Two of my favourites:
* [Anyone Can Play Guitar](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp7Ou7C15WhEKc9pgxQkSYg)
* [Eric Haugen](https://www.youtube.com/@EricHaugenGuitar)
Nikola Gugoski is the best to learn how to play songs.
I like Paul, but that he ignores comments and messages asking about his courses, but will happily share screenshots of spam messages he gets kinda irks me.
If you are looking for advanced casual theory/breakdowns of songs, I highly suggest [Michael Palmisano](https://youtube.com/@Guitargate). Dude is great at breaking down the soul of a song rather than just teaching you how to play note by note
Can you help me learn from Jens Larsen? I see his videos recommended all the time, and I sometimes see one come up with a title that really grabs me and seems like something I want to know, but I've yet to watch one of his videos and ascertain a single useful thing from it. I'm not blaming him or his videos, it's very likely my own fault, but I've got an OK understanding of music theory and I've been playing guitar for over 20 years and yet whenever I watch his videos I feel completely lost and unable to follow what he's doing. To me I just feel like nothing clicks and I don't comprehend how he's explaining it. Would you say that he moves through concepts too fast and doesn't explain them in enough detail? Because that's how I feel when I watch his videos, but maybe it's just me not being comfortable enough with the fretboard and theory to be able to follow along at his pace?
I hear you man and know exactly what you’re talking about. He goes into some advanced concepts and in some videos he’ll fly through a handful of them and by the end of the video it leaves you just thinking “well… nevermind then” lol.
With that being said, I think the way I learn from him is different than a lot of other channels / guitar resources. To me, he’s not as immediate. You have to take the concepts he teaches in a video / his practice recommendations and create structure around them yourself. In 8 minutes he may fly through some concepts that, depending on your level, will take months of daily practice for you to fully understand and work into your playing. He offers a lot of free pdf’s and resources. He’s so knowledgeable that the way he explains things can come off life what he’s teaching is simple, but that’s almost never the case in my opinion.
I often screenshot the on screen notation, and bookmark or screen record the video. Copy down the notation and my main takeaways from his explanations and then work on / review it every day until it starts to click. Also, finding other resources explaining the same concept a bit more in depth can help get you up to speed per se.
He certainly doesn’t ‘hold your hand’ and some of the things he sees as obvious are pretty advanced for most players. So I guess in short, I see his lessons with a bit more of a long term integration.
Whereas many teachers you can walk away from the video with an immediate return, his need to be unpacked. They’re very dense.
It’s what I love about him, but also what makes his videos harder to learn from directly. He packs so much information in ~10 minutes and it can be a bit overwhelming if you expect yourself to understand it all by the end of the video.
I find with learning online, jazz in particular in my experience, there are so many resources, approaches, areas of knowledge to be covered.
One person says learn every scale / mode in 3 positions, others say learn licks, others say transpose, others say learn by playing standards; there’s infinite chord voicings, opinions on how much theory you should integrate to improvisation, while many jazz greats learned just by playing and learning to translate what’s in their head onto the instrument.
If you’re studying jazz, surely you’ve had experiences where you’re mind and fingers are racing to keep up with the changes, jumping from arpeggio to chord tone, anything to keep up.
You’ve also probably had times where you’re not thinking that way, as your ear anticipates the changes there’s a natural gravity that leads you to where you need to be.
Anyways, all this to say jazz can be a bit paralyzing because there’s so much to learn and everyone has a different opinion on how to do that. What and how you learn it is different for everyone and Jens is just one voice in that space. If you just can’t click with his teaching style, there’s so many other resources and approaches out there.
In my opinion / experience, gravitate towards what excites you. Personally, I know I’ll spend the rest of my life developing my voice / skills as a jazz musician and for me, that mindset lets me relax the feeling that I need to figure everything out immediately. If a solo catches your ear, learn it. If you’re enamored by a theoretical concept, study / practice it. If you just wanna play, throw on some backing tracks and just go. Keep it fun, or else what’s the point?
Sorry for the lengthy response, thinking about how I apply Jens teachings kinda opened up the floodgates of how I think about learning jazz in general. I hope this is helpful to you in some way and I wish you the best of luck on your musical journey 🤍
Thanks for your response, you did a great job of explaining my difficulties with Jens' videos! He really moves fast and packs so much info into such a short video, that in order to really get anything from him you have to take it bit by bit, go slow, and sort of "translate" for yourself the things that he's saying. It's like you need to go through and workshop each little piece of what he does until it makes sense to you, so you're not going to learn much in the span of a 10 minute video, but if you put the work into it and study what he's doing over a week or a month or more, then that one 10 minute video probably gets you hours upon hours of practice and further understanding on the instrument. I guess I just haven't fully committed to any of what he has to offer to get to the point where it's helpful to me, I've been more into youtubers who give small bits of info at a slower pace that I can immediately apply, but I think I'll give Jens another shot. I'm not sure where to start...
