What do you think: Is vocabulary practice underrated? 😎 Here's a powerful concept for Patterns that beats licks: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/bLSeecqVzLXSk2Q.html

Treasure chest has been opened. Thank you Jens, for your generosity.

This is one of the best tools to play tonal music, building small blocks around chord tones. And ways to go from one chord note to the other.

Jens! I love this concept. Been following it quite awhile. I remember a clinic with Isaiah Sharkey many years ago..."Don't play licks, play concepts." Thanks for your awesome lessons.

I've been studying with your RoadMap for three months now. This post feels like a lecture tailored specifically for me at my current level. I love it!

OMG! The key to the kingdom! Thank you, Jens, for pulling back the proverbial curtain on this persistently elusive skill in your signature accessible and marvelously detailed instructional style. I know it takes time to develop these skills, but the roadmap you provide is reassuringly sound and focused. Thank you, again!!!

Well... Parker certainly rehearsed his OWN licks over and over and over again. Nothing wrong with that, but unlike pure improvisers (Tristano, Konitz, Marsh) who strive to always be creating new things on the spot, Parker cultivated a repository of (absolutely fantastic) licks that he copy pasted into his solos with minor variations.

Since I played rock and pop as a kid, I spent a long time hating jazz after some mildly traumatizing experiences in music school in my early 20s but after coming to your videos, I'm discovering things about it that I never realized and I'm becoming a jazz addict now in my 30s. Thanks Jens!

Thank you Jens, and thank you for keeping it simple using the 2-5-1 in C major as a reference. Very helpful and useful !!!

Tnx! You give explanations that are really understandable and usable.

This is a wonderful video Jens 👍🎸 thanks so much!

Jens, as a bassist learning guitar, this is phenomenal education for both instruments. My copy of your jazz guitar book arrives today from Amazon and I can't wait to dive in. I'm really enjoying your content.

Jens you are the man .. I recorded the most awesome solo that I ever did .. Since I practice Jazz things my solo in acoustic pop/rock music is much better .. I dont no what to say, but it feels good and I am finaly happy with my play style .. Its not perfect but its the best result in a short time I ever had, and people like my music now .. THANKS

One of your bettervideos Jens Larsen. Given the huge efforts you expend and the volume of videos you create, it's a heartfelt compliment. One day, I hope you'll have a video on the age-old deficit of hearing great lines in one's head but not finding on the fretboard what's in the old noodle. I do use the trick of humming complex lines and have had good success. But this works with single notes - much harder, or for me impossible, to hum complex jazz chords, comping, etc. Best, Allan

love how pratical your advice is. even though you didn't end becoming a computer programmer, i can see how much that way of thinking has informed your practice strategies!

Thanks Jens for this awesome lesson! As a Jazz player that doesn't like memorizing licks, this is very helpful and sounds amazing.

Thanks for setting me free! I have been enjoying posts by lots of people including yourself, playing the phrases they contain to get them into my fingers. Then today I'm like wait--you mean I can break them into pieces that I can use? What a concept lol. My brain just exploded. Thanks again Jens

Finally. Great video. Long lines are many short lines put together.

Missed it first time so I skipped backwards to make sure you’d included Yngwie on that score. You never disappoint 🇸🇪

Thank you for sharing! Vocabulary, enclosures, arpeggios, chromatic, eight notes, Pay Martino.....

More Gold from Jens. Many Thanks. I was struggling with boring melodic lines in a track i am currently writing. i believe this video will help me a lot.

Another informative offering.... Thanks Jens......!!!

great job jens larsen, i love your work.

Excited!!

That's it. From now on I'm ending all my solos with a Swedish Chef lick, just because I shouldn't! Great lesson Jens :)

Ooooomg yessss its impossibly coincidental that you upload THIS lesson just as my copy of jazz patterns for treble instruments arrived. You have no idea how sold i am in the patterns concept vs the study of licks and this has just settled it for good if there was every any doubts or discussion still in my head. If patterns were good for parker surely they cant be bad for me Hahaha🎷🎷🎸🎸🤙🤙

Id say he's the Bach of jazz, great lesson!

I wish I could get stretch chord like you too. It must be awesome to be able to play start me up by the stones without detuning your guitar

Very good lesson Jens

grattitude!

Love the idea, and try to do this myself.

To put it short: learn the figurations. That's also how they improvised in the Baroque era.

