Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Introducing Season 2 of the Learn Jazz Standards Podcast Jan 01, 2024

Show notes

Today's episode marks the 2nd season of the Learn Jazz Standards podcast. Brent explains shifting the show's direction to better serve listeners by focusing on answering their specific jazz learning questions, with shorter 10-minute episodes four days a week and 'Fast Track Friday' strategy episodes. The host conveys excitement for the coming daily content and urges listeners to subscribe.
In this episode:
1. Taking Season 2 in a slightly different direction
2. New podcast schedule
Important Links:
Free Guide to learning standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way
LJS Inner Circle Membership
Listen to the Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

Why I'm taking a break from the podcast... Oct 09, 2023

Show notes

Okay, so this is the second time I'm restarting recording this episode. I want to get this right. So I am taking a break from the Learn Jazz Standards podcast, and I'm going to talk about what's gone into this decision, what this means for the future, what it means for you as the podcast listener, and why I'm actually incredibly excited about the future and you should be too.
And why this isn't goodbye by any stretch or any sort of way. I'll leave with that up front, but let's talk about that.
In this episode:
Why this isn't a goodbye...
Important Links:
Free Guide to learning standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way
LJS Inner Circle Membership
Listen to the Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

How a Hobbyist Musician Created a Pro Jazz Album (feat. Christian Schrader) Oct 02, 2023

Show notes

"Music and the opportunity for music is all around us. And you can find inspiration in conversation or just the rhythm of something happening around you. And so I would just take these snippets, get home, and say, what can I do with this?
And I would start to sing a melody around those words and think about what the story could be that surrounds those words."
That was Christian Schrader, a self-described hobbyist musician who recently created a pro jazz album. He described this as one of the biggest musical accomplishments of his entire life. And so if you're ever someone who's thought about reaching this really high aspirational musical or jazz goal, but just didn't feel like you had what it took, this is gonna be an inspirational episode.
I talked to Christian and we did an interview and just went through this whole process, went through his head, how did he create this album? And there are so many great lessons along the way. I'm excited for you to listen to this.
In this episode:
1. Christian Schrader's "regular life" and his musical background
2. Favorite jazz musicians who influenced his love for jazz
3. How the album started and the little help he got from friends
4. The process of completing his music
5. On good attitude and the right connections
Important Links:
Free Guide to learning standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way
LJS Inner Circle Membership
Listen to the Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

5 Ways to Make Practice Not Boring Sep 25, 2023

Show notes

Do you ever get that feeling when you're looking at your instrument sitting there in the corner and you just don't feel like picking it up? It's kind of a strange feeling because deep inside you're excited about music and jazz and you want to improve and you know you have that idea of practicing but then when you actually go to do it there's some kind of resistance there.
And sometimes the reason that is is because practicing can sometimes be boring. That is if you practice in a boring way.
So in today's episode, we're going to talk about five ways to make practice not boring so that you're having fun when you go to pick up your instrument and learn new things.
In this episode:
5 Ways to Make Practice Not Boring
1. Practice things you like to practice
2. Practice high-leverage activities, things that give you big results.
3. Add purpose to your practice. Don't just be doing a meaningless task for no reason.
4. Practice in a fun way, ways that are fun for you to practice.
5. Practice with a goal in mind or goals in mind.
Important Links:
Free Guide to learning standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way
LJS Inner Circle Membership
Listen to the Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

Revisiting the Fundamentals of Learning Jazz Sep 18, 2023

Show notes

If you're a complete beginner to jazz, this episode is for you. If you are an intermediate jazz player, this episode is for you. And if you consider yourself an advanced jazz player, this episode is also for you.
In today's episode, we are going to be talking about the fundamentals of learning jazz. Whether you are brand new and you need to know this information or you're somewhere down the line, it is important for us to continually revisit what actually works and what we actually do need to know when it comes to learning jazz, improving as jazz improvisers and playing as we've never, ever dreamed we could.
In this episode:
The 4 categories for learning jazz:
Category #1: Fundamentals of learning jazz
Category #2: Jazz Theory
Category #3: The 3 Pillars of Jazz Improvisation
Category #4: Practicing
Important Links:
Free Guide to learning standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way
LJS Inner Circle Membership
Listen to the Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

