What do you guys work on when working technique?

[jazznylon]

Amazing.

Boss. You have to slow down. Play Straight No Chaser for a week. Learn the melody in a bunch of positions. Learn it on pairs of strings. Play it in different keys. Learn the changes in shell voicings. Learn to play guide tone lines through the changes. Play those Barry harris scales you were mentioning. Improvise over it using just triads. Improvise over it using just scales. Add chromatic approach notes to either of those things. Do those things in different positions. Do those things on two or three strings of a single position. Do all the stuff listed here in two or three other keys.

It should take you a week of real practice to learn a reasonably simple tune. It should take revisiting it a few times before you’re really in it.

How do people learn 1000 tunes?

1. Almost no one does. I know about a hundred and that’s more than most people I know, and about 25 of those need constant revisiting, so I probably shouldn’t even say I know them. I had some friends in New York who had more like two hundred. Christian and djg seem like they know a ton of tunes but that might be closer to two hundred? Maybe three? Vanishingly few people know more than that—maybe a few dozen in the world—and they’re the people we’re all transcribing and listening to on records and paying $40 to go see at Birdland.

2. It’s basic math. If it takes you a week to learn a pretty simple tune, it should take 7000 days to learn 1000 simple tunes. Considering my “week per tune” estimate is pretty crude, that you’d need to be revisiting a lot of them, and that a lot of them wouldn’t be simple, we’re probably talking about a lot more time than that. But 7000 days is a little shy of twenty years. That seems about right to me. Twenty years of focused practice every single day to learn a truly huge number of tunes. Probably a good deal more.

The great news: ten or fifteen well-chosen tunes will get you through a jam session in most places. Fifty get you through a jam session almost anywhere. A hundred and you probably never need a real book again.

Slow. Down.

Sorry for the late reply I was eating lunch. A tune a week huh? Why didn't I think of that sounds like a good way to really learn a tune so one doesn't forget. Who knows maybe I could learn a solo in that timeframe for the song (Billy Bean comes to mind). Thank you for the patience I know I can get a bit much lol

[jazznylon]

Nah, quantity every time. Learn a ton of stuff. You'll have to relearn all the early stuff anyway.

Hmmm very tempting...

[Christian Miller]

Tbh I have trouble finding the motivation to learn stuff unless I’m on gigs.

otoh all the tunes I learned over lockdown - can’t remember any of them.

A friend of mine pointed out it’s less about learning tunes and more about learning to learn tunes.

I think the tune a week schedule is sound.

[Christian Miller]

Hmmm very tempting...

No I wouldn’t give you that advice because you’d only lock yourself in a cave until you had memorised the Real Book or something and I think you should probably diversify your activities … cave dwelling is fine, but music involves humans in meatspace.

Regarding repertoire it is kind of a distance run. Put in the miles and it will add up. You can’t sprint to the end

[pamosmusic]

Tbh I have trouble finding the motivation to learn stuff unless I’m on gigs.

otoh all the tunes I learned over lockdown - can’t remember any of them.

A friend of mine pointed out it’s less about learning tunes and more about learning to learn tunes.

I think the tune a week schedule is sound.

Yeah that’s true. And the tune a week thing is 100% arbitrary but that’s sort of the point. I think until you’re used to going through tunes you mostly just have to force yourself to stick with it for longer than you think. You run out of ideas after two days and you’re like … uh what next. And that’s when you go looking for stuff and find actual cool helpful things that become part of how you learn a tune.

Needless to say, one could learn a simple blues tune in a day after some time spent learning other blues tunes. And a Shorter tune or Monk tune or something like Giant Steps might be a lifelong endeavor. But you have to start somewhere.

[James W]

I was learning a tune a week - I even have a list of a year's worth of tunes to learn. What happened? I had a couple of holidays and since then sort of got stuck on 'Confirmation' and decided, after transcribing it, that I wanted to master it and go deep in it to an extent that one week would not allow. That being said, it will be time to move on at some point... when I can perform it with a backing track in a way that is reasonable by my standards. It's one of those things that isn't really quantifiable, you know? But I will resume with my list at some point. Or maybe I'll rejig my practice schedule so that I have time for both a long project - get real good at 'Confirmation' - and a short term one i.e. learn a tune a week...

[Christian Miller]

Confirmation is quite hard tho. Even among bop heads.

Do not overlook the low hanging fruit!

You can keep hard stuff on the back burner and learn simple standards and so on on the day to day.

the reason I say this is you need data to develop your pattern recognition skills.

[jazznylon]

Tbh I have trouble finding the motivation to learn stuff unless I’m on gigs.

otoh all the tunes I learned over lockdown - can’t remember any of them.

