Jazz Teacher vs. Jazz Coach - Which One Do You Need?

Now , i know for a fact that you have gone to school before , at least to some degree elementary school , high school , perhaps even college and while you were in school , you had what's called a teacher , and the difference between a coach and a teacher is actually quite interesting , and that's really what we're going to talk about today .

When it comes to your jazz playing and improving as a jazz musician , which one do you need A jazz coach or a jazz teacher ? And depending on where you're at and what you need to accomplish at this given moment in your musicianship , one may be better than the other for you . So let's jump right in and let's talk about that . Hey , what's up ? everybody ?

Brent here from Learn Jazz Standards , i am a jazz coach . I am the director of Learn Jazz Standards , and we help musicians playing all sorts of instruments learn how to play jazz , all while shortening the learning curve , and I'm just excited to be here today to help instruct , help inspire and help you become a better jazz player .

So let's talk about jazz coaches versus jazz teachers . Which one do you need .

And you may have noticed , by the way , that I just introduced myself as a jazz coach , and that's because , while I am actually both a jazz coach and a jazz teacher , i think of myself and I play more of a role for my inner circle members and in this very podcast as a jazz coach , and that's really what I define myself more as Now .

That doesn't necessarily mean that you need a jazz coach more than a jazz teacher , but what we want to talk about today is the difference between those two and to help you get a better understanding of what you actually need in your playing right now .

Now , before we talk about the difference between between those two and really dive deep into this subject , i want to just talk about the fact first that , no matter where you're at in your musicianship today whether you consider yourself a very beginner to jazz , like just getting into it , an intermediate player or even an advanced player I truly believe with 100% of

my heart that everybody does need to have teachers and coaches , and I do think it is important , if you're truly interested in improving as a musician , that you do invest in a teacher or a coach or into your music education And the reason I say that is not because , of course , that I have those things to offer as a product to you , but because I myself have

done that and everybody I've known who has reached a high level of musicianship has , in fact , done that . They've invested in perhaps going to music school , but they've definitely invested in getting music teachers and coaches and a variety of different things , and I like to differentiate that from stuff like this podcast .

Like this podcast is a great resource to help you learn And it is a place to get coaching right to some degree or level from me , and YouTube is a great place to go . However , all those things together are very sort of disjointed right and very you know , the classic information content overload .

So , while free stuff on the internet is great and I love it and I've used it in many different areas of my life and it's helped me improve , ultimately at some point you want to graduate to investing in your music education , and I really truly believe that that is super important to do .

It doesn't have to be me , it doesn't have to be , you know , a certain type of teacher , or it doesn't have to be a membership , like I offer . It doesn't have to be a private teacher . It's whatever works best for you , and part of my conversation today is to try to help identify for you what you need in your musicianship right now .

So let's talk about the difference , first , between a jazz teacher and a jazz coach . So first let's kind of talk about the role of a teacher in general , whether it's jazz , music or something else . A teacher's role in general is to impart new information and skills , right ? A teacher's role is to help you discover something new , right ?

So , for example , if you had a music teacher or a jazz teacher , a teacher could help you discover how to play the major scales in all 12 keys on your instrument . Right , because that's something that's fundamental and is important for you to be able to do . Okay , a teacher might help you understand music theory better . So what is a secondary dominant ?

What are chord progressions ? What's a two , five , one chord progression ? right ? Helping you understand actual concepts that will help you play better ultimately . Or enclosure patterns . How do we conceptualize jazz language ? right ?

Perhaps a teacher is literally showing you how to play something Like let me teach you a lick or a line and I'm going to show you exactly how to play it . Like I'm going to spoon , feed this information to you and help you learn how to play this on the spot .

Or a teacher , perhaps is sitting down with you and teaching you a song right , that's the role of the teacher . And just kind of go outside of music for a second and think about . You know , perhaps when you were growing up and you were going to school , you know the things that your teacher was teaching you . Your teacher was teaching you writing skills .