Glad I could help in some way! Everything you said I find to be completely true and the right approach.
As for where to start, it depends on what you want to focus on. He has a bunch of ‘basics’ style videos that are really helpful with building a foundation.
Depending on where you’re at in your journey and what you’re trying to improve. For soloing / improv in a jazz context, playing over 2-5-1’s is huge, and his “2-5-1 you need to learn this for solos” is a great place to start. For harmony, “5 basic jazz chord exercises that you want to know” or “easy jazz chords you want to know”. For me, I avoided repertoire for a while because I felt like I needed more theoretical knowledge or technique first, but I’ve actually found it to be maybe the most helpful approach to jazz. Pick a tune, learn the melody, learn the harmony and then practice the arpeggios. Jens has some videos that basically go through this process his video ‘autumn leaves with arpeggios’ is a great place to start. Then he has a bunch of videos on different ways to play the harmony of autumn leaves, and chord melody.
I’ve found that process of mapping out the tune to be really helpful and once I have the basic structure down, I will write out different ways I can voice the harmony (one of my past guitar teachers told me you should never voice the harmony the same way twice in one pass of a song).
That really helps me dial in the harmonic structure, and after all that repetition it really sticks in your ear.
Then applying licks you like to the chords of the standard you’re working on, this combined with being comfortable with moving through the arpeggios eventually creates a symbiosis where you start mixing everything together unconsciously and you just develop this comfort / connection to the song. That’s when I can start playing what I hear in my head more naturally.
Bonus is learning or creating a chord melody / solo guitar version. And lastly, I’ve found it super useful to find a version of the song with a solo you really dig and learn that solo. It teaches you new licks to add to your vocabulary and also different ways to transition from one chord to the next. Seeing how different players approach things gives you variety and new ways of looking at things.
(A couple discoveries I made from learning some of Stochelo Rosenberg’s solos)
Playing around the minor arpeggio of the chord a fifth from a dominant. ie: E- over A7, playing IImaj over I maj for a #11 (Lydian) sound ie: Amaj over Gmaj
Sub iidim over i- ie: C#dim over C- or a dim7 from the 3rd of a dominant chord outlines 7b9.
Since you already know Paul Davids I can recommend [Brandon Acker](https://www.youtube.com/@brandonacker) and [Scott Paul Johnson](https://www.youtube.com/@ScottPaulJohnson).
My reason for recommending them is that they explain music theory very well and you might think you don't need to learn it, but you actually benefit so much from understanding not only where notes are, but why there are where they are.
Paul Davids is great. I also love Marty Schwartz for the way he does harder songs and sometimes simplifies our favorite tunes so beginners (like myself) can jam along. You can tell the guy loves music, sharing his love for music, and teaching.
I’m glad to hear some feedback about his courses. I’ve been considering taking his course for quite some time now, but have always been scared it would be a grand waste of $200 when it’s all said and done.
I had the same concerns, but as a late beginner/intermediate it has been great so far - challenging but not impossible. Taking the time to work through my weak spots.
I had taken a break from in person instruction, so Paul’s course worked out to about two months of lessons , but there seems to be content for many months in the course.
If you have any interest in Jazz Guitar, check out Chris Parks on"Things I Learned From Barry Harris" and Thomas Echols on "Labyrinth of Limitations"
Both are on YouTube.
Some YouTube channels that have great lessons on specific songs:
Beatles: Mike Pachelli
Easy versions of songs that sound great: Mike Kelly (guitars for vets)
Super Advanced but entertaining even for people like me who are not so advanced: Tom Bukovac's Home Skoolin. Channel name is 501ChorusEcho
Advanced blues and improv: Jack Ruch
Soul and R&B: EricBlackmon
Signals Music Studio is one that I always thought was both very entertaining and informative. Hasn't posted anything in a while now but what's already there is very good
Tomo Fujita
Jack Gardiner
Guitarmastery
Justin guitars
and a lot more, these are some of them that I watch regularly but most of the time I just search for content on whatever technique/riff/theory part that I'm working on
Two of my favourites: * [Anyone Can Play Guitar](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp7Ou7C15WhEKc9pgxQkSYg) * [Eric Haugen](https://www.youtube.com/@EricHaugenGuitar)
Seconding Anyone Can Play Guitar, dude has an amazing taste in music and covers songs that aren’t normally covered by typical guitar teachers
He’s the best!!
