Watch Jens Larsen Teach Me About Jazz Guitar! Full video here.
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Have just watched this. Know jens larsen and this is a really good lesson. Hope to see more Jazz with Justin on here. 
Definately a long video, but worth the watch, even if you do not aspire to jazz playing.
My biggest take away was Jens telling Justin: ‘Practice in bite size chunks’ (my words) and 'Play songs, play songs".
Hmm, I seem to remember hearing that somewhere…
This was an hour very well spent! Most of it is over my head and I’m not planning on playing jazz any time soon but I think I have some take away that is applicable to basic blues:
- Commit to a song: For some reason, it never occurred to me that committing to a song and learning it really really well would be useful. I was thinking that I would learn and practice general ideas and apply them to any song so I did not need to know any particular song very well.
- Learn short phrases: Larsen says phrases spanning over a few bars would be hard to apply to different songs and he tries to keep it to 3-8 note phrases when learning ideas and making them his own. I’ve been suffering from this but it did not occur to me that I should stop working on them and choose to learn shorter phrases instead.
- Do not learn everything everywhere: I think hearing this saved me from spending a lot of unnecessary hours. I was thinking, once I learn a phrase, I should learn it in every position whereas Larsen says only learn phrases that work and are easy to play in that position. You do not have to play everything everywhere. Which makes a lot of sense.
It was also nice to hear that pros and pros who pros consider pros (pro-pros?) are having challenges with similar concepts albeit at a much more advanced level.
3 Likes
Well I watched bits of this but it was mostly over my head with lots of names of people I don’t know. Made me realise there is so much I don’t know!!
Don’t worry about it Stuart.
I’ve only watched 10 mins so far and I haven’t learned anything technical because it’s way over my head too.
I see two blokes who, despite having played guitar forever, still want to learn, explore and find things.
If I/we adopt and keep the same mindset then we will keep learning, exploring and finding things.
Hello Teacher 
…your lesson with J.L. was so interesting to follow that I needed a re-listen even if I’m not into jazz, as a few things, among the most technical ones I couldn’t get, really caught my attention as they seem to apply to all genres (
…well the ones I know at least )…but I couldn’t catch the name of who first thing he practices the melody for one hour…whoever it is he speaks to my heart 
…yeah Melody must be the key… of course Rhythm is also important 
I know you’ll put in the hours and commitment and I wish you much enjoyment and fun in your renewed passion for Jazz! Thanks for sharing it. Cheers.
Enjoyed this video. Thanks for sharing, Jazztin Guitar 