Getting Lost in the Change? Do THIS!

[00:00:02][music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> If you get lost in the chord changes or get confused during the form of a song, this video is for you. Hey there and welcome back to another video. Following the chord changes is a crucial part of jazz improvisation, and recently I've gotten a bunch of questions asking how to not get lost when they're improvising through those chord changes. This is a pretty common problem, so if this sounds like you, you're not alone. The great news is I can help you, and it actually won't take a lot of time. With the simple exercises I'm going to show you in this video, you're going to be able to follow the chord changes to any song that you want to play over. Before I get into any exercises or talk about anything about what to do on the instrument, the most important thing like always is listening. I talk about this in every video, it's the most important thing you can do as a musician is to listen. What do I mean specifically about listening? Well, it depends on what your goal is, but here we're talking about following chord changes. So, if there's a specific song that always trips you up and you always get lost for whatever reason, listening to that song in many different versions is going to really help you out into actually internalizing the form of the song. No, I'm not saying that the key here is just osmosis and you're just going to listen over and over and you'll just instantly have it internalized and you'll play perfect the rest of your life. No, we're going to apply stuff to the instrument in a minute, but you have to listen first. I always talk about non note musical elements. And this is for not just for this video about not getting lost in changes, but just anything in general. You really want to listen to different versions of the song you're trying to learn, different versions of songs in the style you're trying to learn, or the tempo you're trying to learn.

[00:02:11]Listening is so unbelievably important because you're going to internalize all those things that the masters have done before you, just like you would listen to someone speak when you're a baby to learn the language, learn the accent, and learn the nuance. The big reason you're probably getting lost in the form is that you're not pre-hearing the chords that are happening. You're trying to maybe read on the sheet, and you're thinking about a lick that you're playing, and then you're like, "Oh, where are we now?" You're not actually involved in actively listening and a part of the ensemble or the track or whatever. And that's what I'm going to help you with today. Now, let's jump into the exercises on your instrument that are actually going to help you play through the song without getting lost.

[00:02:48]For these exercises, I'm going to be using the song Have You Met Miss Jones?

[00:02:51]You heard me play a little clip of it at the beginning. I'm going to be taking it here a little bit slower so we can follow along, but I'm going to be using that song because that song does have a lot of chord changes. It has chords that move every four beats, sometimes every two beats, and those are the types of songs I've been getting questions about because the chords might be moving quicker, or it moves in different keys, like this song has a bunch of different key centers, so it's a perfect example for this video. The first exercise is going to be playing just a quarter note whenever a chord happens. So, if there's one chord in the measure, you only just play on beat one and you rest for beats two, three, four. If there are two beats in the measure, like on beats one and three, you'll play a quarter note on beat one, quarter note on beat three, but you're going to rest on beats two and four. The key here is that you're playing when the chords switch, the chord change, but then you're not playing anything else for the duration of the chord because you're just going to listen, pre-hear, and prepare for the next chord that's coming up. By the way, if you're getting lost in a song that has very few chord changes, like So What or Impressions, you can actually skip this step because this really only works when you're playing every measure or maybe every other measure something like that. Go to step two, that's where it will apply a little more to songs with fewer chord changes, but you can absolutely do it here as well. So, I'm going to demonstrate this now playing the root every single time, that's the one of each chord every time a chord happens. And I'm going to throw up the chords here with a highlighted cursor so you can follow along as well. Here we go.

[00:04:22]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> All right, that's going to be one of the most important fundamental things you can do to actually follow the chord changes in real time. That's why I recommend using a track, I'm using just iReal Pro, but you can make it as slow as you want so you can follow the chords, but the idea here is you're doing it in real time. So many people will maybe practice the first chord or the second chord or the third chord, but then when it gets actually in time they get lost because they're not thinking about how long each chord happens.

[00:05:42]They're not thinking about the actual duration of the chord and when the next chord happens, it's not when you want it to be, it's when it actually occurs at the tempo you're playing, which is why playing just the root at the beginning of every single chord is going to be crucial for you. Now, for step two, what you're going to do is just play a quarter note on beat one of every measure.

[00:06:01]You might be saying, this is uh going to end up being fewer amount of notes than step one, right? Because the bridge has chords moving every two beats. Isn't this going to be like fewer notes, or shouldn't have this been first? No, because this is actually going to be slightly harder because you're not going to be playing some chords. For example, on the bridge when you have all these two-five-ones, when you have a measure with two beats of the first chord, two beats of the second chord, you're not even playing that second chord at all.

[00:06:24]So, what you're going to be doing is playing the chord on beat one, the root once again, resting for the the next beat, which is the rest of that chord, then you're just going to listen to the five chord on beats three and four, and then come in on beat one. So, you now have to follow along while you're not playing. This is also really important skill because getting lost in the chord changes is something that happens when you're soloing, but also happens when someone else is soloing, or there's a drum solo, piano solo, whatever. Someone else is playing something, and you need to still follow along, and you don't want to be sitting there and just counting on the sheet music, one and two and three. You want to hear the music that's happening. This is going to help you with that. So, here we go, I'm just playing the roots once again, but I'm only going to play beat one of every measure. Check it out.

