The LJS Podcast is the podcast where you get weekly jazz tips, interviews, stories and advice for becoming a better jazz musician! Hosting the show is the jazz musician behind learnjazzstandards.com, author, and entrepreneur Brent Vaartstra, who’s one goal is to answer any question about playing jazz music you may have. Jazz can be a challenging music to learn and play, but it doesn’t have to be so hard. Each episode features a specific musical challenge that jazz students may come across, where it is discussed and answered. Special jazz guests frequent the show, sharing their expertise on an array of different musical subject matter. Listeners are invited to call in with their jazz questions to the podcast hotline, where it could get answered on a future LJS Podcast episode. Join thousands of other listeners getting free jazz education every week!
https://www.learnjazzstandards.com/podcast
Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 10 days 3 hours 13 minutes
episode 375: Quick Win: How to Learn Giant Steps (Jazz Tutorial)
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 to learn the melody - LIST process
3...
episode 376: How to Get Back "Into Shape" After a Break In Playing Jazz
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 reacquainted with your instrument
3...
episode 378: Where Should You Learn Jazz (Books, YouTube, Courses, Memberships, Lessons)?
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 Content
3. The Pros and Cons of Courses
4...
episode 379: Using "Restrictive Practicing" to Improve Your Jazz Solos
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 but, really, the rules are meant to be broken...
episode 380: Quick Win: Jazz Improvisation For Beginners (How to Get Started)
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...
episode 381: The Practicing Snowball for Multiplying Your Musical Results
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 variety of different angles.
In this episode:
1...
episode 382: Quick Win: 10 Biggest Lies About Playing Jazz
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...
episode 384: Quick Win: How to Learn Jazz Melodies by Ear
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 section
5. How chord charts become helpful
6...
episode 385: My Experience Going to Music School (How it Helped and How It Didn't)
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 and things that it really helped me with and how I was able to improve...
episode 386: Quick Win: Turn ANY Song Into JAZZ (Reharmonization 101)
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 redundancy and add twists
6...