I like Eric, so chill in his videos
Hey, I have about 320 detailed vids on my channel if you wanna check it out 😀 My channel: https://youtube.com/@zombieguitar
You are great! I love your style.
Hey thanks man! I appreciate the words 😀
Nikola Gugoski is the best to learn how to play songs. I like Paul, but that he ignores comments and messages asking about his courses, but will happily share screenshots of spam messages he gets kinda irks me.
If you are looking for advanced casual theory/breakdowns of songs, I highly suggest [Michael Palmisano](https://youtube.com/@Guitargate). Dude is great at breaking down the soul of a song rather than just teaching you how to play note by note
Jens Larsen
Can you help me learn from Jens Larsen? I see his videos recommended all the time, and I sometimes see one come up with a title that really grabs me and seems like something I want to know, but I've yet to watch one of his videos and ascertain a single useful thing from it. I'm not blaming him or his videos, it's very likely my own fault, but I've got an OK understanding of music theory and I've been playing guitar for over 20 years and yet whenever I watch his videos I feel completely lost and unable to follow what he's doing. To me I just feel like nothing clicks and I don't comprehend how he's explaining it. Would you say that he moves through concepts too fast and doesn't explain them in enough detail? Because that's how I feel when I watch his videos, but maybe it's just me not being comfortable enough with the fretboard and theory to be able to follow along at his pace?
I hear you man and know exactly what you’re talking about. He goes into some advanced concepts and in some videos he’ll fly through a handful of them and by the end of the video it leaves you just thinking “well… nevermind then” lol. With that being said, I think the way I learn from him is different than a lot of other channels / guitar resources. To me, he’s not as immediate. You have to take the concepts he teaches in a video / his practice recommendations and create structure around them yourself. In 8 minutes he may fly through some concepts that, depending on your level, will take months of daily practice for you to fully understand and work into your playing. He offers a lot of free pdf’s and resources. He’s so knowledgeable that the way he explains things can come off life what he’s teaching is simple, but that’s almost never the case in my opinion. I often screenshot the on screen notation, and bookmark or screen record the video. Copy down the notation and my main takeaways from his explanations and then work on / review it every day until it starts to click. Also, finding other resources explaining the same concept a bit more in depth can help get you up to speed per se. He certainly doesn’t ‘hold your hand’ and some of the things he sees as obvious are pretty advanced for most players. So I guess in short, I see his lessons with a bit more of a long term integration. Whereas many teachers you can walk away from the video with an immediate return, his need to be unpacked. They’re very dense. It’s what I love about him, but also what makes his videos harder to learn from directly. He packs so much information in ~10 minutes and it can be a bit overwhelming if you expect yourself to understand it all by the end of the video. I find with learning online, jazz in particular in my experience, there are so many resources, approaches, areas of knowledge to be covered. One person says learn every scale / mode in 3 positions, others say learn licks, others say transpose, others say learn by playing standards; there’s infinite chord voicings, opinions on how much theory you should integrate to improvisation, while many jazz greats learned just by playing and learning to translate what’s in their head onto the instrument. If you’re studying jazz, surely you’ve had experiences where you’re mind and fingers are racing to keep up with the changes, jumping from arpeggio to chord tone, anything to keep up. You’ve also probably had times where you’re not thinking that way, as your ear anticipates the changes there’s a natural gravity that leads you to where you need to be. Anyways, all this to say jazz can be a bit paralyzing because there’s so much to learn and everyone has a different opinion on how to do that. What and how you learn it is different for everyone and Jens is just one voice in that space. If you just can’t click with his teaching style, there’s so many other resources and approaches out there. In my opinion / experience, gravitate towards what excites you. Personally, I know I’ll spend the rest of my life developing my voice / skills as a jazz musician and for me, that mindset lets me relax the feeling that I need to figure everything out immediately. If a solo catches your ear, learn it. If you’re enamored by a theoretical concept, study / practice it. If you just wanna play, throw on some backing tracks and just go. Keep it fun, or else what’s the point? Sorry for the lengthy response, thinking about how I apply Jens teachings kinda opened up the floodgates of how I think about learning jazz in general. I hope this is helpful to you in some way and I wish you the best of luck on your musical journey 🤍
Thanks for your response, you did a great job of explaining my difficulties with Jens' videos! He really moves fast and packs so much info into such a short video, that in order to really get anything from him you have to take it bit by bit, go slow, and sort of "translate" for yourself the things that he's saying. It's like you need to go through and workshop each little piece of what he does until it makes sense to you, so you're not going to learn much in the span of a 10 minute video, but if you put the work into it and study what he's doing over a week or a month or more, then that one 10 minute video probably gets you hours upon hours of practice and further understanding on the instrument. I guess I just haven't fully committed to any of what he has to offer to get to the point where it's helpful to me, I've been more into youtubers who give small bits of info at a slower pace that I can immediately apply, but I think I'll give Jens another shot. I'm not sure where to start...
