So what's the best way to learn and memorize the Melodies to Jazz standards well today I'm
going to just walk you through me learning the melody Jazz standard I actually don't know and
show you my exact process let's do this okay so the Jazz standard Melody I'm going to learn today
is called groovin high by Dizzy Gillespie and this is a classic Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie
Parker tune that they've done together I'm aware of the tune I've listened to it I've heard it
obviously but I actually don't know how to play it so literally this is going to be completely raw me
going through the process of learning this Jazz standard now before we do this though of course
I want to talk to you about the preparation I've already done ahead of time and that has to do with
what I call my list process for learning Jazz standards so that stands for listen internalize
sing and transfer and so the part that I'm gonna be doing in today's video is the last step the T
the transfer part and show you how to do that but already I've done the listening internalizing and
singing process so if you're interested in learning more about that I'll leave a link
in the description or the show notes to my learn jazz standards the Smart Way free guide it really
goes into that into detail but let's move move on to the transfer phase so first of all it's
not mandatory I think it can be really helpful to have the chord chart up in front of you and this
just helps me see what I'm actually doing help me feel like I can organize this melody and the way
I like to start is just by looking at the first four bars right the first four bars it just kind
of makes things not quite as stressful where I'm going to be learning something and as you can see
I'm actually going to be learning this by ear I don't actually want to read this from sheet music
I just don't think the benefits are really there as far as Jazz goes and it's good for your ear
it's good for memorizing in the long term which again is part of what I'm talking about today
is how do you memorize a jazz standard so what I would recommend you do is go ahead and pull up a
recording in this case I'm going to the original recording of this and that is with Dizzy Gillespie
and Charlie Parker right now I just have YouTube pulled up but you could use Spotify or whatever
you happen to use or a slowdowner so let's go ahead and listen to it and start learning it
okay so that's actually the intro to the Jazz standard I do think it's very valuable to learn
this however for the sake of today's video we're just going to learn where the a section
actually starts which is coming up right here so let's listen to the first four bars
four bars so now I can already tell right away that this is way too fast for me to actually learn
this by ear I mean I could do it but it's going to be a lot easier if I slow it down so again if
you have a slow Downer it's a great idea I'm just using YouTube and actually on their settings you
can slow down the video so I'm going to slow it down to 75 and I think that's going to help
me grab these notes a little bit better let's go ahead and learn the first notes okay so there's a
pickup and it goes okay so the first notes are let me go ahead and check that again just to make sure
yep so it's it starts right here on the B natural okay
let's keep listening to get the rest of the notes
okay so listen back again intro
okay so we repeat that phrase again so it goes
okay easy enough let's keep going okay I'm gonna stop it right there because that's a
lot of notes about to come up so let's try to get the first note okay so that's the
first note right there it happens to be an e natural let's keep listening to the line
okay so that's the next series of notes there let me just listen again to double check on it
okay yeah so I was right there so okay those are the next notes I can hear that
now if this takes you longer to do because you're not used to learning things by ear
that's okay too it really just comes down to trial and error right so so far we've got
okay that's what I've got so far but let's go ahead and
listen back again and get the next batch of notes
Okay so
nope so yep so that's it
okay let's keep listening and see if you can get the
rest of notes I'll back up just a tiny bit foreign
then what's the last note there in the phrase okay
okay so that happens to be a d natural so right so this is all happening in bar four
by the way so okay so this is what we have so far the pickup much okay
now again because I've listened to this so many times I'm pretty intimately familiar
with what it is so right now honestly I'm just working on transferring it to
my instrument and getting the muscle memory down okay awesome so let's keep moving on
all right so there's a little pickup there all right let me try to get that
let's see one more time
so that was it
that was the pickup into essentially what it sounds like we're gonna hit the phrase again
right so we just repeat that part again so after this part right by the way it's worth mentioning
here because this recording is so old my guitar and this recording are just never going to be in
tune that's just because it's an old recording but we'll just bear with it like I can still
hear the pitches and they're not obviously like an entire half step off or anything like that
okay so here's the cool thing about groovin high and I knew this before
I even started doing this process is it repeats itself just transposing the
line so what it really just did after this part it took this line that we did before
but it transposed it so I know that it went to another key so let me just hear what the first
note is and then I can fill in the blank yeah so as I thought it's actually a whole step down is
