These are mandatory, frequent listens… I discovered them about ten years ago, and come back to watch them all a couple of times every year. They changed my life. No matter what instrument or what genre, these are worth your time.

The Illusion of an Instrument

This was the first one I watched and it blew my mind. It was one of those moments of complete revelation, but also something I already had an internal feeling of. He articulated it, brought it to light, and changed the way I looked at music forever.

Attitude is Everything

What I love about this is that it’s so completely applicable to all of life. It’s not just music he’s talking about.

Technique

These are more music-specific than the above two, but definitely worth frequent review.

More on Hal Galper

Please visit halgalper.com for more information, music, lessons, touring, etc.

Here is his music on Spotify and Amazon.

He also wrote a very interesting-sounding book titled “Forward Motion.” I intend to check it out some time, but it’s one of those things I want to make sure I actually have time to dig into before buying.

Playlist

Youtuber Jazz Video Guy put a whole bunch of Hal’s masterclass videos in a convenient playlist.

If you haven’t checked it out yet, give a listen to the Guitar Wank podcast. It’s incredibly entertaining, funny and insightful. A while back – episode 99V – jazz guitarist extraordinaire and co-host of Guitar Wank conducted a special episode in which he walked through 10 “Mother Tunes” for folks learning jazz. What made this so special is that he explained exactly why each song was so important, and what it can teach you. It really sets the foundation to learn and play jazz well. He also touched a lot on how to learn songs effectively, how to solo, how to play these in every key, how to practice. In my opinion, it’s a must-listen discussion regardless which genres of music you like. If you’re a guitar player, you need to check it out.

My Journey

What’s interesting about this particular episode is that it mirrored my own experience. When I first got interested in playing jazz, I made a goal: “I’m going to learn to solo over Giant Steps!” Yeah… two months into that I figured I needed to take a step back and actually learn the building blocks of the genre. I opened up the Real Book and started learning some of the standards (including a few the Bruce calls out below). It was sooooo much more productive and fun. After learning a dozen or so standards, my ear started picking out ii-Vs, my reading improved, my ability to improve over slower, more basic changes improved. It gave me some kind of foundation to build on. It was absolutely the right approach, and I feel kind of silly jumping right from basically nothing into Giant Steps. Live and learn. Even though this was quite a few years ago, Bruce’s overview of these ten tunes has been really useful because of all the detail he goes into about why these tunes are valuable. What they can teach you. Just learning to play a song from the Real Book is one thing, but there’s so much more to learn from these songs than just being able to “get through them.” That’s why I loved this episode so much.

The Songs

All that said, let’s get to the songs. I’m going to summarize my takeaway from each, but please don’t stop at this. This is the Cliff Notes version at best. You’ll get a lot more out of actually listening to Bruce Foreman go through them in detail, and there’s a lot of side-information he covers. I’ll also call out little bits I personally want to practice with [Practice].

1. Summertime

It’s a minor blues, just a different form. The melody tells you what the chord needs to be. Learning that will make this and every other song make sense. There’s a little turnaround and relative major at the end of the form.

2. Honeysuckle Rose

It’s the best study of ii-Vs, and features an iconic melodic phrase (Charlie Parker used it all the time). [Practice] Try altering practicing that phrase over ii-Vs – come from below, come from above, etc. The bridge harmony is also iconic (AAB Form song). It goes to the key of the IV (ii – V I of the IV) | 2 Dom | 5 Dom. It’s a similar bridge to Take The A Train. Again, the key is always hearing the melody. Scrapple From The Apple = Honeysuckle Rose with the I Got Rhythm bridge.

3. Take The A-Train

The most obvious use of the II7 (2-Dom7 or V of the V). Other examples of the II7 – Girl from Ipanema, Jersey Bounce, etc. The note is actually the +11, the II7 doesn’t try to change keys, it just adds color. AABA, version of the Honeysuckle Rose bridge.