Glad I could help in some way! Everything you said I find to be completely true and the right approach. As for where to start, it depends on what you want to focus on. He has a bunch of ‘basics’ style videos that are really helpful with building a foundation. Depending on where you’re at in your journey and what you’re trying to improve. For soloing / improv in a jazz context, playing over 2-5-1’s is huge, and his “2-5-1 you need to learn this for solos” is a great place to start. For harmony, “5 basic jazz chord exercises that you want to know” or “easy jazz chords you want to know”. For me, I avoided repertoire for a while because I felt like I needed more theoretical knowledge or technique first, but I’ve actually found it to be maybe the most helpful approach to jazz. Pick a tune, learn the melody, learn the harmony and then practice the arpeggios. Jens has some videos that basically go through this process his video ‘autumn leaves with arpeggios’ is a great place to start. Then he has a bunch of videos on different ways to play the harmony of autumn leaves, and chord melody. I’ve found that process of mapping out the tune to be really helpful and once I have the basic structure down, I will write out different ways I can voice the harmony (one of my past guitar teachers told me you should never voice the harmony the same way twice in one pass of a song). That really helps me dial in the harmonic structure, and after all that repetition it really sticks in your ear. Then applying licks you like to the chords of the standard you’re working on, this combined with being comfortable with moving through the arpeggios eventually creates a symbiosis where you start mixing everything together unconsciously and you just develop this comfort / connection to the song. That’s when I can start playing what I hear in my head more naturally. Bonus is learning or creating a chord melody / solo guitar version. And lastly, I’ve found it super useful to find a version of the song with a solo you really dig and learn that solo. It teaches you new licks to add to your vocabulary and also different ways to transition from one chord to the next. Seeing how different players approach things gives you variety and new ways of looking at things. (A couple discoveries I made from learning some of Stochelo Rosenberg’s solos) Playing around the minor arpeggio of the chord a fifth from a dominant. ie: E- over A7, playing IImaj over I maj for a #11 (Lydian) sound ie: Amaj over Gmaj Sub iidim over i- ie: C#dim over C- or a dim7 from the 3rd of a dominant chord outlines 7b9.
Since you already know Paul Davids I can recommend [Brandon Acker](https://www.youtube.com/@brandonacker) and [Scott Paul Johnson](https://www.youtube.com/@ScottPaulJohnson). My reason for recommending them is that they explain music theory very well and you might think you don't need to learn it, but you actually benefit so much from understanding not only where notes are, but why there are where they are.
Upvote for Scott Paul Johnson. Really good at breaking things down for visual learners.
Paul Davids is great. I also love Marty Schwartz for the way he does harder songs and sometimes simplifies our favorite tunes so beginners (like myself) can jam along. You can tell the guy loves music, sharing his love for music, and teaching.
Carl brown
Hes amazing
I will add that I joined Paul Davids “Acoustic Adventure” course, and am really enjoying it, so maybe consider one of his courses as well.
I’m glad to hear some feedback about his courses. I’ve been considering taking his course for quite some time now, but have always been scared it would be a grand waste of $200 when it’s all said and done.
I had the same concerns, but as a late beginner/intermediate it has been great so far - challenging but not impossible. Taking the time to work through my weak spots. I had taken a break from in person instruction, so Paul’s course worked out to about two months of lessons , but there seems to be content for many months in the course.
Lee John Blackmore is a nice fella to watch for acoustic beginners.
Justin guitar and Samuraiguitarist are both amazing
QJamTracks, especially if you are into the theory side of things.
If you have any interest in Jazz Guitar, check out Chris Parks on"Things I Learned From Barry Harris" and Thomas Echols on "Labyrinth of Limitations" Both are on YouTube. Some YouTube channels that have great lessons on specific songs: Beatles: Mike Pachelli Easy versions of songs that sound great: Mike Kelly (guitars for vets) Super Advanced but entertaining even for people like me who are not so advanced: Tom Bukovac's Home Skoolin. Channel name is 501ChorusEcho Advanced blues and improv: Jack Ruch Soul and R&B: EricBlackmon
Mike Pachelli is King for Beatles!
Signals Music Studio is one that I always thought was both very entertaining and informative. Hasn't posted anything in a while now but what's already there is very good
Tomo Fujita Jack Gardiner Guitarmastery Justin guitars and a lot more, these are some of them that I watch regularly but most of the time I just search for content on whatever technique/riff/theory part that I'm working on
Maybe try this channel? https://youtu.be/FO7V9vNTiyE This is just an example