Your teacher was teaching you grammar . You were learning math , equations God forbid calculus . You know things of this sort , like new concepts that you hadn't learned before , and so that's the primary role of the teacher is to give you new information and skills . So what is a coach ?

Okay , so I want to go back to at the very beginning of this episode , where I was talking about sports . Right Now . I'm not really a huge sports guy , but I am a hockey fan . I like watching NHL hockey okay , professional hockey . That's because I grew up with it . My parents are Canadian . It's part of it . It's just part of it .

It's part of the rite of passage . So I'm a fan , and behind the bench , behind those players before they go out in the ice , is the coach . Right , the coach is behind the bench And the coach has a lot of different rules technically .

That the coach is playing in a sports environment , like the coach is saying you know which players are going to go on the ice , right ? A lot of strategy like , oh , these players are from the other team or out on the ice , so let's get this group of players to go against them because that might equal them out . So it's this strategic sort of thinking .

It's , when the players are coming back off of the ice to take a break on the bench , the coach is saying hey , i saw this happen , try to do this next time , right ? Or this player is doing this this certain way . So we have to approach this a slightly different way . So this is coaching , right .

Or , of course , when they're not playing a game , the coach is there at the practices And the coach is , you know , designating what drills they need to do , based on the skills that they need to further develop to play at a high level .

And the role of the coach is so important in professional sports , right , that you know you will see great coaches that if their team doesn't get to a certain place in the playoffs , right ?

Or get to the championship , the coach will get fired and the league will bring in the franchise , will bring in a new coach , like that's how important a coach's role is to a professional sports team , right ?

So I'm saying all this , especially if you're not a sports guy like me , just to understand like a coach is really important , right , like literally , sometimes they get new coaches on teams and don't really switch out a lot of different players , yet the next year , like that same team might go on and win the championship , right ? So the coach is important .

So the coach's role , just to really define it , the main general role of a coach is to refine and improve the knowledge and abilities . Right , refine and improve knowledge and abilities and give direction . Right , so that's how you help give direction for where someone should go . So to put them side by side .

Teacher , their role is more to impart new information and skills . A coach is more to refine and improve knowledge and abilities and help give direction for where someone should go in their playing . Now , can someone be both a jazz teacher and a jazz coach ? Absolutely , so .

If I'm looking at like , two circles in front of me , they're intersecting with each other and there's a middle section where absolutely . A teacher is sometimes acting as a coach and a coach is sometimes acting as a teacher , right ? Because sometimes those two things just absolutely do go together , right ? The question is , which one do you need more right now ?

Are you needing to learn more skills , or are you someone who needs more direction , right ? Okay ? so let's define that . Who would need a jazz teacher more than they would need a jazz coach ? Okay , so , if you are trying to learn how to play your instrument , you absolutely need a teacher more than you need a jazz coach .

Okay , you need someone to teach you how to play your instrument . Right , you need new information . You need someone to tell you where to put your fingers . You need someone to tell you what drills you need to do . You need someone to tell you the first song that you need to learn and how to actually learn it .

Like , what strategies do you need to know to learn it ? Perhaps you need to learn how to read music . Perhaps you need to learn how to learn something by ear . Okay , you're going to need a teacher if you're new to playing your instrument .

If you're new to playing jazz , right , you're going to need a teacher , because you might have zero idea how to even start taking a solo , like , maybe you have like one tool like the minor pentatonic scale at your disposal , but you need someone to teach you more skills and strategies for learning how to improvise , right .

So , if you're someone that's newer to jazz , absolutely you might need a teacher more than you need a coach . Right , you might need a teacher more than you need a coach . If you're someone that , in general , isn't as self-motivated or good at finding information and distilling the things that you really should be working on , then you might also need a teacher .

Right , you might need a teacher to help you go . This is exactly what you should do next , basically , more spoon feeding the exact process to you and teaching you everything that you need to do at the same time . That's a teacher . Learning new skills right .