Hi jens, so after I make licks on my own should I play them over a tune? Or should I try to use the pattern to improvise licks on the spot? Ive been having trouble remembering lines and defaulting to stuff Ive already played a million times

I've noticed this same patterns thing in Guthrie Govan's improvisation--especially his faster lines. I find that it makes for more interesting lines and keeps the listener glued because of that hint of familiarity and predictability while still being unpredictable.

Thanks!

A lot of jazzmen in my music background think the best way to improve jazz vocabulary, is to play on tracks and pick-up solos, learn new scale (New Spices) , ans try to apply them on solos

I dont even like Jazz, tbh. I mean. I love Nat King Cole and Billie Holiday. I could lisgen to some Miles or Charlie once in a while. But I just want to be able to rip some clean and interesting jazz melodies in the midst of a song, like Billie Strings on Summertime. Im just interested in expanding my vocabulary, and you are a fantastic intuitive thinker for this purpose.

Good video

Great stuff, Jens. In the 'cheeky' G7 example around 3m13s, targeting the 3rd of the following C, are you thinking in terms of G or C for the preceding enclosure notes?

I notice Martino goes down the scale and then back up at the end, rather than the arpeggio.

I'd love to hear the lick that coinnects Wes, Holdworth, and the Swedish Chef

Are consecutive intervals (eg. ce,df) and intersecting intervals (eg.cdef) enclosures ( 2nds enclosed in 4ths) by other names? Is (eg. cdfe)a 'proper' enclosure? Or are they all 'intraversions' of the same four notes, as in classical music? Only I've only ever heard Jens using the term 'enclosure', for this kind of feature. Slán!

Maybe on day I'll start my own YT "how to play Jazz" channel. For the moment though, I'm still Ben Hogan. And I've never played a "lick" in my life, even on my 3rd axe (guitar; sax > piano/keys > guitar). 51 years on sax, 54 on keyboards.

Still, which Yngwie lick do you suggest for bar 10 ?

👏

Greetings Froom colombia south América, great channel, silvain luc please

I don’t agree about the first lick… It’s not long or complicated, and copying and pasting it would be a great exercise. It contains mainly 8th notes, it lasts exactly 2 bars and it connects all the chord changes very smoothly, making it the perfect lick to use over a long II V I. It doesn’t even sound exclusively like Charlie Parker, it’s just very common bebop language. So no, I only see benefits from using it while improvising.

I would love to hear a solo that is a composite of all those artists.

I was here

Jens, are you dipping? I knew I liked you.

🤯

You gonna go sing up for ap music theory now

Sounds like the line that you previously said was boring

Why does charlie parker look a bit like homlander

'never practice...' that is it. the secret.

I think it's a bit misleading to say that he never practiced licks. It's well known that he copied a load of lester young solos, in every key and at twice speed. Also, if you listen to his playing you hear the same lines over and over again. Take the opening line of his billie's bounce solo. Practically identical to the opening line of his now's the time solo. I'm not saying he didn't practice patterns too but it definitely sounds to me like he practiced licks. Add to that the fact that his solos are basically one perfect phrase after another, (amazing solos really) i do think those phrases were worked out. Also, I take issue with what you said about sounding like a clone of other players if you practice their licks. With a few rare exceptions, practically every master of this music has copied. Of course, it's a problem if you don't eventually move beyond that but if you don't copy then how else are you going to learn the language? Then again if all you learn is kicks then that's all you'll have so maybe a better approach is to do both? Learn solos and licks but then learn their building blocks too? You reference Barry Harris a lot. Well, Barry went through a period of copying Bud Powell solos! Jimmy Raney has a good video about this. About the importance of copying to learn jazz. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/gMCpZ5ViuLC3hmw.htmlsi=nP5X9Gx3AAOcYGs2

Jens, I am telling you this even though you are not going to care, but here goes anyway. As a follower of your channel who watched many of your videos I am telling you in all sincerity that those graphics you have integrated in your later videos are distracting, and counter productive. I work in compositing for TV and Film, so maybe that bothers me more than it does others. I find them disjointed, cheesy and they don't really help by getting the message across, quite the opposite they distract the viewer. Your earlier videos were a lot more interesting, just an honest guy with his guitar having interesting things to say. I know that you're striving for more "content" but it's a shame because TikTokers don't really dig jazz; but what do I know. Thank you for your videos, in any case.

It all sounds very sterile and boring

All i get is KZfaq junk

I already enjoy your videos and all the knowledge you have, but now that you’ve got SpongeBob on here you’ve won my heart and mind 🥲