So how did i learn 100 new jazz standards in one year well i'm going to show you the exact
strategies that i use so that you can use them too coming up so back when i had a lot more time on my
hands i did in fact learn 100 new jazz standards in one year and i even had a teacher put me to
the test at the end of that year by calling random tunes that i had to play for him from my list so
i'm gonna walk you through my exact process of how i did it so that you can implement some of
these strategies as well but be sure to stick to the very end where i'm gonna tell you how
many jazz standards i actually think you should learn in one year i think you're gonna actually
be quite surprised so the first thing i did was i picked ten jazz standards that i wanted to start
with now the reason i did this was for two reasons number one was to make this challenge a little bit
easier to digest so by breaking it down to just 10 tunes i knew that this would be easier for me
to get started now the second reason was because i chose 10 jazz standards that not only were very
common jazz standards they were jazz standards that had a lot of common harmonic movements and
lessons within them that i knew would help me in the long run as i kept learning more standards so
it's important that you learn jazz standards that will bleed into others once you learn these first
10 the rest will become exponentially easier as you keep learning them because you'll find that
there's lots of the same harmonic patterns that come up in jazz standards time and time again
now i don't actually remember the exact 10 jazz standards i started with however this list of 10
i always recommend to my inner circle members and my students the first one is autumn leaves then
blue basa all of me it could happen to you sweet georgia brown so what on green dolphin street
have you met miss jones all the things you are and stella by starlight honestly if you learn those 10
jazz standards really well you are going to find that other jazz standards are so much easier again
because of these harmonic patterns that come up time and time again in jazz so the second thing
i started doing is i began creating a playlist of these 10 jazz standards finding as many different
versions that i could from spotify from youtube from amazon and i started listening to them
very religiously over and over and over again constantly and this is a very common mistake i see
in beginner jazz musicians is they actually aren't really listening to the tunes they're trying to
learn very much they may have only been exposed a few times or they're just learning because someone
told them to learn it they're going straight to a piece of sheet music and doing it that way but
really you're not gonna learn these jazz standards or memorize them for the long term or even very
quickly if you're not very familiar with them in the first place so i always had a playlist
going was constantly listening to these tunes so i wanted them to be ingrained as much as possible
now the third thing i'd always do is every single time to learn the jazz standard i would start with
learning the melody instead of the chord changes now the reason i did that is because the melody to
me is the defining element of the tune it really is the character of the tune so if i was able to
really know that melody really well putting the chord changes behind them would make so much more
sense and help my brain learn so much better now the important thing though is not one of these 100
jazz standards did i learn from a piece of sheet music i never pulled up a real book or a fake book
or anything i always learned it by ear from the recordings now this was a massive advantage i'm
so glad i started out my 100 jazz standard journey this way because by doing this even though it was
hard at first and it took me a while to get it it became easier and easier and easier as my ears
improved i repeated those melodies so many more times with repetition to get them into my ear i
was forced to memorize them and therefore it was way easier for me to hold on to these melodies and
then as i kept learning more melodies this way i would find the process became quicker and quicker
and quicker so that it wasn't such a burden to learn by the ear anymore now the fourth thing
that i always did and this is probably one of the biggest takeaways that i really want you to listen
to this is that i always learn chord changes using roman numerals super important and perhaps you've
heard this before but it's really important to understand that professional jazz musicians are
able to learn a ton of jazz standards not because they're thinking about c minor seven f seven b
flat major seven e flat major seven a flat seven d minor seven flat five g seven c minor seven like
they're not thinking that way they're not thinking chord by chord they're thinking within tonal
centers they're thinking about a 2-5-1 to b-flat major it's not necessarily a thought they are just
so familiar with what a 2-5-1 and every single key is that it isn't hard to do so just to make
sure you're caught up to speed in case you're not familiar with roman numeral analysis it all comes
from harmonizing a scale with seventh chords in our particular case so for example a c major scale
if harmonized with seventh chords so in other words stacking thirds on top of each one of those
scale tones you get a c major seven a d minor seven an e minor seven an f major seven a g seven
an a minor seven a b minor seven flat five so that's the one the two the three the four the