[00:07:05]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> All right, if you can do that, now we're going to make it a little harder. You're only going to play beat one of every other measure. And by the way, yes, I do recommend doing the entire tune, the entire chorus, even with repeats like I'm doing here, A A B A, because that's what you're actually going to be doing when you play the song. So, this is what you should be doing when you're practicing. So, once again, I'm going to be playing beat one of measure one, resting for the rest of measure one, resting all of measure two, coming in on measure three. So, you're going to have to really wait here, really listen to what the chords you've been hearing, to everything you've been working on, to make sure you come in exactly on beat one. And once again, I recommend doing only a quarter note and resting versus holding a note, because it really gives you a sense to internalize what's happening and not worry about playing on the instrument. Here we go. Check it out for step three.

[00:09:01]>> [music] [music] [music] >> All right, and finally for step four, we're going to be playing one beat every four measures. So, you're going to play a quarter note on beat one, rest for the rest of measure one, rest in measure two, rest in measure three, rest in measure four, beat one of measure five, rest five, six, seven, eight, and then when it repeats back to top, you kind of get it here. Every four measures. So, this is almost going to be like you're just not playing the whole time because you're really only playing a couple notes over the whole chorus, but the idea here is that you still have to do something at a certain time. You're hearing the chords.

[00:10:26]You're hearing how everything is moving, and you're going to hear a lot now, especially on the bridge. You're going to hear four measures of chords moving while you're not playing, but you have to prepare yourself to come up, and the best way to do that is really internalization of what you're hearing.

[00:10:38]Check it out. I think you'll enjoy it.

[00:11:01]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Once you can do all four of these exercises with the root, I highly recommend doing them with the other three chord tones as well of the seventh chord, the third, the fifth, and the seventh. If you do that, it'll look the exact same except for instead of playing the root each time, you'll play the third each time or the fifth each time or the seventh each time. Then you can get creative with it. You might want to go, "I'll play the root the first one, the third, then the fifth, then the seventh, and repeat back." Whatever you want, you can mix and match it. But the more you do this, the more you're training yourself to hear when the chords are moving, when the chords are happening, and then come in at a certain spot. That's just going to really internalize everything for you when you actually go to improvise over this song.

[00:12:18]I know I didn't give you any exercises actually improvising through the song, but that's not the point of this video.

[00:12:23]The point of this video is to get you listening to what's happening behind you or in the band or in the track or whatever, and you're pre-hearing the chords that are happening. You are looking for a specific spot to land on.

[00:12:35]And if you can do that with the root, the third, the fifth, the seventh, all four of the exercises here, you're going to be so much more prepared when you actually go to improvise over the song because you're going to be, like I said, pre-hearing all those chords and internalizing the entire form. I know right now you might be asking, "I can do this or I think I can do this, but I want to go further. How do I even get better at actually improvising through these songs and not getting lost?" Well, I have something for you, especially if you're a saxophone player, and it's my Saxophone Success Community. This is an online community of like-minded saxophonists just like yourself who are looking to get better at not just jazz improvisation, but all things saxophone.

[00:13:10]There's a vibrant community where you can post your own recordings, and me and everybody else will give you personalized critiques to help you out.

[00:13:16]And I say me and everybody else because yes, it's great to get critique from me, and I'll listen to every recording that you post and give you my thoughts, my comments on how you can get better. But you're also are to get it from a lot of other people in the community, especially people who might be on your level or who are just at your level and said, "Hey, I was just where you are.

[00:13:32]Here's what helped me get to the next level." Or people that are not even at your level yet that are saying, "Wow, that's so great. Look how far you've come." And it's great to kind of build that community with all different players of all different ability levels.

[00:13:43]Also, the community is not only the community, you get a ton of exclusive content as well. Every single month I do an exclusive master class inside the community where you get PDFs, you get all sorts of stuff, backing tracks, reference audios where I teach a very specific topic that is not anywhere else. It's not here on YouTube, not anywhere else. Also, each month I do a song of the month where I pick a song in a certain style and I give you an analysis of the tune, I break it down, I teach you how to solo over it, play the melody, I give you lead sheets, backing tracks, chord changes, reference audios, videos, all sorts of stuff, and then a trading video so we can actually play together. There's also a live monthly Q&A where we jump on a call together and you ask me any question you want. And the cool thing is all this stuff is recorded so you can check it out after if you can't make the live Q&A live, you can ask your questions ahead of time, you can watch the recording after. It's a really great way to get personalized responses to your questions, not just in a text way where we're actually on a call talking with one another. There's a bunch of other stuff like helpful resources, we do a challenge of the month, a lot of great stuff. I know I'm talking a lot about it here, but I want you to check out for yourself because obviously I'm going to say it's great.

[00:14:47]You can get a 30-day free trial. Just go to davepollack.com/ssc.

[00:14:53]Get inside, see what it's all about.

[00:14:55]It's not like a stripped-down version, you only get part of it. You get the full thing for 30 days. If it's not for you, no risk to you once again. It's completely free for those 30 days. I hope you check it out. Thanks so much for watching as always, and I'll see you in the next video.