The following is a process designed to get your brain to assimilate new musical material. This system will let you memorize music fast and help you reprogram your mental synapses and learn music the right way rather than relying on muscle memory only. This process applies to all music and all instruments and assumes that you have some competency on your instrument.

1. Look at the page you are about to learn and make mental notes of all the new music.

2. Break this material into small sections. i.e. (One measure or two measures or a Phrase)

3. Focus completely on the first of these small sections and allow all the details to register clearly in your mind. For example you may ask yourself what octaves, what rhythm, what fingering etc. Try to picture in your mind how you are going to play the section, then when you have an absolutely clear mental image of the section of music, PLAY THROUGH ONCE SLOWLY.

4. Try to associate this new material to something which you are familiar, for instance it may remind you of some song you have heard, etc.

5. Now, turn away from the music and PRACTICE REMEMBERING what you saw. Try to avoid taking a second look at the music. Go ahead and practice the entire section of music entirely from memory.

6. Always practice new material very slowly at first and gradually build up to a faster tempo this may take a week to reach a desired tempo. Use a metronome to help build up to tempo.

7. Once you have mastered the first small section, put down your instrument and take a short break for longer sections take a longer break.

8. When you have mastered all the small sections then start stringing them together by playing the piece from start to finish. Do not stop if you make a mistake, keep on playing through to the end. Afterwards, go back and clear up any problem spots individually. Refuse to go over and over things you already know.

Repeat this process on any music or sections of music you are learning EXACTLY and include the rest period. Immediately begin to look for places to apply what you have learned. Always be on the lookout for new ways to use what you know.

Dennis St Germain is a jazz musician located in Eugene Oregon. Currently he is playing in two bands, Ritmo de la Noche a Latin Jazz band as well as Calango a Brazilian Dance music band. If you want to learn an instrument or become a better musician visit http://www.music-lessons-on-dvd.com

Jazz is a language. Its practitioners are public speakers. Think of what happens when one learns to speak English, Korean or Japanese, for example. The process is the same as when learning jazz. You learn by listening and picking up figures of speech, then you learn to use them in your own personal manner to make statements by putting them together in paragraphs and sentences to tell your story.

If you were to speak publicly, you would want to know the story well (in this case the tune or composition), and you would want to know the vocabulary. You would practice telling the story, work out the rough parts, and then learn how to vary the story in a variety of ways, for example, short vs. long versions, different introductions, and endings, substitute words and phrases, rhythms, moods and pacing, and so on.

As with public speakers such as politicians, you get all kinds of jazz performer: those who are insincere, those who are slick, those who are brilliant and have their own voices and styles, those who are spontaneous, those who use easy to understand vocabulary (soft jazz), those who use complex language (Miles Davis, John Coltrane), those who are mediocre, and those who deliver a memorized or prompted (written) statement.

You get the comparison, so contemplate it in every aspect and you’ll understand. The only difference between an extemporaneous art form such as jazz and the spoken language is the fact that you can’t use it for such practical purposes as ordering a cup of coffee.

The Fastest and Easiest Ways to Learn Improvisation:

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ByrneJazz Online Lessons