Jens Larsen Teaches Justin: Jazz Guitar Lesson

[@justinguitar]

*Learn more from Jens Larsen Jazz Guitar Lessons:* jenslarsen.nl

[@gus5093]

Thank you so much for sharing. A brillant musical conversation between two masters. Love all your vids. This one is a must. Cheers.

[@JensLarsen]

Super fun to hang out and talk Jazz, Justin! Thanks for the invite 🙂

[@ianmcglasham]

I love that you are humble enough to take instruction when you are clearly really talented in your own right.

[@alfredcakeburn1166]

Fabulous Justin and Jens. This session probably speaks to the hesitance/fear/panic felt by most of us essentially blues players trying to deal with Jazz lines.

[@decrode]

An awesome collaboration between 2 of my favourite guitar KZbinrs! Cheers gents

[@gregmills105]

Like many others here, i have learned so much from both these guys. I loved how even at their level it can be a struggle to verbalize what they are chasing in terms of jazz knowledge and what many of us are striving to grasp. This video both enlightened me and encouraged me to keep plugging away at this beautiful art form. Justin and Jens - thanks to you both for doing this!

[@GlenCraytonJr]

Some of the best teachers on KZbin! Thanks guys for the years of learning

[@jimmrvos2930]

Wow! That was great! Jens and Justin are two of the very best instructors out there. I really appreciate the self awareness Justin has about his strengths and weaknesses as a jazz player. Fascinating!!!!

[@johnandre5558]

Two KZbin titans! Both excellent human beings.

[@btocakci]

I love how justin pretends not knowing some things to solidly ask the questions in our minds. Couple of information was valuable to me: 1- Learn the songs good enough to not worry about the upcoming chord. learning a jazz standard is not learning the melody and chords only. It is an opportunity to apply what you learn in a nice context. Find a standard that you can listen and work on for months without getting bored. ( I am using Song For My Father for this. Second month now and still the chord progression is appraling to me) 2- Keep the memorizable licks to 3 to 8 notes. The longer the line is the less flexible it is. 3- While repeating a motiff, try to develop in each repetition. 4- Hitting the chord tones is nice but not the ultimate goal everytime. Record and listen to your lines. Once you are bored of your lines, you will start searching for ways yo break your cliches in your lines. 5- Keep the lines simple and focus on the rhytmic motiffs. Implement them in different chords starting on different degrees to glue the lines. 6- We all are tired of Autumn Leaves and get mad once it kicks in 😂

[@fivetimesyo]

This is what the Avengers wishes they were

[@blainelilly2971]

I've followed the two of you for a few years, but somehow I just stumbled onto this. What a session. To listen to you talk at a professional level with each other was a real eye (and ear) opener. Great stuff. You're both are truly gifted teachers. Online instruction at its best.

[@markoneill1768]

Really good discussion. Jazz is so challenging to get your head around. Basically there are no shortcuts, it requires a lot of mental and physical effort.

[@tomaspontofinal]

Love that such a well known youtube educator is humble enough to take a lesson himself and share it with everyone! :)) Very excited to watch this video and thank you both for your work!

[@Invisible_Hermit]

At 59, I just began Level 2 with Justin, and so recently bought an electric guitar to go with my two acoustics. Consequently, I've really wanted to at least start to understand jazz guitar, and hopefully be able to play a passable version of it someday. Finding this talk between Jens and Justin is pure gold! They are both incredibly brilliant guitarists, and yet, they are both such humble guys. Seeing my teacher (Justin) continuing to learn new things (Hello "Nitsuj!!) is incredibly impressive and inspiring. I am grateful to be alive at a time when we have such easy access to such wonderful people and meaningful information that can help make us better musician! 🙏

[@RogerCreasy]

Two of my favorite online guitar instructors together. This was awesome!! Thank You!!!

[@chafrewilcha]

Thank you guys! This is one of the very best interviews, not just about music, but it could have been about any subject, because the questions that were asked and the problems that were attempted to be solved, is exactly what a beginner / intermediate jazz guitarist like myself would need to ask Jens! I have subscribe to both of your channels nine or 10 months ago. Again thank you both so much.

[@kalvheps5973]

High level stuff!For real guitarists with experience and talent.Brilliant!

[@jimwar1890]

I’ve been following you for about 8 years now and discovered Jens through a guitar friend about a year ago. Think you two are the best teachers on KZbin. This is a very motivating video!! Thanks.