4. Autum Leaves

Teaches you and highlights the concept of Sequential Ideas. That’s what makes melodies work, and it makes solos work. [Practice] Your solos need to consider that every line should have some DNA from the line before. Learning the melody from Autumn Leaves should change the way you solo. [Practice] Learning in all 12 keys if you hear the melody intervallically! Practice finding these intervals with an easy tune (Happy Birthday). Play the melody all over the neck, using different fingers to start. Play the changes in zones (positions) – force yourself to find all the chords within those 3-5 frets. It’s the world’s best study of how relative minor and relative major live together. It ounces back and forth between major & minor (sounds bittersweet). 32 bar form, it gives you the impression of AAB, but B goes on…

5. All The Things You Are

Best study of the cycle of 5ths. All the melody notes are 3rds (note: 3rds are like the guitar player’s root, since the bassist usually covers the root). What a gift it is to really hear the 3rd of all those chords!

6. There Will Never Be Another You

Great example of backcycling / Bird-style changes. Similar to “Blues for Alice.” Just another way of playing the blues. Just a moving 5th. 8 bar A, 1st ending, 8 bar A, 2nd ending (A1 A2 tune). Goes to the IV, then 2dom, 5 dom, 1st ending, 2nd ending resolves. Most A1 A2 songs do this.

7. Just Friends

It starts on a IV chords – lots of songs do this. “Limehouse Blues,” “I’ll See You In My Dreams.” [Practice] strum the chords in 8th notes to really hear the motion – that motion is very common. Another A1 A2 song (note: A2 is where it resolves, but it needs to have a turnaround to set up the following chorus).

8. Green Dolphin Street

Introduces the “triadic shift” – could play it as a “bullfighter progression.” Parallel motion A1 A2 form. Miles Davis rewrote the 2nd A. A2 turnaround (36251 (E- A7 D- G7 C).

9. Ain’t Misbehaving / (Alternate: It Could Happen To You)

Both tunes teach the same thing. Ascends chromatically. [Practice] try this variation on chords (I learned it as D F#7 E-6 A7 instead of D D#dim, E-6 A7). They’re both fine, they’re interchangeable. Depends what kind of sound you wnat.

10. Stella By Starlight

Everybody plays it. In some ways, it’s a song that doesn’t make sense, but it works.

GuitarWank and Bruce Forman

I’ll repeat: this is a wonderful podcast, full of humor and wisdom. It’s not appropriate for kids, so language warning.

http://www.guitarwank.com

Here’s the page with Episode 99V: http://www.guitarwank.com/podcast?offset=1527480000157

Support GuitarWank on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/GuitarWank

Please support Bruce as well, his records are awesome and he’s a blast live; http://www.bruceforman.com/

I totally get a non-musician asking the question. It makes sense, it’s not offensive… it’s looking for a very general answer. It might give someone a sense of beginner or expert. That said “I’ve been playing guitar X years” is a pretty worthless answer.

The first three years I played guitar, I didn’t learn much. I took lessons, but didn’t practice. I could play a couple of riffs, but no full songs. I didn’t know how to improvise. I had a terrible ear. I just didn’t practice much in those first few years. Steve Vai probably put in more hours on the fretboard in his first three years than I put in over my first twenty. No joke.

A Word from Mister Vai

“I never thought I’d amount to anything in the grand scheme of things. I thought everything I could do, I’m sure everybody could do. But the one thing I didn’t realize is that I was spending 10, 15 hours a day learning how to do it.” – Steve Vai

Math Is Fun!

Let’s do some math, shall we? 1 hour/week x 50 weeks/year = 50 hours/year. That’s probably where I was for the first couple of years I played. However, 1 hour/day x 300d/year = 300 hours/year. 4 hours/day x 300d/year = 1200 hours/year. 8 hours/day x 300d/year = 2400 hours/year. If I kept at the “one hour a week” thing it would take me 24 years to get as much time on the fretboard as someone playing 4 h/day. 24 years. And according to every Vai interview I’ve seen, he put in a lot more than that (see above)… even as an average.

