#azjazzlessons #3: How Julian Lage Practices Guitar

For jazz guitarists & jazz improvisors:

#azjazzlesson #todayIlearned

So I'm trying to learn something new everyday by documenting what I learned from watching a YouTube video. Today I looked for something from Julian Lage and stumbled on this amazing 28-minute workshop video. 

Here are the main things I learned from the video:

On learning the guitar fretboard:
1. Take a note a day for 12 days so you know all the notes on the guitar

On Improvising:
2. Improvise in A Major but in random order, set a tempo, play in time and let your ear guide you (within 2 octaves)

On Technique: 
3. Julian thinks of the pinkie finger as the anchor, as finger 1 for the fretting hand of the guitar and how it relates to the whole arm, to the shoulder 

On Counterpoint:
4. To start playing with counterpoint on guitar, leave a note ringing while moving other fingers. This is a way to start.
5. The 2nd way is to consider just the bass & soprano parts. The important thing is to play in time. 
6. Play the bass part into the alto voice
7. Practice scales with two lines in the opposite directions
8. Sing each line of a contrapuntal part you play to really hear it

Thanks Julian for the knowledge & thank you to Liana Polanco for recording this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utvS0sIQKZQ

#improvisation #jazz #technique #guitar

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9 Tips for Amazing Guitar Practice Sessions

This is a guest blog post by Auckland Guitarist/Educator Dylan Kay.

Originally published as "The How of Practising".

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There’s always a lot of discussion about “what” to practise, but you should also consider “how” to practise. Here are some things I’ve discovered to be valuable.

1. Goals

Be realistic about the amount of time you can practise each day and what you want to achieve.

• Write a list of your goals.
• Work out what you need to practise to achieve them.
• Decide what’s most important now, and make a start.

Remember that this is a lifelong thing. You don’t have to do it all by next week.

2. Consistency. Persistence. Motivation.

Keeping motivated is hard. Especially as most things you practise will only start to bear fruit after many months. But persistence and consistent practice is the key to achieving your goals.

One great piece of advice that keeps me motivated is to “practise what you love”. We can’t practise everything - focus on the things you really enjoy practising.

3. Healthy practice

We are upper body athletes, and need to treat our practice sessions as seriously as any other athlete regards their training sessions.

• Warming up (check out the BAPAM warmup exercises),
• Drinking plenty of water whilst practising
• Do stretches after the session.
• Stand up to practise sometimes. Not only does it prepare you better for gigs, but it also helps to counteract poor seated posture.

If you are having problems, you might want to check out the Alexander Technique.

4. Use a metronome

Wherever possible. (That means just about all the time). Work on your sense of time and groove as you practise other material.

5. Plug in

Playing electric guitar “acoustically” might keep the neighbours happier, but you’ll find you tend to pick harder...

6. The Internet

All the information and material you could ever need is available somewhere on the Internet. This is both good and (mainly) bad. 

• There is a very real danger of becoming overwhelmed and thinking that you somehow have to keep up with it all.
• The key to making fast progress is how to apply and integrate this material into your playing. The raw information itself is useless without this.

7. Distractions

• Turn off your phone.
• Log off the Internet and Facebook.
• Find somewhere quiet to practise.
• You might even start by meditating for a few minutes to get focused.

Don’t be distracted from your goals by what your friends are practising, or that latest cool guitar DVD, or something you found on YouTube.

Remember that this is between you and the instrument. Don’t worry about what anyone else is working on or doing. Take it at your own pace.

8. The perils of study

It is easy to get trapped in a cycle of studying all the time and being a “student”.

• Remember to take time every day to just “play”.
• You should actively seek “your” music – what is that unique thing that you have to say on your instrument?

The most important tip for practicing is simply this –

9. Turn Up and Do It.

About:

This is a guest blog post by Auckland Guitarist/Educator Dylan Kay. He was educated in Berklee College of Music, the Guitar Institute and Oxford University. A former faculty member of Guitar Institute in London, he now performs and teaches in Auckland, New Zealand. His guitar lessons in Auckland site is here: http://www.aucklandguitarschool.co.nz/

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7 Things For Jazz Guitarists To Practice

Over 14 years of learning Jazz with many amazing guitarists has led me to believe that the essential building blocks of Jazz are the same & once understood can really speed your learning process. Here are the 7 key areas:

1) Melody (single line improvisation and composition)

This includes learning melodies to songs, ii-v lines, melodic etudes, solo transcriptions, licks and composing melodies. The idea here is to develop your personal sense of melody, to develop your melodic vocabulary. For the advanced player, this would also include being able to develop a melody compositionally so that it tells a story.

2) Harmony (chords, voicing and chord progression)

This is the study of harmony from understanding and being able to play intervals to playing larger chord structures and voice-led chord progressions. The idea here is to be able to be fluid when playing more than one note at a time.

3) Rhythm (grooves, time signatures, rhythmic patterns)

This is to develop a strong sense of time, groove and rhythmic energy. Some rhythms will feel heavy and others will make the time float. This includes study of different time signatures, polyrhythms, syncopation and beyond.

4) Improvisation (how to improvise, improvisation practice)

This is the pure study of how to improvise and create music in real time. It may include what Wayne Krantz calls ‘Compositional Playing’ which is music that assembled using certain idiomatic vocabulary (licks, cliches, patterns) or ‘Improvisational Playing’ where no particular vocabulary is attached, just recombination and assembling in real time of certain material, without idiomatic consideration.

5) Songs (learning repertoire, parts)

This is all about learning songs & parts to songs. This is learning the music directly. 

6) Ear Training

Ear training includes many different aspects including:

  a)Transcribing

• to your instrument
• to paper

b) Playing by ear

• by listening to something someone else played
• from memory

c) Sightsinging

7) Technique

This is the pure study of technique without considering the music. Techniques may be as fundamental of hammer-ons and pull-offs or more involved topics such as tapping, hybrid picking, odd grouping string crossing & string skipping combinations.

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