3 Important Skills You Need To Work On Every Day

It is complicated to figure out what to practice, there are so many options and you have to watch out that you don't just waste your time by moving from topic to topic without getting anywhere. But if you split your practice into these 3 essential skills, it is easier to get the balance right.

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Ear Training and Sight Singing: The Superpower you get from Music School

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Content:
00:00 What should you practice?
00:45 #1 Technique
00:49 The Classic Practice Session
02:05 The Classical Practice Session
03:38 Vocabulary On A Song
04:58 #2 Ear-Training
05:42 There's an APP now!
06:15 Not just exercises
07:15 Evaluate Your Practice
08:15 #3 Making Music
09:29 What about comping?
10:50 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 practicing and learning Jazz, on guitar or any other instrument.

The videos are mostly jazz guitar lessons, music theory, song analysis, and videos on jazz guitars.

My Gear:

[JensLarsen]

What are the important skills to develop? 🙂

[RobKandell]

I remember when I was still playing very actively (bass) and met a jazz bassist at church. He recorded every performance, mostly to judge his intonation. (He played fretless.)

I learned a lot from him.

[thijs]

So I saw this video on a guy who learnt like all positions all keys, you name it right. And then he had to solo and couldn't because he didn't focus on rhythm. So been playing along with blue bossa and all of me tracks this morning and just really emphasizing rhythm and it really just works out man, the notes that don't produce or ''wrong'' notes. It just doesn't really matter at all, or you can get away with so much

[andrepessoa]

I'm not a professional musician. I try to play the pieces of music that I listen to. So, to me, it's important to learn as if I'm studying a foreign language: adding new stuff to things I already use. During the process there are poetic and prose texts. They give me different points of view. Excellent video!

[billa]

I purchased the Jazz Guitar Roadmap about a year ago. Then I got distracted and went on a journey to find other ways to delve into jazz. That search eventually led be back to the Jazz Guitar Roadmap. There are countless content creators out there promising "this-is-all-you-need" approaches to learning jazz, but few offer the focused, comprehensible, and systematic approach as Jens' "Jazz Guitar Roadmap." After a while, you realize--hey, "That's what Jens said." All roads lead to (and, eventually, "back to") the Jazz Guitar Roadmap.

[kelvingill]

Thanking you Jens You are awesome am using your pieces on my steel drums I love and appreciate you imparting your knowledge

[HristoVelev]

Comping practice works for me when comping with the great recordings. You have a full great band rather than a backing track, and you have different recordings in different keys which also pushes you to understand the form better. Leads - you can loop a section of the song that is not too densely filled out, or play over Aebersold :)

[ericstrauch]

I practice technique, scales, arpeggios and reading chord charts all in one exercise. I take a song and first play through the song with scales on each chord. Then I play the arpeggios through the song. Consolidating these together saves time and I don't get bored.

[eric_james_music]

Haha step 1: Subscribe to this channel. But on the real, I took this advice to heart. I can attest that just learning 30+ standards, some by ear and some reading chords (because it can be quite exhausting), watching music theory videos and taking written notes in a notebook is what has worked for me. I also just noodle around and try to make strange chord progressions, sometimes even making songs out of them. Playing just a segment of a jazz standard chord progression with a loop pedal is how I practice soloing improv. First I learn the vocal melody which is usually simple by ear

[pelleberg]

Very good, thx Jens. Maybe your next book should address patterns, very useful. As always, many thanks to you that share so much of your knowledge to us.

[SkarphedinnWalz]

Great advice throughout! One thing which helped me when i was starting, was trying to learn not only guitar parts by ear but some of the other instruments also, like the horns, or even just the vocal melody. It helped me with my phrasing, my ear, and musical ideas in general. I would take a horn phrase i really liked and try to guitar-ify it. It made me have to listen for nuances, and all this really helped me. Play music! Thank you, Jens

[EPICSOUNDTRAX]

This is 100% gold advice.
One additional advice i could give you is this.
Use a chord and experiment different scales with different names to develop you own style and flavour because there are no real jazz masters thay play
All the time C maj scale over C maj chord, believe me nobody does that.
If you want your playing to be flat and dull play the name of the scale that fits the chord....mission accomplished
So experiment different scales over one chord to understand what i wanna say..

[bebopisthetruth]

Good advice. One additional suggestion: keep a practice journal. I don’t make an entry every practice, but I do make notes 2-3 times a week, noting what I’m working on, at what metronome setting, observations, etc. At the end of each month I summarize what I accomplished and learned, and I plan out goals for the upcoming month. Great way to document your progress, although not as good as recording yourself I do that too, but not as frequently.

[brucepuckett]

Another great video! trying these methods right now, thanks!

[jof]

Thank you very much ! I learn a lot from you !

[edd]

Heh-heh. Just happened to be restructuring my practice routine this morning. Nicely timed. 😊

[chrissguitarshow]

Love your lessons, would love to see more on how to play real fast like those fast turnaround lines like joe pass and john coltrane do there is never anything on you tube hardly

[thijs]

find it also interesting because I know the melody of all of me extremely well with lots of inspiration, so lots of material to draw from. And I actually never heard blue bossa's melody. You just approach it in a different way

[elwoodcoppin]

Damn this was super helpful, thanks for making all these great vids

[cbolt]

Great video, lots to take in though Jens...