[@adityakumarmishra6952]

The collaboration we needed

[@VeloVagabond]

This is great, Justin! I hope you'll post some more videos of your practice routine and songs that you wind up practicing. This is something I'd really like to follow and learn from.

[@Indigo-lucky]

Yes Justin, please post part 2! Thanks a lot both of you!❤

[@spivvo]

Great to see these two guys chatting. My cnclusion from watching this is …… time and persistence…. and some more time….and keep bloody going 😂

[@hellni79]

Jens is a true gentleman and an amazing teacher.

[@truckerjam8939]

Hey Justin, how're you doing? Lost you along the way but caught up with you on this interview. At the end of a truckers day, sitting in my rig with a whiskey in my hand, was an absolute pleasure watching the two of you talk through jazz and music. It was interesting and also very entertaining, watching you both. Take care of yourself and stay happy. Greetings from Germany. Ron!

[@bobsavage3317]

What an excellent discussion. I really appreciate both of you!

[@nanciannecianci1784]

BLUE BOSSA is one of the simplest and still melodic tunes to learn for improvisational learning.

[@billhallsongs]

Two of the best and two of the nicest guys!

[@dnes2m]

Both of you are good in talking and learning an im learning while you talking you two are most of favorite and mine too ..happy teachers day.

[@stuartarnold4495]

Following both Justin and Jens, is a strange moment but worthwhile because of the questions and answers seem to be of a great use to me as well. The songs from Justin and the jazz lessons from Jens.👌thanks both.

[@Idontknowhoiamanymore]

As a fan of both of your channels for a long time. It’s great to see you two collab!

[@LAZYGAITS]

Man, when I was a kid you taught me how to play la bamba and it is all history. I owe so much knowledge to the countless hours you’ve spent making your content. You’re a real hero Justin! Thank you!

[@artax9683]

Fascinating! I find this extremely interesting, seeing you communicate your thoughts on parts of your playing. Surely helpful for others on how to put their thoughts to words when self assessing.

[@oliverlovekin]

Around 8:30 , Justin asks if theres a catalog of jazz 'licks' or vocabulary. One source that Dave Liebman referenced, and is a great compendium, is the Jamey Abersold Vol 3 - the II-V-I Progression. In this short (30ish page) book, the back half is the "Supplement". This Supplement to Vol 3 is what Liebman referenced to be a great source for licks, from which you can learn many idiomatic licks. You can probably find free pdfs online!

[@rainchaser5389]

Thank you for the tip. 🌱🙏🏻

[@irawhitlock1084]

This was great! I love Jens’ channel. Was great to see him in this format.

[@mototakahe836]

Just a philosophical discussion for me but fascinating listening to two great players.

[@theblytonian3906]

Thanks for the duet Justin. From Australia, I love Jens. His enthusiasm is incredibly motivating and contagious, incredibly helpful with the challenge Jazz presents for most of us. He's such a good teacher, and what he doesn't know about Jazz could be written on a matchbox -remember those?

[@Sparksnorthern]

How great is this! The two YT guitarists I follow the most got together for a video. Looking forward to watching!

[@petertillberg5259]

Great collaboration and lesson. Thank you very much gentlemen!

[@waxhead63]

Always admire your honesty Justin when you relate your knowledge of music or songs irrespective of the genre. You show that one is never to knowledgable to approach another musician for explanation and clarity in regards to anothers expert knowledge. Even Lars eludes to the fact that his knowledge expands as he continues his adventure with jazz and more recently in a video he explains revisting his approach to practising arpeggios. Kudos from Astraya 🙏🙏

[@alansimpson8962]

Approaching almost 2 million justin thats great . And jens is the go to guy for jazz thats for sure.

[@mathkrGames]

That was great! I would love to see follow up lessons. You should do some playing in the next lessons so Jens has something more concrete to go off of.

[@Indigo-lucky]

Yea, please post a followup this was great! Thank you both! Very clever interview questions you got, Justin, that get quite concrete specific answers, down to time and effort estimates of what it takes.

[@GuitarPracticeHub]

Thanks for this vid! Great to see and hear you both having a wonderful time diving into jazz guitar. One of my favourite styles on the instrument!

[@philcal2000]

Thanks Justin that was great, and we really never stop learning with guitar , we see your passion in your videos. the guitar can very simple or complex as you want it to be.

[@todoroki]

Jens is a class act.

[@hearpalhere]

This was incredibly fun to watch and very informative at the same time. Thank you Justin and Jens both!

[@DavidMoore_drmoorejr]

Excellent Video. I love Jens Larsen's videos... They are a bit on the advanced side of things.. I wished there was an (maybe easy?) video that help with playing all the diatonic arpeggios from more than one position.

