10 Biggest Lies About Playing Jazz

Have you been told any of these 10 mistruths about jazz? If so, you may have started believing things that are ultimately not helping you improve as a jazz player.

🕒CHAPTERS🕒
00:00 Intro
00:12 Mistruth #1: If you can hear it, then you can play it.
01:04 Mistruth #2: You don't need to know theory in order to play jazz.
02:16 Mistruth #3: You need to know a lot of music theory in order to play jazz.
03:24 Mistruth #4: You need to have amazing techniques in order to play jazz.
05:02 Mistruth #5: Learn jazz solos and you'll improvise better.
06:13 Mistruth #6: Great musicians don't plan out their solos.
07:53 Mistruth #7: In order to get good at playing jazz, you need to practice a lot.
09:08 Mistruth #8: You should never learn jazz from sheet music.
10:40 Mistruth #9: Master something that you're practicing before moving on to the next
thing
12:10 Mistruth #10: You need to know a lot of jazz standards in order to play with other
musicians.

💥Important Links and Resources💥

[MyJB]

Your advice on Myth # 9 is very important. 'When to move on? ' entails a tough decision. After 1 month of deep-learning on a topic or a new standard, one is rarely ready to perform it publicly on the band stand. "Moving on" feels like a failure but it is an essential setp forward. Over time, the same materials will re-appear and get "perfected" incrementally.

[NamesNobody]

"Perfection is the enemy of progress." Love it.

[colink]

Good video. Helps blow away misconceptions. As a beginning jazz guitarist, it's difficult to know where to begin regarding where to actually start. I'm coming from a classical/rock background. I'd class myself as decent intermediate. How should I proceed with jazz guitar. Many thanks

[conradgittins]

Regarding learning from sheet music compared to learning by ear, one thing to consider is when listening to someone else you are listening to their interpretation of the song. The sheet music is in its original form from the song writer (unless it is transcribed) and it can help in understanding the original intention. Knowing that allows freedom to interpret a song many ways rather than just copy someone else.

[rcratpool]

Im so with you with the preparation but they know the progression so well. I am an instant subscriber, everything that was said in this video is so true.👌

[jazzdirt]

As a sax or trumpet/flugel/trombone etc.. player, practicing for hours helps a lot, with lip muscles (embouchure).. It's like any physical thing.. even noodling still helps consolidate your lip muscles.
When you just start out.. play until your lips are tired, and build up.. but if you can play for hours, it helps.. Not always with learning music, but developing the muscles needed for playing it...
It's a lot like training for a marathon... Even if you got your muscles build up and up to the task, you need to maintain that... So as a sax/trumpet player putting in hours a day makes more sense then for a string player, or pianist...

[swedeinla]

what is that guitar i see in the bottom of the screen every now and

[pickinstone]

Rare reference to Conte Candoli--was a great player and composer of the trumpet. Good mention!

[edwardjons]

Number 9 is the top piece of advice in my experience. It took me years to learn this lesson.

[Fokan]

Great work man, you should have more views!

[eric_james_music]

great channel dude, your analysis of stella by starlight is what made the lightbulb click in my head that you can do chains of 25s that don't resolve and change key

[charlesabraham-ramirez-verdugo]

I really love Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. I think I saw the light when J slowed down there music. Try it

[jimelliott]

EXCELLENT video! I'm studying jazz with the head of the NOCCA New Orleans Center For Creative Arts Michael Pellara ( if not familiar with NOCCA think Wynton Marsellis, Jonathon Babtiste former students) It sounds like you both took the same page(s) out of the book!

[rcratpool]

I dont know any jazz player that dont know musical theory. I mean real jazz. Need to know realy well the major scale and altered dominants. I dont know what kind of jazz you can play without a good knowledge of that basic theory. Need to be fluid to. Jazz vocabulary can be a life long quest for many people.

[timseguine]

I never heard "If you can hear it you can play it". I heard "If you can sing it you can play it"

[dlee]

I wonder if knowledge of theory applies to drummers. I know some excellent jazz drummers, but I’m not sure if they know any theory or if they even need to.

[SatanicBarbie]

Sheet music is confirmation of what you hear.

[Uuur]

Biréli doesn't know theory, that's for sure. But he's Biréli.

[kiwibass]

I lie about jazz all the time, I lie that I can actually play it.