Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

Have you ever heard of "binge practicing" before? So, binge practicing is kind of what it sounds like, it's where you are practicing for large amounts at a time. And you can also binge practice often, so you are binge practicing frequently. It's kind of like binge-watching Netflix. It's like you watch 5 hours one day and 5 hours the next day, and it keeps on going on like...

Today, on the podcast, I'll be talking about 32 jazz standards that I had my students in my Inner Circle membership learn for very specific reasons that I want to share with you. And I want you to also see, out of these jazz standards, which one do you know and which ones would you be interested in learning so that they can help you improve your jazz playing. In this episode: - Short demo and...

Today's episode is what I would consider to be probably the most valuable episode I've ever come out with. And I hope that it becomes one of the most popular episodes I've ever come up with because I truly believe this is really important information that you need to be paying attention to. We're gonna be talking about the 4 elements of mastering a jazz standard. Being able to...

Today on the podcast, I wanna show you 2 ways you can start improving your jazz improvisation today. And I wanna share with you a few different people that I know who recently have implemented these things and have made clear progress in their jazz playing. In this episode: 1. How 2 LJS Inner Circle members applied concepts to improve their jazz improv 2. Isolating a musical concept learned and ex...

So,  what is the secret to playing more creative jazz solos, playing more creative melodies, playing more creative comping, more creative basslines? You name them. How do we become creative and tap into our inner creativity so it doesn't just sound like we're playing formulated music or regurgitated music, but something that comes from us, sounds original, sounds organic, and exciting? W...

So, it's the year 2009, I'm in college at that time, going to school in Seattle, Washington. And in Seattle, there is a jazz jam session at this bar called the Owl N' Thistle. Cool little dive bar, exactly what you want in a jam session, kinda smells like stale booze, all the good stuff, right? So, I go for the first time, even the second time, third time, fourth time, fifth time. H...

I got a question for you: Have you ever felt intimidated to learn jazz, or intimidated to play jazz with others, or perhaps you're someone on the outside looking in and it all looks a little bit overwhelming? But, perhaps you're someone who is working on jazz right now, you're an avid practicer, but you feel often frustrated. Well, there's a good chance that some of the reasons...

Today, on the show, we're talking about 3 elements that make up really, really, really good jazz solos. These are things I'm hearing from the best jazz musicians in the world, things that we wanna start implementing in our own solos. So, let's talk about those. Grab your favorite drink and snacks. In this episode: 1. Creating Amazing Melodies 2. Creating Rhythmic Interest 3. How to...

Today, on the podcast, I'm talking about 3 questions that I find myself continually asking our Inner Circle members that I want you to start asking yourself as well. And I believe that if you start asking these 3 questions, you're going to start making faster improvements in your jazz playing. In this episode: 1. Why I'm letting you ask these questions to yourself 2. The difference...

Today, on the podcast I wanna talk about the future of jazz. We're gonna talk about the future of jazz education, the future of the genre, the style, where it's going. We're going to, of course, have to deal with the age-old question, "Is jazz dead?". And many of my thoughts about the state of jazz and the enthusiasm for the genre in this episode today. So, grab your favor...

Today, I wanna show you how you take a simple song, like, "You Are My Sunshine", and turn it into jazz. We'll take up 4 levels of reharmonization. In this episode: 1 . The basic chord changes of You Are My Sunshine 2. How I play the tune with the basic chord changes 3. Level #1 - How to turn the tune into jazz 4. Level #2 - Spicing it up a little bit 5. Level #3 - How to get rid of...

So, because I know the audience that generally listens to this podcast, I know that a majority of you, or at least a good percentage of you have never been to a music school before, and so, you may be wondering, what was it that I missed in music school that would help me become a better jazz musician. So, in today's episode, what I wanna do is just talk about my experience in music school an...

So, what's the best way to learn and memorize the melodies to jazz standards? Well, today, I'm gonna just walk you through me learning the melody to a jazz standard that I actually don't know and show you my exact process. In this episode: 1. What I prepare ahead of time 2. This is how I start 3. Why my guitar and the recording are not on the same pitch 4. The pick-up to the next se...

