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Short answer: Pat Martino's approach, laid out in his book Linear Expressions, is to think of every chord as a minor chord. A major 7 becomes its relative minor, a dominant 7 becomes the ii chord that leads to it, a half-diminished chord becomes the minor chord a minor 3rd up, and an altered dominan...
Short answer: Learn There Is No Greater Love, What Is This Thing Called Love, There Will Never Be Another You and Days of Wine and Roses, in that order. I analyzed the chord progressions of more than 100 jazz standards, and together these four tunes cover the four core chord qualities and the most c...
Short answer: Don't start with ii-V-I licks or a different scale for every chord. Start at the end. Learn the resolution notes on the I chord first, then use one small triad shape over the V chord that slides down a half step into those resolution notes, then one triad over the ii chord. That gives ...
33 Lessons I Learned Before 33
Every year I get a little older, I try to get a little wiser. I wrote 30 Lessons Before 30 and 32 Lessons Before 32 as a way to reflect on what I've learned and share the ideas that stuck with me. (I guess I didn’t learn anything at 31 😅) This year was a big one. I g...
A case study in what makes the difference between struggling and succeeding in your guitar journey
The Problem That Stops Most Guitarists
Julien had a problem that plagues thousands of guitarists: he knew what he wanted to do, but he couldn't figure out how to get there.
As a musician since...
1. Feedback - People improve through immediate, specific feedback on their playing and specific steps to level up. The more feedback the better, in general, and the CLOSER that feedback is to when they make the mistake, the better. I believe this means you need to be available as a teacher every DAY...
I recently came across a passionate post on Instagram by jazz saxophonist Patrick Bartley calling for a boycott of AI technologies, in response to AI posts my brother Kevin made on JazzMemes. Before diving in, I want to acknowledge that Patrick is someone I consider a friend and have tremendous resp...
Today's my birthday, so I thought I'd share 32 things I've learned at 32.
- "The Obstacle is the Way" - (Ryan Holiday, inspired by Stoic philosophy) What is blocking your path will help you achieve your way forward. When Peter Farrell verbally attacked me online, in the moment it was an obstacle. ...
We asked our favorite jazz musicians to all jam on a blues! You can watch the video HERE
We hope you enjoy their performances and go follow and support each of them at the link below:
Julian Pollack
- YouTube Channel
- Instagram
Chris Botti
- Website
- New Album!
Dave Pollack
- Website
- YouTube...
The Skool platform CHANGED my life. As a jazz musician it’s allowed me to break out of the grind of trading my time for money, and build something that will scale over time.
In this video I’m going to do 2 things: the first is give you a quick overview of the Skool platform and why you should use i...
Today, I turned 30.
I’ve done a lot and learned a lot in that time. From student to math teacher, and from jazz guitarist to entrepreneur - it’s been a journey.
Here are just 30 of the most impactful lessons I’ve learned before turning 30.
- If you’re feeling mentally down, first make sure you’ve ...
If you'd like to check out my latest, improved version of this list click here. And, if you play guitar and would like to study these jazz standards with me, click here.
📚 The 50 Jazz Standards Blueprint 📚
Here are the first 50 jazz standards I would have students learn. For the sake of getting...
