Listen if you're going through YouTube right now just trying to find the next cool chord
scale Theory idea or the next hip lick to apply to your jazz improv stop right now none of that
stuff really matters if you're not practicing the right things and you're not practicing it
in an effective way so in today's video I want to simplify jazz improvisation and
boil it down to three categories to practice and not only that give a practice plan for
that so we can get real results in our jazz improvisation let's do this thing
what's up Brent here from Lerner jazz standards calm which is a blog a podcast and videos all
geared towards helping you become a better jazz musician thanks for being here make sure
you subscribe at the button below if you've never done that before like I said I want to make jazz
improvisation simple there's so much stuff out there on the internet there's so many things that
people are telling you to do there's all these sexy chord scale stuff out there that if you
just try this then maybe it will take your souls to the next level not really none of that stuff is
really the most important things and we're gonna be talking about the important things now I did do
a video before on what I call my big three things you should be practicing I'll link that up above
and today's video talks about those things but more importantly gives an actual practice program
to go along with them but here's the question I want you to be answering in the comments below
while watching this video what do you think is the ultimate jazz practice plan I want to hear
your comments down below in your opinions love to hear all of that alright without further ado let's
jump into this practice plan so like I said this practice plan is based off of what I call my big
three things you should be practicing which is technique jazz repertoire and jazz language so
this practice plan today will revolve around those things so first let's start with technique so when
I talk about technique this has nothing to do with jazz this has to do with being able to play your
instrument and navigate your instrument and why do we want to be able to do that well because jazz
improvisation requires us to be able to navigate our instruments in a way that will allow us to
act in the moment to be able to improvise to be able to play ideas that maybe our fingers might
not be ready for we want our fingers to be ready for those ideas so there's two kinds of technical
exercises that I think we should be working on and the first one is instrument specific so if
you were a trumpet player long tones might be the thing for you if you're a saxophone player
getting that breath through your horn might be the thing for you if you're a guitar player like
me it might be playing different things in different positions to be able to play all
your inversions being able to play chord tones all over the neck and demystify the mystery that
is the guitar the second one that I would really say applies to all instruments is fundamentals now
this includes scales this includes our pezzi O's and all these different things exercises
we can do and patterns is a really great idea to apply to all these fundamentals my 30 steps
to better jazz playing course we do different patterns over specific scales that really help
take your pattern playing and ability to navigate different things in your instrument to the next
level now just for example sake let's say we have a seven-day practice program that we're
doing I know that's not realistic for everybody does it matter for its consecutive days but let's
just say it's 7 practice sessions so how do we apply this so the first day we work on one bit
of instrument specific technique and one pattern or fundamental that could be one scale it could
be one pattern does it matter just one small little bit the second day we add more to that
we do the same thing but do another pattern do another instrument specific exercise all the way
through day seven that's what we do okay now I would suggest if you're doing something like I
have my six patterns four major scales handout or something like that that you would review on that
seven day all of those patterns to make sure you have them under your fingers but because
technique is such a broad thing and really depends on what instrument you play I'm being general here
I'm not being as specific as I will in the other categories the point is just one small thing every
single day I call this batching we don't want to do too much just a little bit okay let's move on
to jazz repertoire we need to learn jazz standards the jazz standards will just how to play they are
the vehicles in which the jazz musicians use to improvise if we are learning jazz standards we
will become better jazz musicians okay so I'll suggest learning jazz standards by ear I'll link
up in the cards my list process for learning jazz standards that will be very helpful for
you if you haven't heard about that before but with that in mind here's the program that I would
go through in a seven-day session to learn an entire jazz standard and really get some good
practicing behind it session number one is just to learn the melody so you're not doing anything
else the first session only learn the melody that's all you should do session number two
is to learn the chords you can also review the melody during this session but you just spend
the session learning the chords session number three is to start improvising now this is just
getting your hands and feet dirty just starting to do it don't worry about if it sounds good
or if it doesn't sound good you need to start improvising in order to get it doing is what's
really gonna help you get in there and start learning and start applying different concepts
session number four you're gonna improvise again and then session number five six you're gonna
improvise again and session number seven you're going to improvise again so the jazz repertoire
is really about spending a lot of time improvising yes you can apply a licks yes you can apply some
chord scale theory all that stuff but the idea is that you're starting to work through your
improvisation and taking particularly difficult parts of the jazz standard and working on those
and that's all that you can really do is get that melody get the chords and just start improvising
okay item number three is jazz language at the end of the day the scales the chord scale stuff
all that stuff is cool but you really need to know the language and how do I suggest doing
that outside of just listening to jazz I suggest learning jazz solos and jazz licks small musical
ideas by ear this is incredibly effective lots of my students report back to me that this is
the big game-changing thing for them so I divided jazz language into two categories micro and macro
jazz language so micro would be small little licks small little ideas over a chord progression like
a two five one or a one six two five now macro is like learning entire jazz solos or at least
large portions of jazz solos for example a Sonny Rollins jazz solo you know you might understand
better how he actually approached everything in context rather than a small micro piece you get
this broader picture view and you learn a lot from doing this so let's take learning a jazz
solo for example a very overwhelming task but for breaking this into seven sessions here's what its
gonna look like session number one you're gonna learn the first eight bars or phrase of the solo
session number two you're gonna learn the next eight bars or phrase of the solo and the session
number three you're going to review session 1 and session to review is hugely important in my mind
when learning jazz language and reinforcing what you're learning session number four you're gonna
learn another eight bars or the next phrase session number five another eight bars or the
next phrase session number six you're going to review session four and five of the solos
so that you can remember everything in between from the previous review session now session
number seven is where you review all of it now at this point you should have thirty-two bars
of a solo so if it's a thirty-two thirty-two bar form that means you've learned one course of the
solo now imagine if you learned thirty-two bars of a solo where would you be with understanding
more about jazz language you would be way ahead of where you are right now so I've gone through
all these individually but the big-picture view is really important we're still dealing with
technique jazz repertoire and jazz language so this is what the practice program really looks
like when you put it all together notice that on each day you have a little bit of technique
a little bit of jazz repertoire a little bit of jazz language and all of this is manageable yes
it is a lot of work but it's simplified you're not doing a billion different things you're not
jumping from one lick to the other lick you're really taking a little bit of information and
cycling it over and over again and if this is how you practice my friend you for sure will improve
your jazz improvisation even with just this one seven-day session here or seven sessions you will
improve a lot all right so like I said this is my opinion I want to hear from you in the comments
what do you think is the ultimate jazz practicing session would love to fill that comment section as
full as many different ideas from everybody so we can all learn from each other I did mention my 30
steps to better jazz playing course essentially we do practice sessions like this but with community
but with the support with different materials to work through all of everything is given to you
ready to go so you can go to 30 steps to better jazz playing dot-com if that sounds like something
that you know is gonna help you and motivate you go ahead and do that alright that's all
for today's video make sure you give this a big like and the button below I want to see as many
likes on this video and make sure you subscribe to the channel and I'll see you in the next video