Today, on the podcast, I'm talking about 40 jazz standards that you should know and I'm gonna break them down by categories so that you can see which categories you need to fill in some more jazz standards on. In this episode: 1. Start-Up Standards 2. Advanced Essentials 3. Ballads 4. Bossa Novas 5. Bebop 6. Blues 7. Brent's top 6 Important Links: Free Guide to learning standards by...

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. In this episode: 1. Mistruth #1: If you can hear it, then you can play it. 2. Mistruth #2: You don't need to know theory in order to play jazz. 3. Mistruth #3: You need to know a lot of music theory in order to play jazz. 4. Mistru...

Today, on the podcast, I"m gonna be talking about an important concept that I call, "The Practicing Snowball". "The Practicing Snowball" is something that's going to leave you feeling super encouraged, I believe, by the end of this episode. And it's going to show you how the compounding effects of your practice really come into play from looking at this from a va...

If you've ever felt overwhelmed at jazz improvisation and unsure of where to get started, today I'm going to show you exactly how it works, make it simple so you get headed in the right direction. In this episode: 1. How to start improvising over 2-5-1 2. The most basic notes you can play 3. The modes of each chord 4. The most important notes 5. The actual scale used  by jazz musicians 6...

One thing that attracts musicians to jazz is the fact that the possibilities are endless.  When it comes to improvisation, really, there are so many different avenues to explore, so many different things you can play and after listening to some of the greatest jazz musicians in the world, you realize there's a massive amount of vocabulary out there that you can express. The rules are there bu...

In today's episode, we're gonna talk about where is the best place for you to learn jazz: Is it music books? Is it YouTube videos and podcast episodes like this? Is it courses? Is it memberships, or is it private lessons? We're gonna go through them and talk about the pros and cons of each one. In this episode: 1. The Pros and Cons of Music Books 2. The Pros and Cons of Online Conte...

What's up, guys? It's Brent here. So I was just surfing the Internet and I found a video of me playing a gig from 10 years ago. Today, I'm gonna watch that video, give you my reaction to it, and let's see how messy it gets. In this episode: 1.  Intro 2.  The melody 3.  Pro Tip 4.  The organ solo (by Camden Hughes) - my impression 5.  My impression of my comping 6.  Pro Tip 7. ...

Are you trying to get back "into shape" after being off of playing for a while? In today's episode, I will be sharing some tips on how to help you get back into the flow and feel that connection with your instrument and your music to prepare you to perform or just get you to play again.  In this episode: 1. Listen to music that is "sticky" for you 2. Start getting reacquai...

Giant Steps is notoriously one of the most feared jazz standards for musicians to learn and improvise over, not only because of the complex harmony but also because of the speed. So today, I'm gonna talk about how we can learn the chords most efficiently so we can improvise over them well and find out the harmonic secrets that Giant Steps has to offer. In this episode: 1. Intro 2. Preparing t...

"What prevents you from achieving your jazz goals?". This was a question we recently polled our community over on YouTube about, and we got a lot of really interesting answers and responses to our poll. So, in today's episode what I wanna do is I wanna go over those results; what people are saying and talk about each result and help you understand how really, they're not actual...

Today, we're talking about the classic minor jazz standard, "Softly, As In A Morning Sunrise". We'll take a look at the chords to figure out the most efficient way to learn it as well as some harmonic secrets within the tune that will help us improvise over it. in this episode: 1. Short demo 2. The best way to learn the melody 3. Identifying the key - The first A section 4. Thi...

Today on the podcast I have a member of my team, Brett Pontecorvo, to the show with me to discuss 2 questions.  And those questions are: - What is one musical skill you are/were lacking that caused you some trouble in your career?    and - If you could start over, what would be the one musical skill you would master? A lot of gold within these hills. In this episode: 1. What is one musical skill y...