10 Tips for Learning Music By Ear Sep 11, 2023

Show notes

So a common piece of advice when learning jazz and becoming a better improviser, learning songs is you should do it by learning it by ear rather than reading sheet music. And there are a plethora of reasons why teachers will say this is a good idea.
However, for someone who is new to this idea or who was trained to read music or use tablature, this could be a very scary, foreign, and frustrating concept.
So in today's episode, I want to go over ten tips that I regularly share with my Inner Circle members for how to learn music by ear.
In this episode:
10 Tips for Learning Music By Ear
Tip #1: Start small
Tip #2: Adjust your expectations
Tip #3: Check your work with notation at first
Tip #4: Use a slow-downer
Tip #5: Learn more tunes
Tip #6: Practice melodic dictation
Tip #7: Practice ear-training fundamentals
Tip #8: Mindfully listen to music
Tip #9: Sing before you play
Tip #10: Have a process
Important Links:
Free Guide to learning standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way
LJS Inner Circle Membership
Listen to the Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

9 Jazz Chord Progressions You Need to Know Sep 04, 2023

Show notes

The best way to learn jazz and improve over time is simply to learn more songs, aka jazz standards. But those jazz standards, those songs are made up of chord progressions.
The good news is that even though there are a lot of complex chord progressions, or at least seemingly complex chord progressions in jazz standards, a lot of them come up time and time again, over and over.
So once you learn one jazz standard in two or three, you're going to start seeing those same chord progressions come up in many, many other ones. So what are the chord progressions that you need to know for jazz?
In this episode, we're going to talk about nine of them that are really common and you'll see come up a lot.
In this episode:
1. The major 2-5-1 chord progression
2. The minor 2-5-1 chord progression
3. The major 1-6-2-5 chord progression
4. The minor 1-6-2-5 chord progression
5. Chord progression #5 is when the 3 chord replaces the 1
6. Chord progression #6 is when the sharp one diminished, replaces the 6th
7. The 1-4-3-6 chord progression
8. The chromatic 2-5s or sidestep 2-5s
9. The tritone sub of 5
Important Links:
Free Guide to learning standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way
LJS Inner Circle Membership
Listen to the Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

Free Masterclass: Jazz Standards Mastery Formula Aug 28, 2023

Show notes

Hey, my friends, Brent here from Learn Jazz Standards. Here on the podcast for the month of August, we've been doing a themed month called Free Masterclass August, where I've been giving away different Masterclasses that we've done in the past here on Learn Jazz Standards, whether it be from our virtual summits, retreats or otherwise, just to, you know, it's the summer, it's the end of the summer.
We're about to go into the fall coming up here soon, and I just kind of wanted to unleash a lot of value and information for you to kind of set you up for when perhaps you're going to be more active in practicing and getting back to it, improving and getting to your musical goals again.
Today's masterclass, honestly, if I'm being really honest with you, I had a little bit of a hard time pulling the trigger on sharing this one with you. The reason for that is because this is kind of one of our most valuable Signature Masterclasses that I usually ask for an exchange of an email address to receive this Masterclass.
So it usually is free, but of course, with the exchange of an email address. So I had a little bit of hesitation just kind of sharing this here on the podcast today. But again, in the spirit of the Free Masterclass August, I decided if it makes me feel just a tad bit uncomfortable, then it probably is a good thing just to unleash all the value on you this month and just help you improve.
So in that spirit, I'm sharing with you our masterclass called Jazz Standards Mastery Formula, our signature masterclass. It really sort of gives the big overarching philosophy behind our company, Learn Jazz Standards.
How do you learn to play jazz songs? How do you improvise over jazz songs? This is kind of like our approach and really is a lot of what we actually do in our Inner Circle membership. You will hear me give a little bit of a hard pitch for the Inner Circle membership at the end of Jazz Standards Mastery Formula here.
But just know that everything I teach here in this masterclass can be used outside of our Inner Circle membership. Our Inner Circle membership just makes it easier for you to execute on some of these things.
And also, just a little note as well is, obviously this masterclass was originally presented in a video format, so there are examples on the screen at times. There are visuals, there are slides. And so while you won't be able to see those today, you'll still be able to really get a lot out of just listening to the master class in itself.
So, my friends, our signature masterclass Jazz Standards Mastery Formula.
In this episode:
1. Secret #1: How to learn jazz standards so you don't get lost or forget them.
2. Secret #2: How to start improvising over Jazz standards from scratch, from zero to hero.
3. Secret #3: The 3-Step strategy for Skyrocketing your practice results, all while practicing less.
4. What has pizza got to do with this?
5. Applying the L.I.S.T. process.
6. Less is always more.
Important Links:
Free Guide to learning standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way
LJS Inner Circle Membership
Listen to the Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

