Author: Gianni C.

Posted in A day in the life of a musician, Jazz Standards, Tips and Online finds

A list of the most popular jazz standards

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This post if for the jazz guys, and possibly those that want to venture into jazz territory. I talked about repertoire yesterday, and today I was asked by a friend to put together a list of the most popular jazz standards that might be called at a jam session…this is what I came up with, and I thought of sharing it with you. Comes without saying that this list is by all means incomplete and dictated by my experience with jazz jams.  Feel free to add your suggestion in the comments section!

A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Sqare

Agua De Beber

Ain’t Misbehavin’

All Blues

All of Me

All of You

All Or Nothing At All

All the Things You Are

Alone Together

Angel Eyes

Autumn Leaves

Beautiful Love

Billie’s Bounce

Blue Bossa

Blue Monk

Blue Moon

Body and Soul

But Not For Me

Bye Bye Blackbird

C Jam Blues

Caravan

Chelsea Bridge

Cherokee

Come Rain Or Come Shine

Cry Me a River

Darn That Dream

Days of Wine and Roses

Desafinado

Do Nothin’ Till You Hear From Me

Don’t Get Around Much Anymore

Donna Lee

Doxy

Easy to Love

Embraceable You

Estate

Everything Happens to Me

Everytime We Say Goodbye

Fly Me To The Moon

Foggy Day

Four

Gee Baby Ain’t I Good to You

Gentle Rain

Georgia On My Mind

Giant Steps

Girl From Ipanema

God Bless the Child

Good Bait

Green Dolphin Street

Have You Met Miss Jones

Here’s That Rainy Day

How Deep is the Ocean

How High the Moon

How Insensitive

How Long Has This Been Going On

I Can’t Get Started

I Could Write a Book

I Didn’t Know What Time It Was

I Get a Kick Out of You

I Got Rhythm/Rhythm Changes

I Hear a Rhapsody

I Loves You Porgy

I Remember You

I Should Care

I Thought About You

I’ll Remember April

I’ve Got You Under My Skin

If I Should Lose You

If I Were a Bell

Impressions

In A Sentimental Mood

Invitation

Isn’t It Romantic

It Ain’t Necessarily So

It Could Happen to You

It Don’t Mean A Thing

It Had to Be You

Jitterbug Waltz

Joy Spring

Just Friends

Just One of Those Things

Killer Joe

Lady Is A Tramp

Laura

Lazy bird

Like Someone In Love

Love For Sale

Lover Man

Lullaby Of Birdland

Lush Life

Mack the Knife

Maiden Voyage

Mercy, Mercy, Mercy

Misty

Moanin’

Mr. P.C.

My Favorite Things

My Foolish Heart

My Funny Valentine

My Little Suede Shoes

My One and Only Love

My Romance

Nardis

Nature Boy

Night and Day

Night In Tunisia

Now’s The Time

Old Devil Moon

Old Folks

Oleo

On A Slow Boat To China

On The Sunny Side Of The Street

One Note Samba

Over The Rainbow

Polka Dots and Moonbeams

Prelude To A Kiss

Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars (Corcovado)

Round Midnight

Satin Doll

Scrapple From The Apple

Smile

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

So What

Softly as In A Morning Sunrise

Solar

Someday My Prince Will Come

Someone To Watch Over Me

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

Song For My Father

Sonnymoon For Two

Speak Low

St. Thomas

Stella By Starlight

Stormy Weather

Straight No Chaser

Sugar

Summertime

Sunny

Sweet Georgia Brown

Take Five

Take the “A” Train

Tea For Two

The Man I Love

The Nearness of You

The Night Has 1000 Eyes

The Shadow Of Your Smile

The Very Thought of You

The Way You Look Tonight

There is No Greater Love

There Will Never Be Another You

They Can’t Take That Away From Me

Things Ain’t What They Used to Be

This Masquerade

Time After Time

Tune Up

Watermelon Man

Wave

Well You Needn’t

What is This Thing Called Love

When I Fall In Love

When Sunny Gets Blue

Work Song

Yesterdays

You and the Night and the Music

You Don’t Know What Love Is

You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To

Posted in A day in the life of a musician

The Importance of Repertoire

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In this short post I want to spend a few words on the importance of knowing tunes, either written by other musicians or by yourself. ‘Repertoire’ is often a fancy word we use to identify ‘all the tunes we know’.