Needing to know more music theory , needing to know more chord voicings on your guitar or your piano right , you might need a teacher . If you have zero idea how to play , drop two voicings , okay , important teacher is important role and that could be what you need at this time .

So , if you're paying attention here , primarily , someone might need a teacher if they're more in the beginning stage of either playing their instrument or learning jazz . Okay , that's really more of the teacher , of who would need a teacher is someone more in the beginner phase that needs to learn new skills .

And that's again not to say that even an advanced player sometimes doesn't need more of a jazz teacher , because sometimes there are holes , sometimes there's a gap in knowledge and you don't actually know how to do something and you need someone to tell you how to do something right .

That still comes up all the time And again , that's why , when we're looking at the jazz coach and the jazz teacher side by side , again picture these two circles and they're intersecting with each other in the middle And sometimes the jazz coach is a teacher and sometimes the teacher is the jazz coach .

Right , so it's not one or the other , always It's just one is going to focus more on one thing and one is going to focus more on another thing . Okay , so that's , who would need a teacher ? Who would need a jazz coach ? Who would need a jazz coach ? Okay , let's talk about that In general . You need a jazz coach .

If you're someone who has basic understanding of how to play their instrument right , has maybe a basic understanding , it could still be a beginner jazz player 100% , but needs more . Less like how to actually learn how to play something , and more like what do I do next ? How do I become a better teacher to myself ?

That's what a jazz coach is going to help you more with . Like what pathway do I need to get better faster ? That's where a jazz coach is going to help you right .

It's more directional And really , when I'm thinking about my role as a jazz coach and we have another jazz coach as well in our inner circle membership and like the things that we think about when we're trying to give direction to our inner circle members , is making them understand where the flaws in their playing is right .

So it's not so much going like , hey , work on this exact thing and here's the actual notes of how to do it . It's more like here's where we need to go next . And the reason why , by the way , we can do that in our inner circle membership is because all of the courses that we have in our inner circle membership are really more acting as the jazz teacher .

So we have all these courses in there on music theory , on learning things by ear , on playing bebop , on playing rhythm changes , on playing blues and like you name it And a lot of the content in these courses are like teachers , like here's actually how to play this , here's actually how to think about this right .

And so , when it comes to our roles , as you know , our community is engaging in our membership and posting their progress in our community , and so on and so forth .

Our role is to go in there and say how can we help you improve And how can we help you improve more on the things that you're already good at And how can we help you improve on the things that you're not so good at right now ?

That's the main focus of what we're trying to do right And trying to point someone in the right direction , but also getting our students to ask the right questions of themselves . Sometimes we'll be literally just asking our members questions , like , literally , what do you think from the recording that you just posted here ?

what do you think is the main weakness that you need to focus on and what is one thing that you can do right Now ? notice how , in that particular example , the jazz coach didn't necessarily give the answer .

The jazz coach just simply asked the student to think about it right , and sometimes the student needs to learn how to think about it , and that's where the coach also comes in and gives frameworks . For example , one of our frameworks that we use in our inner circle is called bad

jazz solos . That stands for BAD acronym and It means when you record yourself taking a solo . We recommend you record yourself a lot taking solos . You first when you're taking it . The B stands for brave , so you're taking risks . You're not afraid to Play things .

You're not trying to impress yourself or someone else , you're just trying to play an honest version of how you actually play . That's B . A stands for audited , right , which means you're listening back to it and you're asking yourself two questions What am I good at and what am I not good at ? and you write those things down .

And the things that you're good at , you Want to double down on and find a strategy to improve on that . The things you're not good at , you want to double down on and Figure out a strategy on how to overcome those things , right . And then the D stands for directional .

So a directional solo meaning that you're actually applying something from your last jazz audit . You did . You're not just like taking another solo , doing the same thing , hoping that something different happens . You're literally purposefully , actually implementing new things into your solos , right .

