Performance Practice · Marc's Jazz Guitar Academy

Performance Practice

Here’s a quick four chorus exercise video that shows how I’ve been practicing performing for the last year. I used to get stuck in practice ruts where I would neglect performing in favor of way too many drills. This is challenging in my opinion.

Using a daw or looper play two guitars like you are two friends just having fun playing standards.

Guitar 1 plays single note melody (head in), then comps, then improv, then melody (head out). The second guitar plays to the first; comp, improv, comp, head out. The first guitar is the hardest because you have only a metronome and your own conception of the tune. Soloing alone is very hard for me and forces me to be clear and confident, or as confident as I can be. This exercise will reveal how well you actually know a tune.

For me the absolute magic to this is to record myself and then put it away and listen to it the next day. I need some time to forget all the details about what I wanted to do and just listen to it. I listen for what makes me happy and ignore the other stuff. I try to make it better the next day. It has worked very well for me.

It creates the sand box that

@Coach Marc-Andre Seguin

talked about. It allows me to take the pinnacle practice steps and apply them in a more performance atmosphere. It’s helped me to hear the good stuff and try to make more of that. More better phrasing through playing tunes over and over and then actually listening to myself. Plus it’s a lot of fun. I hope this helps, it was very hard to get to the point where I could play a complete tune solo including improvisation. I really have to know the form, plus I end up comping way more than I used to.

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Performance Practice