[@kimlodrodawa123]

Both really cool guys! Thnx for all your lessons! ❤🙏

[@billytorney6336]

Of all the guitar videos on line Justin is definitely the BEST I've watched his videos for years & he can cover just about any guitar style I'd love to meet the guy he's without question the BEST thank you Justin 🎸🎸🎸

[@JeffrStarkey]

Great questions and great answers! Thank you both!

[@DavidSquires-vy6dz]

Hi Justin, greetings from Hobart. Another great video that gets more to heart of it all. It was neat hearing you both have such an honest matter of fact discussion. Reminds me of your fantastic Martin Taylor interview. Cheers

[@ianbartrum842]

Very interesting. I’ll never be a jazz player but I really enjoyed hearing the thoughts of two awesome teachers.

[@jbowerman50]

Thanks guys, I get more insight from conversations like this than from structured lessons.

[@geoffgurney88]

Wonderful surprise 🙏

[@johnperiard9594]

You gents are awesome. Cheers

[@cmob0015]

"Thinky-land" love it! This was good to watch. I am working on developing from a self generated motif and building from there and things are starting to click a little.

[@OlivvYeah]

Thank you, that was very interesting! Many little nuggets inside

[@dawhite115]

I found this really useful. I am going through my of the issues Justin raises but from a lower base skill level!

[@moonsama395]

The questions were so good justin , thank you. I really liked the part about learning small idoms as building blocks!

[@rolfsimonsson2295]

What can I say more than Jay Jay! Thanks Justin and Jens for an hour well spent.

[@TheMachinesWon]

Really enjoyed the gems and conversation, can’t wait for the next video!

[@christopher-miles]

this is really cool. let's go!

[@kerrybarnes7289]

Grant Greens blues, "Greenery" is good to learn

[@jefflittle4427]

Sweet lesson video. Justin, due to your questions, Jens cleared up or or focused on answers that I needed. I am learning a Joe Pass chord solo and was learning more Joe Pass licks before I started on chord melody, and basically forgot the lines I had learned. Stopping my chord melody and going back to cement the lines…and even then, will break them down further in mini bits, so I can move them around easier…and keep more in my memory. Jens and Justin…thanks a bunch! Oh, I am going through and old book of Pass lines and analyzing them on piano first and it makes sense to focus on the actual line over the specific chord. Jens is right, Joe played some easy bits sometimes but together it was music, not bits. I can see how he didn’t overcomplicate things for the sake of being technical. Also, it is hard to label his lines as only coming from a scale, but as Jens teaches…approach notes, enclosures, chromatic lead ins, etc. I Will anxiously wait to see you two get together again…smile.

[@flashkatwillie7657]

This was really great Justin. I hope you do more of these type of videos.

[@faanmuller4569]

Absolutely entertaining stuff! Both masters!

[@jazzup13]

Thanks for sharing this! 👍 excellent!

[@debbiel8105]

Playing melodically is very hard! When I vary up the rhythm and play melodies I lose track of where I am (I'm a beginner to jazz). So happy you guys collaborated on this video. Love Grant Green. Check out Little Girl Blue. It has a simple melody and it's such a beautiful song, but has a weird form, though.

[@tomnolan4406]

I love the videos that both of you guys make. Great to be a fly on the wall for this conversation. Justin, for some perspective, when you say you are not good at jazz cause you follow the chord progression and play arpeggios starting from the root. When I do that I am thinking like, whoa Joe Pass watch out 🙂

[@mdspman000]

Grant Green's albums "Idle Moments" and "Matador" are two of his more jazz focused albums that are worth listening to.

[@vincentcassetmusic]

Thank you! That was brilliant!

[@brucekriskovich4975]

This was very cool and very helpful. I'll listen to it a couple more times, but I took a couple things from it on first pass. One, don't worry too much. Two, we all have the same issues.

[@irabraunstein2016]

Great interview Justin

[@CharlesK441]

I can relate to so much here !

[@RodWilliams-m7r]

Thanks you guys..this is really insightful.

[@billmiller9145]

How awesome is this! ❤

[@rockstarjazzcat]

Jens to the rescue! :)

[@vashumashu4359]

This was great.

[@grantdeniso6458]

Referring to Bright and grey,,,, one of the brightest ,most soothing, elusive (evading) guitar instrumentals I've ever heard

[@montes707]

Awesome collab!