A friend of mine pointed out it’s less about learning tunes and more about learning to learn tunes.

I think the tune a week schedule is sound.

Learning to learn tunes huh? Sounds deep

No I wouldn’t give you that advice because you’d only lock yourself in a cave until you had memorised the Real Book and I think you should probably diversify … cave dwelling is fine, but music involves humans in meatspace.

You know me very well I should definitedly touch and smell grass outside more often. But yeah you raise a good point about the meatspace thing

[pauln]

So uh, how often do you guys revise songs? I'm up to my 18th song but I already forgotten some of the chord changes its just too many chords to keep track of in totality. What I do is play arpeggios and scales for each chord and then I try to memorize and play the chords
without looking at the chord chart. Once I'm able to do that I move on to the next song (of course I also improvise and learn the melody and stuff). I guess I just don't understand people who learn 1000 songs.. How?! Lol

Might help a lot if you learn the songs by ear, listening to recorded examples. This does not mean you memorize the chord names/types of the song progression. It means you learn how the song goes, how it sounds, and how to play the guitar to express those sounds of how it goes.

- instead of a linear passive straight path from book chord to guitar grip you form multiple interrelated loops actively bringing in your ear, hands, and the song

- learning a song by ear uses many of the same mental pathways as composing a song (critical testing and analysis of the sound of the result). You will recognize this if you have composed songs and noticed how easy they are to remember

- the approach focuses on the sound (with respect to how the song goes), the most effortless and natural way of acquiring, holding, and recalling of songs

- if nothing else, it will slow you down*; you will not make much progress trying to "finish" a list of tunes in a short period or selecting "stunt songs" like 26-2

* if you prefer the pressure and pace you have been pushing, the best environment for that is live performance. Find some people to play with and book some gigs. Everything will become much clearer when you have performance dates on your calendar.

[pamosmusic]

I was learning a tune a week - I even have a list of a year's worth of tunes to learn. What happened? I had a couple of holidays and since then sort of got stuck on 'Confirmation' and decided, after transcribing it, that I wanted to master it and go deep in it to an extent that one week would not allow. That being said, it will be time to move on at some point... when I can perform it with a backing track in a way that is reasonable by my standards. It's one of those things that isn't really quantifiable, you know? But I will resume with my list at some point. Or maybe I'll rejig my practice schedule so that I have time for both a long project - get real good at 'Confirmation' - and a short term one i.e. learn a tune a week...

Yeah! I mean, that’s it, right?

You learn a dozen or so fairly simple tunes and get some things that work for you and things that don’t. But the fact that you come to a tough tune and go “whoa, I need more time with this,” means the arbitrary time per tune kind of did its job.

[jazznylon]

Might help a lot if you learn the songs by ear, listening to recorded examples. This does not mean you memorize the chord names/types of the song progression. It means you learn how the song goes, how it sounds, and how to play the guitar to express those sounds of how it goes.

- instead of a linear passive straight path from book chord to guitar grip you form multiple interrelated loops actively bringing in your ear, hands, and the song

- learning a song by ear uses many of the same mental pathways as composing a song (critical testing and analysis of the sound of the result). You will recognize this if you have composed songs and noticed how easy they are to remember

- the approach focuses on the sound (with respect to how the song goes), the most effortless and natural way of acquiring, holding, and recalling of songs

- if nothing else, it will slow you down*; you will not make much progress trying to "finish" a list of tunes in a short period or selecting "stunt songs" like 26-2

* if you prefer the pressure and pace you have been pushing, the best environment for that is live performance. Find some people to play with and book some gigs. Everything will become much clearer when you have performance dates on your calendar.

Ah okay thanks for the advice! It doesn't happen often but there was a period of time when I was trascribing the comping of 26-2 and even then I couldn't tell what the changes were (since the pianist is mostly using sus and quartal chords, very ambiguous chords). But yeah thats one example of something I couldn't tell the changes even by just listening. Maybe I should of listen to other recordings though, maybe things would've been a lot clearer.

But yeah thankfully tommorow I'm going to jam/rehearse with this pianist so we can get gigs in a few weeks time. I definitedly do have multiple lists of songs to possibly learn (how do you people know are you mind readers!?)

[AllanAllen]

After you learn the first 50 songs you can loosely learn two or three in a week. Loosely learn means the drummer asked “can we play Sugar” 3 days before he gig and I got through it fine.

Will I know it in 3 year’s? Probably not, I’m not going to keep it in my personal repertoire. But it’ll only take me a day to relearn it.

