🔴 How I learn jazz vocabulary 🎸

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

Hope you enjoy this lesson on how I learn vocabulary. Please note there is a typo in the music notation that you see on the screen at 7:15, it should ready Ab not Gb. I've corrected this on the PDF. Andy

[@nmonye01]

Great video. Really helped put the Idea of composing off the extensions and scale degrees into my mind. This is a great musical (sounding) exercise. Very inspiring.

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@samtotheg]

Love this video im gonna apply this asap.

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

Glad to hear it 🙏

[@JSDJerry]

Great ideas. I wish You had started with a simpler lick from a standard. More examples from The great American standard would help me.

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

I think it was because that particular one was stuck in my head at the time. Maybe try it with something you already know and turn something from major to minor or vice versa

[@terrybanks5063]

tip number 1 is the foundation of playing or copying any music. great tip! recently subbed, following your advancing guitarist book series. really enjoy your approach, very helpful. many thanks!

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

Cheers Terry - glad you like the channel

[@rgcjac]

great lesson andy! it makes so much sense especially if you're up in years like me and the thought of memorizing a long 2-5-1 becomes impossible

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

I agree Russell. I don't have the memory for that kind of stuff either!

[@salvadorgarcia8661]

Excelente lección, muy didáctica y práctica. Muchas gracias maestro.

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

Thank you Salvador.

[@prodigaljess]

Great lesson, brother. Thank you.

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

Thanks Jesse :)

[@kenkarn361]

Coming up with a line might be simple enough, but REMEMBERING IT can be a drag if you don’t associate a good feeling with it. The song fragment/ reference however, is already something you LIKE.

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

You're so right. Remembering them is the hardest part! Always a struggle.

[@kenkarn361]

@@jazzguitarwithandy thank you for your affirmation. I must continue of course, to hate you for your L5. :) - sorry about the queen BTW The news hit as I was writing this

[@markgoodwin5306]

This is really cool. I think it's pretty easy to get caught up in lick playing because a lot of people play that way and it's somewhat attractive, I don't know. I've always thought lick playing gets real corny and almost cringy. I guess it's cool sometimes, if it sounds neat or if there's something about it that catches you. I like to think of chords themselves, always keeping the chord tones in mind and adding whatever is necessary or whatever I think sounds good, that's just me.

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

Thanks for sharing Mark. I feel the same re licks. I think your approach sounds musical, which is the important thing.

[@frankvaleron]

Really good idea

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

Cheers Frank.

[@JSDJerry]

Can you identify the names 3 or 4 other standard melodies I might try this approach with?

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

You could do it with any, but some good ones with strong opening phrases could be: Out of nowhere, Lullaby of birldand, Sentimental mood, Beginning to see the light.... the idea is to take the rhythmic shape of the phrase and you can vary that or just vary the notes. It's a good way to pick up phrases.

[@zaqintosh]

The hypocrisy of your average KZbin jazz educator: “No don’t use licks! That’s cheap sounding” … “Grab IDEAS from melodies! Because those aren’t licks at all!!” … dude it’s all the same. As long as you understand what’s going on musically, they are the same. The thing people actually struggle with: linking ideas/licks together so that it sounds fluid and having good rhythm. And, as you pointed out, not being lazy and making sure you can play a lick anywhere on the neck and vary it to suit the situation

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

Thank you for your comment. I think it's semantics! I get what you are saying, I just personally don't practice licks in that guitar kind of way. My first way to improvise over a standard is to vary the melody and for me a good solo has the melody as a thread through it, hence this video. If I pick up some licks/vocab on the way then great, but I don't consciously apply them in the moment when soloing. Personally, I find stringing licks together a hollow way to approach improvising. I prefer to sing what I play, play in the moment and play something different each time if possible. Licks might come out in the course of that, but not in a match the lick to this chord kind of way. I think just being absorbed in the language of jazz is the key. I'm sure plenty of players get a lot out of lick practice, personally it doesn't work for me and I sometimes find those kind of players lack feeling in their playing.

[@zaqintosh]

@@jazzguitarwithandy Thanks for the thoughtful reply. We agree on the semantics part. However, the variation on the melody of the song your improv-ing over is definitely it's own approach. It was probably the preferred form of jazz improv originally prior to an avalanche of players who just play ANYTHING over a jazz tune while improvising. But, once you take an "idea", insert it into your "vocabulary" (which is ultimately a bag of licks whether you're conscious of it or not) and use that in any song.. It's basically a lick :) I've heard plenty of extremely famous jazz musicians being interviewed who claim they don't use or practice licks and use the "language metaphor" to explain how they improvise in the moment and only rely on their ear... They are utterly convinced of this fact. Yet when I actually listen to them play for a while, I'll still hear the same idea/lick inserted into several songs because that's how they are wired when a 2 5 1 flies by (for example).

[@rainervogel9462]

Very nice video - thank you (there is a little typo at 7:15: in the sheet music it should be an Ab [or G#] instead of Gb).

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

Many thanks for spotting that Rainer. I've corrected it on the PDF.

[@TheDeedeeFiles]

Very nice 🙂

[@jazzguitarwithandy]

Thanks 😊