Playing Jazz Guitar should mostly be about playing songs. It is the goal and also the way we practice to get to the goal. In this video I will go over what it is to learn a jazz standard, give you some ideas on things you can work on and want to try to be able to do. The Idea is that you get the most out of the standard, and that you also train your skills as a jazz guitarist and improviser at the same time.

The video should give you some useful exercises and ways of thinking about learning melodies and chord progressions. Most Jazz Standards are great compositions and vehicles for improvisation and interpretation, and keeping that in mind helps when it comes to learning them.

Content of the video:

 0:00 Chord Melody excerpt of Days Of Wine And Roses 

0:05 Intro — Learning and studying songs 

0:46 Building a check list and suggesting some exercises 

1:21 The Melody — The Foundation of everything 

1:51Practice the melody — All positions, using your ear 

2:28 Demonstration with Days of W melody 

3:22 Using the melody to hear the changes 

3:42 Chord melody — Harmonizing the melody 

3:53 Basic Chord Melody excerpt 

4:04 Keep your harmonizations open ended for phrasing 

4:39 Low Chord Melody 

5:38 Learning and studying the chord progression 

6:02 2 Versions of Days of Wine and roses 

6:13 Bill Evans and the modulation arrangement 

6:32 Oscar Peterson Changes 

7:43 The art of harmonizing a Standard 

8:19 Improvising — some simple exercises 

8:57 Solo with just Arpeggios (in all positions) 

9:38 Demonstration of a chord tone solo on Days Of Wine And Roses 

10:28 Learning reharmonizations for solos 

11:00 Playing the reharmonizations as chords in the song to get it into your ear 

11:48 Do you have things you always check out on a Song or Jazz Standard? 

12:57 Like the video? Check out my Patreon Page!