[jazznylon]

50 tunes eh? If I work on each tune for a week it'll take me almost 12 months to get to that point which isn't too bad all things considered. In any case I'm gonna take a bit of a break today as its good to take breaks sometimes. I'll work on what I need to work on starting tommorow

[AllanAllen]

Since you’re taking a break. What’s your favorite standard? Your favorite recording?

[jazznylon]

Since you’re taking a break. What’s your favorite standard? Your favorite recording?

Sure thing! I have plenty free time anyways. My favorite standard has to be A Child is Born

I feel like its hard to do this standard justice when it comes to improvising especially as it has such an impactful melody but yeah. Another standard that is my favorite is this one

Now as for favorite recording I can't just list one or two, but several (I already mentioned Mr. P.C. - Doug Raney and Straight no Chaser - Billy Bean). Here goes nothing...

This trumpet solo is the most swing I have ever heard, not to mention Charlie Christian pulls off a respectable solo too.

I really like Chet Baker's solo here especially the part around this mark 1:09-1:30. Very melodic. I also like what Jim Hall's doing too for the entirety of the recording.

I really like the head of this tune there's just something about it you know? Especially the part starting at 1:20. The solos are cool too.

The energy of this one is intense. I like the synchronization between sax and guitar

A classic! I'm pretty sure everyone has heard this one though..

I really like the head/melody to this one. Very cool stuff

I like everything about this

When I first got started listening to jazz when in college I came across this recording. Django's playing astounds me to this very day

And thats pretty much it. There's more but I can only put a max of 10 videos in a post. Its a lot but yeah.. hope you all enjoy it!

[AllanAllen]

There you go, that’s the first ten songs you should learn.

[pamosmusic]

There you go, that’s the first ten songs you should learn.

Well-played.

[jazznylon]

There you go, that’s the first ten songs you should learn.

Can't argue with that! I did learn a few of these a long time ago but its been so long when I played them that I forgot them eventually. I should definitely get back to these though!

[Christian Miller]

Noice!

[AllanAllen]

Similar to you list, my favorite standard is a ballad, Moonlight in Vermont. But I also like jazz that is fun.

Listening to Lips Flips, that's a jam session where everyone is smiling. The trumpet(Dizzy?) is bouncing and fun, you can hear them cheering each other on in the background. When I think of jazz in my head this is how it sounds. The band is having fun playing off each other, not sitting in their own bubble trying to force as many chord substitutions and exotic scales as they can into a solo before their turn is up.

I won't go play by play through the list, but I like how you have modern players on the list too. You could still see Joshua Redman or Kevin Eubanks preform.

[BreckerFan]

Yotam Silberstein has said he knows around 700 tunes.

Yotam Silberstein was recently recording a record with Billy Hart.

That should give you an idea of what knowing 700 tunes looks like.

[jazznylon]

Similar to you list, my favorite standard is a ballad, Moonlight in Vermont. But I also like jazz that is fun.

Listening to Lips Flips, that's a jam session where everyone is smiling. The trumpet(Dizzy?) is bouncing and fun, you can hear them cheering each other on in the background. When I think of jazz in my head this is how it sounds. The band is having fun playing off each other, not sitting in their own bubble trying to force as many chord substitutions and exotic scales as they can into a solo before their turn is up.

I won't go play by play through the list, but I like how you have modern players on the list too. You could still see Joshua Redman or Kevin Eubanks preform.

Oh for sure! I miss playing with other people but thankfully that will change today. It won't be completedly jazz as there are songs from other genres too but hey its better than being in a cave all the time so yeah. People can get by with a few basic scales anyways not the crazy esoteric crap I posted in the beginning post lol

[jazznylon]

Yotam Silberstein has said he knows around 700 tunes.

Yotam Silberstein was recently recording a record with Billy Hart.

That should give you an idea of what knowing 700 tunes looks like.

Thanks I'll look into it. Wow 700 tunes thats quite an acheivement! I assume by that point he can definitedly just make up the right chord progressions/changes on the spot just by listening to the melody once and way more

[AllanAllen]

I wasn't trying to put you personally down. Just a lot of threads here get VERY VERY technical and stuffy, someone staring out can easily think they need to be a master at so many things before they venture into playing with anyone. But really, the stakes aren't that high. You should keep learning all that stuff, but also, get out and play.

[jazznylon]

I wasn't trying to put you personally down. Just a lot of threads here get VERY VERY technical and stuffy, someone staring out can easily think they need to be a master at so many things before they venture into playing with anyone. But really, the stakes aren't that high. You should keep learning all that stuff, but also, get out and play.

Yeah I can see that. Heck it took me a almost a year obssesively going through the basic scales without going out to play with anybody. So I definitedly fallen into that trap (if anything its probably my own fault but yeah mistakes happen)