where we're going so we're really repeating the same phrase let me just confirm that to
make sure there's no other special notes in there yeah so again I would go through this
on your instrument whatever you have to play and try to figure out that transposition it's
a little easier on guitar because you can kind of just patternistically see it so once I got
my muscle memory wrapped around one I can do another that's just an advantage of the guitar
okay so so far we've got
okay now let's figure out the pickup to the next section so it's a little simpler this time okay I
can really hear that really well because I really can hear approach tones really well at this point
so the pickup's a little bit simpler on this one okay so
almost like Charlie Parker did that but I think it's really just
right that's really what it is so let's hear where it goes after that okay so again we're
transposing that same line so let me just figure out what note it starts on
right so it's another whole step down now again I can see all this happening in the
chord chart right this part goes a whole step down and this part goes
a whole step down right so I can see that that's actually happening if I'm looking
at a chord chart which can be helpful again but you don't have to do that you
can always figure out the chords after you learn the melody so the line is going to be
right so so far we've got foreign
goes next
okay so
so let me try one more time to listen to that okay so
so I think that's it again that's where my ears taking me because I've heard this
so many times yeah so let's go no yeah so ah yeah so sometimes you really have
to practice the muscle memory of what you're playing right it's not just an automatic thing
it's a little easier for me because I've learned
so many Melodies and solos and stuff that some of these patterns kind of re-emerge
all right and I'm almost positive because if we look at the chord chart right it actually
goes down a whole step here with the F minor seven so I'm almost positive we're going to
transpose this but let's go ahead and listen to it just to make sure that's what's happening
yeah that's what happens so
right so when
and then let's hear the pickup into the second a section
so it's the same thing as this not really actually it's a little different so the
pickup's a little different almost every single time so let's listen to it earlier
I think it's that let's try one more time
yeah yeah that's it okay so at this point we're repeating the a section again if we're looking
at the chord chart so that's great pretty sure here I know we have a second ending
that happens right if we look at our chord chart there's a second ending over here there's bar
21 so it goes uh F minor seven a flat minor seven d flat seven to E flat major seven so
something different's going to happen but what we can be pretty sure of is that the
first 12 bars are basically going to be the same thing but again it it's always worth
confirming to make sure that there isn't some missing parts in there so let's keep listening
okay so this is the part right here this is the second ending that I need to learn and
I can already tell I'm gonna have to go back and practice the different pickups that happen
because I wasn't able to do it right there that's okay that's part of the process but let's just
get this last four bars and then we'll go from there so one more time to lead into that part so
what's the note between there so it's actually just one note
so I think it's that one and then what's the part we're going to okay so we went
and I think this part gets transposed because again if we look at our core
chart a flat minor seven to d flat seven so let's listen to it yeah so
yeah so it actually goes a minor third up so just
and then what's the last note
okay so
okay awesome so okay so it goes through that little chord progression section
and the jam session changes it kind of just lands on the E flat major seven but
in the actual Arrangement there's there's different chord changes happening so it's
up one more time
then Charlie Parker comes in with a pickup and goes for his solo okay so at this point what I've
done is I've successfully transferred the notes to my instrument but it definitely bears that I need
to practice this a little bit to make sure I got it right make sure all those little pickups that
are in there I'm getting so what I'm gonna do is pause this for one second just practice this for a
little bit and then we're gonna come back and play with the recording a few moments later all right
so just got back from practicing still practicing up to 75 percent we'll get to 100 later but 75
is good for now so I'll play it along with the recording and it'll be a little out of tune with
recording but that's okay so let's start with the intro and then I'll jump in when the head comes in
thank you
thank you foreign
okay so a few mistakes in there but again I would keep practicing this and playing
this and the practice session today tomorrow I'll come back to it and review it and keep
solidifying it and then we'll keep playing it and we'll start improvising over it and
repetition really becomes important here we're talking about really starting to memorize this
but simply by going through this process of learning it by ear going through this process
is really really going to help me memorize it for the long term so of course the next
question is how do we go about memorizing the chords to Jazz standards so I have a video on
the screen right now that will go through that process how to go about memorizing chords to
Jazz standard so click on that one right on the screen if you found this video helpful today
please like the video subscribe to the channel and we'll see you in the next video cheers