So “I’ve played guitar 5 years” could mean a lot of different things. You might very well be a complete beginner after 5 years… or you could be professionally gigging.

Deliberate Practice

It’s also about deliberate practice. It’s not just raw hours, it’s what you do with them It’s how focused you are on getting better with that time. See my post on “5 Ways To Get The Most of Limited Practice Time” for more on that. The book “Talent is Overrated” also talks a lot about deliberate practice, and the concept behind that. It’s a great read, highly recommended.

The general concept of Deliberate Practice comes down to a few things:

1. It’s specifically designed to improve performance – who’s designing it, are they qualified?
2. It can be repeated a lot – it’s in the “learning zone,” and improvement needs frequency
3. Feedback on results is continuously available – this is tricky with things like rhythm practice, how do you really know if you’re off – in the moment?
4. It’s highly mentally demanding – no “autopilot”
5. It isn’t (inherently) much fun – “if it were, everyone would be a master.” I’ve found a way to find joy and fun in even mundane practice. Once you get to that state, you’re in a good spot to improve.

So you can sit down and noodle over the same diatonic chord progression you’ve jammed over for years, and do it for hours and days without getting much better. You need to have the mindset of “what can I learn today” not “how much time can I spent today.”

So, how long have you been playing?

I won’t get offended if you say “five years.” Just keep in mind it doesn’t mean a whole lot. It might be better, at least when talking to other musicians, to talk about what you can do – “good at improvising, can’t play metal, can read okay, good ear but bad timing, big repertoire of rock but don’t really improvise, etc.”

Let me get right the the point: the value of a metronome is in helping you learn to feel subdivisions of notes in time at various tempos. What do 16th notes feel like at 100bpm? What do 8th note triplets feel like at 120bpm? How does it feel to play them on your instrument? What tempos give you trouble? What techniques cause your timing to slip? Where are your limits, and where do you feel your technique and tone changing to keep up? The value of a metronome is not in being a test to see how fast you can alternate pick a single note.

The value is in teaching you, not testing you.

It’s not a score card where higher is better. A metronome won’t magically give you great rhythm just because you play along with it. It can absolutely help, though, if you use it the right way.

Like any practice, it’s important to focus while using the metronome. You need to notice if you’re putting notes ahead the beat, behind the beat, or right on. If you don’t notice what you’re doing, you can’t control what you’re doing. That control is key to having good rhythm, in my opinion. You’ll just be playing notes on autopilot. if you tend to rush, you’ll keep rushing no matter what that part calls for.

Awareness leads to control.

Other Ways To Improve Your Rhythm

Since guitar is my primary instrument, I’ve tended to focus all of my coordination in my hands. Forcing myself to tap my foot while I play has helped internalize rhythm for me. It’s made rhythm a whole body thing. It’s forced me to put my attention on the one until that’s became somewhat automatic. It’s helped with my rhythmic deficiencies just as much as hours with the metronome.

For many years I was lazy and just relied on the drummer to keep time for me. I listened to the hi hat and snare, and of course I relied on the drummer to cue changes. What a missed opportunity! I never learned to keep track of the song as I played, so if I didn’t have those fills I’d miss changes. I never developed my own good timing. I think I was a decent rhythm player in terms of finding good parts to fit the song, finding good voicings that worked with the other instruments, and having a good sense of blues and swing… but that internal clock was never solid.

I started taking drum lessons in 2018, and even though I don’t put in as much time as I’d like I do practice consistently. Learning to play drums, even at a basic level, has helped me internalize the placement of notes. I hear them better. I can communicate them better. I have more awareness. I also have much better individual control over my hands and feet.