In my experience as teacher I have found to be a divide between the guitarist that is obsessed by theory and scales and that who is just interested in learning songs with no real interest in knowing how this songs are created.  I always wondered why  the second category were happier about their playing…

We spend as musicians most of our time learning theory, techniques and we often wonder how these fit in with ‘real life’….a lot of times we forget that tunes and musical pieces/compositions should be the goal of what we do. All these exercises and music theory studies should be a way to better perform and understand the tunes we know and write.

I always suggest to all my students to always keep an updated list of all the tunes they know (or they can busk), and a folder with all their original material, from the completed tunes to the ‘work in progress’ type material.

Keep writing and learning new tunes: this will give you a sense of purpose  in your studies and also it will be a test for all the techniques and theory you have learnt…

Good luck!

Posted in Technical Exercises

5 ways to improve your guitar technique

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If you fall in the category of the million of guitarists out there frustrated with their technique, these are 5 quick suggestions to quickly clean up your skills.

1. Use your metronome!

As cliche’ as it sounds, your metronome is your best friend. Whatever scale, phrase, exercise you want to improve or speed up,  start with a slow metronome speed and try to lock in. Only when you have played the material correctly for at least 10 times in  a row, increase the speed by 5bpm.

You can find a list of good on-line metronomes here:

https://www.giannichiarello.com/5-free-online-metronomes-that-work/

They are all free at the time of writing.

2. Finger combination exercises.

This is something I’ve been doing myself for years, and even though it can be an overwhelming amount of work at the beginning, I can now quickly cover all finger combinations in less than 10 minutes.  The idea is to play all left hand finger combinations up and down the neck to cover all possible motions of your left hand fingers.

Find all about it here:

https://www.giannichiarello.com/finger-combinations-pt-1/

https://www.giannichiarello.com/finger-combinations-pt-2-the-next-level/

…and this is the PDF file with the combinations.

https://www.giannichiarello.com/LESSON%20MATERIAL/Finger%20Combinations.jpg

3. Transpose.

Technique and speed of execution, has a lot to do with how well you know a certain scale, phrase or exercise. Transposing this material in all keys is a great way to achieve this. Try transposing up and down a half-step to star with, but challenge yourself and try transposing a forth up or a minor third up. Not only you will connect all your senses, but you might end up with some new interesting musical ideas.

4. Play with friends/ other musicians.

I always suggest this to all my student. Practising by yourself is better than doing nothing, but playing with fellow musicians will improve your playing and technique tenfold, as your level of concentration is much higher when playing with friends or in a group.

5. Write challenging material.

If you want to achieve a certain musical goal, try and write a tune about it. Do you want to master the harmonic minor scale? Write a tune based on it…and learn it thoroughly. Seeing things on paper sometimes is the best thing to crystallize new and challenging material.

…and most of all be patient and have a positive attitude!

Posted in Backing Tracks

MrG Blues Backing Tracks Vol 3 Rock Blues

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MrG Blues Backing Tracks Vol 3

Prepare for a journey through classic rock, heavy blues and funk rock: these tracks are guaranteed to get you rocking whilst you improve your instrumental skills. Vol 3 includes 12 tracks to cover all keys, tempos ranging from very slow to very fast, in the most popular Rock Blues styles. This set is now available in a bundle in my shop page HERE

Now available on CdBaby – iTunes – Amazon

Posted in Products

MrG Blues Backing Tracks Vol 3 – Rock Blues

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MrG Blues Backing Tracks Vol 3

Prepare for a journey through classic rock, heavy blues and funk rock: these tracks are guaranteed to get you rocking whilst you improve your instrumental skills. Vol 3 includes 12 tracks to cover all keys, tempos ranging from very slow to very fast, in the most popular Rock Blues styles. This set is now available in a bundle in my shop page HERE Now available on CdBaby – iTunes – Amazon!