Grooves, Sounds and Dynamics from Rock and Pop
3:55 Arpeggiating, incomplete chords and Using Effects
4:44 Samba and Bossanova - 2 Important lessons
4:51 Locking in with a groove
5:06 Example of a groove
5:29 Relating your solo to a Specific Rhythmical Pattern
6:05 Example of soloing
6:39 What Did you learn from other styles? Share some good tips!
7:06 Like the video? Check out my Patreon Page

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[JensLarsen]

What is your tip to learn something from another style of music? 🙂

[philp]

Folk and country have both been very helpful for my fingerstyle and flatpicking skills.

Leonard Bernstein said something to the effect of "A discipline is best understood in the context of another discipline" in his first Harvard Lecture. This brings that to mind.

[DojoOfCool]

Funk and R&B learned a lot about small voicing rhythm, and emulating horn lines. Also I studied basic classical guitar and it developed my right hand for finger and hybrid picking. Also studying another instrument helps in see music from a different point of view.

[tsangarisjohn]

Trying to play various styles is good for the mind, it keeps it fresh.

[rudyalexandermarquezmusic]

it was hard for me getting into jazz, I came from a rock background, and all I wanted to do was play fast stuff. I got into it and all I could really play was pentatonic ideas, but no phrasing whatsoever, Jazz is a discipline like any other music, and listening is the first step into really leaning the genre, Love your content Jens.

[nunolance]

Best thumbnail ever, great job, Jens 😂

[wobamusic]

Playing to the son- and rhumba clave (Afro Cuban Music) helped me a lot to get a stronger time feel (also for other genres). It leads you away from the constant 1/4 note pulse feeling. Also the Partido Alto you mentioned in the video improved my funky feel. I recommend playing Jazz Standard tunes in rhythms that are completely away from swing feel. It makes your ears open also for new musical ideas. Good video content, Jens (as always). I really appreciate your stuff. Thumps up!!

[davidsimpson]

I ve been playing a lot of blues Texas blues SRV style I play the leads by them self just on a clock like I love it

[wigleboy]

I love to play funk/funk fusion and some blues/jazz blues. I was even playing southern rock yesterday. Also I liked your Hendrix video, that is a cool sound.

[RogueMammoth]

Jens N Roses! Love it! I love jazz but Slash is the guitarist who first inspired me to want to learn to play the guitar.

[michelefaragalli]

Playing a lot of arabic, turkish and balkanic music helped me a lot to understand odd rythms and feel comfortable with them. And the richness of the quite infinite subdivisions available is really usefull to me when composing and trying new grooves...

[seandaniel]

Now that’s a thumbnail I can get behind.

[anthonydemitre]

Ben Monder has an interesting ambient sound, using volume pedals to get melodic chord swells, chords with an interesting almost melodic sound

[bastiaanvanbeek]

I could reccomend listening to classical music, because that´s what jazz is based on for a big part (and some elements of other styles such as blues).

Try, for instance:

Sergei Rachmaninov - 20th century, dark, virtousic, emotion

Erik Satie - impressionistic, minimal, moody

Dimitri Shostakovich - atonal mixed with tonal

Frederic Chopin - piano music, you sometimes hear some pre-jazz harmonies en textures

J.S. Bach - music starts here (as a matter of speaking, ofcourse), western music is basicly based on his, and his wife´s music for a big part

[eduardopadrino]

I think that hip hop and electronic music have awesome elements that could be further developed into jazz. The collaboration between Kamasi Washington, Thundercat and Kendrick Lamar for "To Pimp a Butterfly" was very interesting and original and the sonic textures were quite appealing to me. Experimenting with other genres of music will be the thing, I believe, that will bring jazz back to the larger audiences.

[Shuzies]

Fun....Thanks for sharing live footage

[evinobrien]

I enjoyed this topic, great food for thought, thanks Jens

[GreggOliverBass]

I studied Leo Kottke when i was young, for about 5 years... it was immensely helpful in developing a voice. At the time we all studied Joe Pass, Jeff Beck, Jimi hendrix (a few years before Zepplin), but blending that with aggressive finger picking really helped.

[lesserbrother]

Playing classical got my finger picking in order. Playing country got my economy picking in order. Playing metal got my hands coordinated and my sweep and economy picking in order.

[DizzyKrissi]

your thumbnails are very stylish - especially this one :D