There’s no substitute for recording yourself and listening back. Think you’re spot on? Create some simple loops with, say, 2 bars of a 4:4 beat and 2 bars of silence. See how well you can come right back in on the 1. Then try 4 bars of rest. Then 8. I bet you’re not as solid as you thought. It’s tough! I’ve found my success with this exercise depends greatly on what I’m playing. If it’s just strumming a 4:4 rhythm, I’m pretty darn solid. If it’s improvising a solo with lots of complexity I’m rarely on, particularly after 4 or 8 measures. Some note in my phrases will throw me off a hair, but it’s shard to tell which.

I put a zip file with several drum loops (1-2 bars of 4:4 beat, 1-4 bars of rest) on dropbox. Feel free to download and enjoy!

Every note can be the right note if it’s played at the right time, for the right duration, with the right articulation.

Finally, I think it’s important to put rhythm in its proper place in your playing: first. Every note can be the right note if it’s played at the right time, for the right duration, with the right articulation. It’s all about the rhythm. Clap “Happy Birthday” – most people will know what that is without the notes. So the next time you play, keep your mental focus on the rhythm and groove. Don’t worry about which notes you play, think about when you’re playing them. Do this enough and it will become part of how you play.

Bonus Videos

Late addition, but I wanted to share these random videos which I found contained some great exercises for improving your timing, feeling playing behind the beat and getting more control over placement. Definitely worth your time to watch.

There’s lots made of originality. “So-and-so is good, but they aren’t doing anything new.” Thinking about the last century of popular music, or any music, really, and it’s hard to think of very many truly original bands, let alone guitar players. There are only so many Zappas and Hendrix’s and Eddie Van Halens to come around. And yet, there are a million really, really good guitar players whose music I love. I certainly distinguish between playing music that’s original and having a unique voice. The former is not a factor in whether I enjoy particular music, but the latter certainly is.

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.” – Steve Jobs

I’ve been a fan of blues for a long time. I would argue that there hasn’t been much original in blues in many decades. While I have a pretty broad personal interpretation of the genre – I’m not a purist – I do think that if it strays too much it’s not blues anymore. Just like rock and roll became its own thing. Does that mean there haven’t been any great records in 50 years? What about Muddy Waters’ 70s material? Was SRV doing anything original in the 80s? What about Buddy Guy’s 90s albums? What about Gary Clark Jr.’s live double album from a few years ago – that was cool as heck. I recently saw Billy Gibbons’ Big Bad Blues band in 2018 and it was one of my favorite shows of the year. None of this is original, but it’s still great listening. All of these players have a unique voice, have something to say, and they say it with passion and conviction. That’s what I care about. That’s what connects with me the music. When it comes to new blues, those are the things I listen for.

Here’s a bunch of new blues. I don’t know if there’s anything really original here, but there’s great music!

Genres seem to arc – there’s the initial creation of something new by combining things in new ways (jazz, rock and roll, metal, hip hop); then there’s the growth to mass appeal and wide creation; then there’s the descent into niche as the genre’s offshoots gain in popularity.  This seems to be the natural way of things. Genres morph into new genres, elements are combined and fused. Influences build upon influences, and some fade away. All along the path of that arc, great music is created. That’s what matters.

Don’t get me wrong, when truly original artists come along it can be a beautiful thing. Then again, it can also be terrible. Lots of original stuff has gone by the wayside without a ripple in mass consciousness. It’s not that originality isn’t a good thing. It does seem important that music evolves, grows and explores. It’s just not a factor in what I like and don’t. Then again, I’m the kind of guy who can listen to Electric Ladyland for the thousandth time an still love it!

Lately I’ve been listening to Eddie Lang & Lonnie Johnson records, as well as a lot of Soft Machine… so you can probably tell I don’t care a lot about whether music is new or old, popular or not… original or not. I don’t know if either Eddie Lang or Soft Machine were particularly original in their day. They didn’t invent jazz or psychedelic rock, but they did have unique voices within their genres. I suppose they were pioneers. They helped the existing genres explore and evolve. They’re a link in that chain. Ultimately, they created great music that stands the test of time, and that’s what I’m drawn to.

How important is originality to you? What does it mean to be original? How do your listening habits align with the arc of genres?