Free Masterclass: Orchestrating Your Musical Breakthrough Aug 21, 2023

Show notes

Hey, my friends, Brent here from Learn Jazz standards. We are continuing our themed month of August called Free Masterclass August, where I'm giving away some Masterclasses here on the podcast that we've done in the past at various different events and mediums just to give a little extra special, a little bit of fun here and value for finishing up the summer so.
So, I hope you enjoy it. We've had some great Masterclasses this month on the podcast. Already today, I want to share a Masterclass that was given during our Learn Jazz Live Virtual Summit in 2022 by a team member of mine, Brett Pontecorvo.
And those of you who are Inner Circle members know Brett very well because he's in the community coaching, and he creates some of our content for our monthly Jazz Standard Studies. And he gave a really great masterclass that year called "Orchestrating Your Musical Breakthrough".
So, a lot of us sometimes feel a little stuck in our playing, feel like we hit plateaus, or perhaps just don't really understand that we have so much potential as musicians. And so what Brett does is he talks about in this Masterclass ways for us to start achieving a musical breakthrough.
That "AHA!" moment where you feel like you're improving and you get excited. That moment that we're all really searching for when we sit down with our instruments. So without further ado, let's go ahead and get Brett Pontecorvo on to give this masterclass, "Orchestrating Your Musical Breakthrough".
In this episode:
Achieve breakthroughs and make progress in learning jazz with the following strategies:
1. Define a game you can win by setting clear and achievable goals with measurable victory conditions

2. Develop a strategy to achieve these goals by overcoming barriers like negative self-talk, lack of time, and lack of information
3. Take consistent action by practicing regularly in short bursts, making the process fun, and sticking to your plan

4. Acknowledge your wins and progress to stay motivated, and repeat the process to continue improving.
The overall mindset is to become the type of person who takes action and achieves breakthroughs through deliberate practice and persistence.

Important Links:
Free Guide to learning standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way
LJS Inner Circle Membership
Listen to the Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

Free Masterclass: Your Best Jazz Playing Ever Aug 14, 2023

Show notes

Hey, my friend Brent here from LearnJazz Standards. We are continuing our themed month here in the podcast of free masterclass August, where I'm giving away different masterclasses that we've done in the past here on LearnJazz Standards.
Last week, we came out with a free masterclass podcast episode and we're continuing that on here in today's episode. So really excited to dive into this one. This particular masterclass was a masterclass that was conducted at our Inner Circle Retreat earlier this year.
Now this Inner Circle Retreat was an invite -only event for our Inner Circle members, our LearnJazz Standards Inner Circle members. So you'll hear a lot of stuff in the masterclass referring to the Inner Circle and the things that we do in the Inner Circle.
So of course, if that's something that you're interested in, definitely go check it out, lgsinnersercle .com, or you'll find the link to that in the description down below. And just to note, this was, of course, a live event. So it was conducted over Zoom.
I was sharing slide presentations and so on and so forth. So there are visual elements to it. However, the audio version of this is going to work just fine. You'll also notice as well during the masterclass that I'm referring to other workshops and masterclasses that are yet to come, this being the very first masterclass we conducted during this retreat.
And so while we won't be giving those away, especially out of respect for our Inner Circle members who pay to attend this, you'll still get a lot of value from the material presented here at this masterclass, 100% really valuable stuff here.
So I hope you enjoy this masterclass. This is called your best jazz playing ever.
In this episode:
Things that hold us back from attaining our jazz goals:
1. Doing the same things and expecting different results
2. Unrealistic expectations
3. Ineffective practicing
4. Loss of motivation
Steps to move us forward toward our jazz goals:
1. Step #1: Complete a monthly project that sets you up to win every single time
2. Step #2: Commit to taking 365 B.A.D. jazz solos
3. Step #3: Master P.B.R. practice
Important Links:
Free Guide to learning standards by ear: Learn Jazz Standards the Smart Way
LJS Inner Circle Membership
Listen to the Learn Jazz Standards Podcast

Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle: Get 50% off your first month!

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