[@thedragonofthewest5789]

justin teach me the basic stuff,blues and theory. I owe this man a lot. without him I wouldnt have that nice foundation

[@gilesjazzguitar64]

Do you like to listen to jazz records ? I think that might be your problem . I think listening to loads of jazz is a great way to subconsciously learn jazz (as well as the technical exercises , arpeggios /enclosures etc).

[@scottenglert4083]

I'm late to the party but this is such a *great* discussion for people like me who are "jazz-curious" haha. Thanks so much, guys !

[@grantdeniso6458]

So one thing I worked on and sort of made progress with was.... If you remember the record I mentioned ,,foggy mountain banjo from 1961.... So I did a steel string acoustic guitar rendition of the thing and jazz it up some more,,,, came out pretty good of course I'll probably forget the thing....don't Matter, we remember these things sooner or later

[@Pemai248]

I’m not sure if I’ve heard it said that the melody of the song will unfold in the chords.. having stock minor major dominant and diminished licks are only there to serve the melody of the song.. using only guide tones in every chord when learning the song is all you need to identify the chord so learn those first visually and that is half the battle .. you’re ear does the rest which is unique to you. I jumped from a blues player to just starting to play jazz and I only worked with Autumn leaves just to learn HOW to learn .. and it works on every tune.

[@kevinansari8612]

WOW WOW WOW!!!!

[@winm382]

What a surprising collab.

[@MRmAsSIv3]

It's great to see 2 G.O.A.T.S 🐐🐐 in action 🔥

[@666luckyj]

Thanks a lot both of us❤

[@RemyTrahant]

This is great, I really identify with you Justin on having memorized a 2-5-1 line and I try to use it everytime a 2-5 comes up but like Jens said, I should really be looking at the smaller pieces, rather than one long piece. Great advice! And actually a lot easier to get a smaller piece under your fingers.

[@VixCrush]

Very cool. I was already a fan of both....

[@EricRobillard-b4j]

blending things with chromatism helps me alot. i think nailing the changes in a way that you dont hear it to much. like instead of playing a phrase on the 2, one on the 5… i try to make full sentences that covers both and keep going with the progression. i try to hide the changes in a way by blending with enclosures and chromatism. to me, it helps alot on my vocabulary. its like if i play the changes but i try to hide it

[@charlesvachon5838]

Over my head!

[@frankswildyears2217]

Love you guys. this was extreme fun although half of it sounded gibberish

[@JonasA]

I've a slightly different approach, Justin. A Gershwinsong like 'Summertime' is perfect for noodling around melodically and rhythmically. It's slow, so you can go from blues, to slow swing and all the way to rumba (think Santana). Due to how you syncopate the melody, there will be a natural way to play the melody. The way you rhythmically play the melody, additional embroidering notes will come just as natural. Or you can create a melody that counterpoints the melody of the song. Improvising is nothing but composing and with a slow song like 'Summertime', you can play the song in standard time and still have loads of room for playing around and finding different options without running behind. We tend to over-complicate jazz and forget it's all about syncopated melodies. Play everything really, really slow, focus on how to syncopate the melody and listen to what extra notes fits in. You can't expect yourself to write a full-fledged novel, until you've learnt the alphabet and how to put letters in to sentences and then in to little stories.

[@Natyelvertonmusictuition]

Great video! You should do another similar with Lars Jensen...

[@stevebirks9908]

I think out of all the music styles jazz is the black sheep ,the Picasso of the music world. A lot of jazz player keep to blocks that are safe, sometimes not being scared of going outside those blocks and even making mistake or slipping into odd notes of different styles is how you develop.

[@nanciannecianci1784]

A very handy book that will aid in learning a catalogue of Bebop lines is the BEBOP BIBLE by Les Wise. Probably the best source specifically designed for those interested in learning the language of Jazz. Les taught for decades at GIT (MIT) and has other books and videos devoted to teaching the art form.

[@mikebozik]

My takeaway from this excellent video... You have to love to practice. There are no shortcuts. Jazz has to be performed as if you are one step ahead of your audience.😊

[@moonsama395]

Bring him back plzz

[@timkoelln3826]

Late to the party here, not sure how I missed this. The whole time you were talking about running changes well versus mechanically, I was thinking about the difference between hacking out chords all in one inversion, versus voice leading. One sounds abrupt and jarring and the other smooth and professional. Right after that you talked about feeling like you get stuck gravitating to certain positions for certain chords which kind of underscores my previous idea about disconnected vs smooth. Not saying I’m any good at jazz (I’m not) but just an observation that I wanted to share.