Every new jazz standard that you learn can teach you something new about the guitar, music theory or a specific playing technique. But it’s not always easy to find what a standard can teach you. In this post I am going to talk about how to approach learning a new standard, so you don’t just memorize it and play it, but get the most out of what it can teach you.
Learning The Underline Harmony – The Chords
The first step you should take is learning the chord progression of the jazz standard. Notice that I say chord progression and not chords. Looking at a standard’s chords as chord progression and not only as chords is extremely helpful in your journey to become a better musician. It will help you to better understand musical harmony, develop your inner ear, memorize scales and scale degrees, and it will give you the ability to play any standard in any key.
Let’s take learning the standard Fly Me To The Moon as an example.
You will see that the first 4 chords are: Am7 – Dm7 – G7 – Cmaj7. If you only learn these chords as what they are, you’re learning process ends here. There is nothing more to add except practicing these specific chords.
However, if you learn them as a chord progression you get this: vi7 – i7i – V7 – Imaj7, and you can apply this chord progression to any key. So, in the key of C it will be Am7 – Dm7 – G7 – Cmaj7, and in the key of G it will be Em7 – Am7 – D7 – Gmaj7, and so on.
Now you can actually play Fly Me To The Moon in any key that you want. Furthermore, once you understand that this chord progression is a vi7 – ii7 – V7 – Imaj7, and you played it enough times, you will be able to identify this progression using only your ears. The more chord progression you learn using this method the easier it will become to learn a standard only using your ears.
Not Just Random Notes – The Melody
So, now that you got your chords down and ready to go, it’s time to learn the melody. When learning a melody, it is important to remember that it is not just some random notes that sound good one after another or goes good with the chords behind them. There is a reason why the composer chose to use those specific notes. And, although we cannot get into the mind of the composer, we can understand a lot from analyzing the connection between the melody and the harmony (the chords). If we take the first four bars of Fly Me To The Moon again as an example, we will see this melody:
When analyzed, we see that the melody moves between the 3 and the 7 of every chord, using only notes within the C major scale.
Understanding this will help you recognize better this melodic movement next time you hear it in a song and will help you, again, to transpose this melody to other scales.
Connecting Bass Notes And Melody – Learning By Heart
Our brain is like a strong computer and, like every computer, when you ask it to do too many tasks in the same time it will work very slowly or even shut down. That is why we need to find ways to minimize the amount of things we think about while playing.
One of the best ways I know is to learn the standard by heart. Once you do not need to look at a chart to know what is the next chord or the next note in the melody, you are available to focus on much more important and interesting things, like improvising, playing advanced rhythms, and, most important, listening to what the other players are playing.
There are many ways to learn a standard by heart, like, as said before, learning the chord progression. But one of the best ways I found is playing the bass note of the chord and the melody in the same time, kind of a very simple chord melody. This method helps you to connect the chord you need play to the melody at any giving time. Furthermore, this method will help you to develop your musical hearing by teaching you how the root of the chord and, for example, the 3 of the chord sounds together.
Bonus Round – Change The Key
By now you know the standard by heart, understand its harmony and melody and can already play it alone or with others. So now it’s time to take everything you know and transpose it to another key.
A big part of learning jazz, or playing the guitar in general, is getting to know your instrument: where it sounds better or worse, different shapes and positions of chords, getting to know your fretboard and being able to play in all keys, etc. Especially in jazz, when we play with different instruments like horns, piano, or with singers, we need to have the ability to change keys on the fly in a jam session or a show. I highly recommend playing each standard that you learn in at least three different keys, so you have a better understanding of your fretboard and when the time comes to change a key with a moment’s notice you won’t even hesitate to do so.
When learning a language, you need to listen to others speak it in order to speak it yourself. But if you want to really understand it and see what is beneath the surface you need to analyze it a little bit deeper. Music is not different. You need to dig a little deeper to understand what it is you are playing and why it sounds the way it sounds. And although it can seem hard now, in the long run you will not be sorry for putting that extra effort.
For more information about learning music and jazz guitar, contact me today.
Gal Dornay
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