five the six and the seven and when you know what the qualities of those chords are so for example
the one chord is always major the two cortisol is minor the five chord is always a dominant
seventh chord that's how we start understanding roman numeral analysis with chord progressions so
for example take a look at autumn leaves which is one that i recommended you learn the first
tonal center is b-flat major and this is a 2-5-1 and so i don't have to think about it like a 2-5-1
in b-flat major that's the only thing i have to remember about this particular tune that's really
really helpful rather than thinking about each chord separately and then if we look
a little bit further we see that we have a 2 5 1 in minor so a minor 7 flat 5 d7 to g minor 7 and
when we look at the rest of this tune honestly that's all it really is it's a 2 5 1 and b flat
major and a 2 5 1 and g minor and that's so much easier for me to remember than trying to remember
all 32 bars of what these actual chord changes are so super important and then if we look at a more
complicated tune like all the things you are this is where it becomes really important we actually
can look through this tune and see there are five tonal centers there's a flat major c major seven
e flat major we have g major and we have e major and so once i understand that i can try to look at
the relationships of the chords so in other words we have a lot of five to one we have two five ones
we have six two five ones in this tune and that's really mostly what the jazz standard is it's just
two five ones and six two five ones over and over and over again but in different key centers so i'm
not really thinking about every single chord i'm thinking about how do we get to a flat how do we
get to c how do we get to e flat and so once we get this skill down and especially if we start
with easier tunes like autumn leaves this makes it so it's so much easier to memorize how to actually
play these jazz standards and by the way these are the kind of things that we do in our inner circle
membership every single month we learn a new jazz standard and we study these roman numeral analysis
as one thing that we do because how important they are to helping us memorize these tunes now
the fifth thing that i would always do is i would really make an effort to learn the chord changes
by ear first before learning them from a chord chart and the reason that i did this even though
it was really hard at first i wanted to make sure that i was developing these ear training skills
and recognizing these patterns so i would always try first by ear do the best i could and then go
check with a chord chart and what you'll find is after you learn the first ten you recognize the
sounds of the two five one patterns and the one six two fives the roman numerals we were just
talking about and then when you learn the next ten you recognize those patterns coming up time
and time again and really you're only filling in the blanks with the more non-conventional harmony
that's happening so doing this really helped me retain these 100 jazz standards now the sixth
thing i did is i played these tunes regularly at a gig every single week as well as jam sessions
i was in the fortunate position to have a weekly gig at that moment in time as well as some other
jam sessions i would go to to play with other people and people that were learning a lot of the
same tunes as me and really there's no substitute for actually going out and playing a tune live you
can practice and memorize in the practice room but really when you put your feet to the fire
in a live situation it really changes your mindset in the way you think about that so you'll know it
so much better if not only you're playing live but getting that opportunity to continually play
these tunes over and over again like i did and the seventh thing that i did is i would always
repeat this process after i learned that first 10 i'd learned the next 10 and just keep doing what i
was doing but it got easier and easier and easier every single time i learned them faster and faster
and faster because i was learning so many lessons so that by the time i got to the last 10 to get to
my 100 it was way easier than the first 10. so you may wonder like brent 100 jazz standards in a year
that sounds very ambitious would you recommend me do that and i would say absolutely not i highly
recommend actually that you don't do that in fact if i could go back in time i would have actually
spent that year doing half as many if not less but just focusing a longer period of time on each jazz
standard so what i actually recommend and what we do in my inner circle membership is we learn one
jazz standard a month and i would recommend that you do that as well so instead of learning three
new jazz standards a week or 12 jazz standards a month i recommend you learn one jazz standard
a month learn it really well and you'll keep learning those lessons it'll get easier and easier
for you and you'll know those jazz standards so much better so by the way if you're wondering
if there's other jazz standards that you should be learning to add to your list then check out
this video on the screen right now which are jazz standards that i recommend for gigs and some jazz
standards that i have not mentioned already in this video so go ahead and click on that one and
check out that one right now thanks for watching this video hope you found it valuable if you did
make sure you like it make you subscribe to the channel and we'll see you in the next one cheers