So that's the bad framework BAD for improving your solos , and This process helps people improve their solos 10 times faster . I mean 10 times is just a number . I can't guarantee the science behind that , but let's just say that it's way faster , and we've noticed this happening with our members ever since they've started implementing these strategies .

So This is what a coach will do . A coach will say , hey , look , here's what's going on here . We can give you some exercises to do absolutely , and we do that as well . As coaches , We give exercises or for you know things like that .

But one thing is like how can we teach you how to fish right , instead of giving you a fish , how can we teach you how to fish right ? you've heard that quote before , right ? so a framework like BAD helps you Understand how you can continually refine your own playing and improve faster . That's more what a coach is doing right .

A coach is helping you improve faster . Coach is helping you get direction . A coach is Giving you guidance . A coach is also , of course , able to see the details that you can't see , okay ?

so , for example , one of the most common pieces of feedback that I give to members in our inner circle is Hey , listen back to your recording of your solo , and I'm noticing that you play a lot of really good melodies and Motific ideas and lines , but they're all short , chopped up phrases .

And if you listen to great jazz musicians , they're playing , yeah , short phrases to and motific ideas , but then there are sometimes connecting them with longer flowing eighth note lines that stretch two to three bars at a time . Right , but I'm not hearing that , and so therefore your solo still sounds a bit amateur .

So then I'll usually give yes , indeed , the teacher comes out and gives an actual exercise for you to do to try to start Overcoming that . But that's what a coach is doing . A coach is listening and going oh Okay , your good things are happening here .

But here's the one thing that's not happening and that we need to get working on right , and that's giving direction . So a coach gives direction more than a coach Teaches a new skill right . So again , for us it's a little bit easier when we're in our inner circle membership , because Our courses are oftentimes the teachers , right , and then we're the coaches .

But even a lot of our courses , too , are like Week one , do this , week two , do this . It's like very much so , also directional at the same time . It's like a practice program versus like here's a bunch of random stuff that you should just learn , right . So we try to build that into everything because , again , we think of ourselves more as jazz coaches .

So that's more what a coach is doing . So , again , if you're someone that has is more a beginner , intermediate or an intermediate to jazz , you're gonna want to have a jazz coach more than a jazz teacher . You're still gonna want to have a teacher there , but you're gonna want more of a jazz coach and really you will want that .

If you're more of a beginner at your instrument or a beginner at jazz , you may want to more heavily rely on a jazz teacher , right , someone to actually teach you new skills , right .

Once you get some of those skills and basics not that you need to know all of it , but just some basics underneath then really you need someone more to give you direction on how to continually implement those things and improve on those things , right ? So that's really where you want to transition over to more of a coach , right , who's working with you .

So where can you find a jazz teachers ? Where can you find jazz coaches ? Okay , jazz teachers , pretty obvious , right ? A private lesson teacher . Everybody at some point should be taking a lesson from a private lesson teacher , right , a one-on-one teacher . And again , if you're like a beginner to your instrument , you really should rely heavily on private lessons .

Okay , courses are great , too , because courses are also teachers . Certain kinds of courses are also teachers , right .

It's just that you're not getting that personal feedback , and probably , if you're a very beginner , you're going to want some of that personal feedback , right , you're gonna really want someone more personally catering to you , because you have to sort of like bridge a pretty big gap to start with , right .

Once you've bridged that gap , though , you might still want a private lesson teacher , but you'll want to like do it more like a doctor's check-in . And that's kind of what I started to do , especially in college . It was more like , and then , even after that , was like , okay , i'm gonna go study , take a lesson from one of my favorite jazz musicians , right .

But it's not so much that I want this guy to like teach me a bunch of new things , i just want him to hear me play and then tell me what I should do better , or like , give me some insight of what I should go and do next , right , cause I feel a little stuck .

So it's more like a doctor's check-up with the jazz teacher thing , and I think that's a great thing for everybody to do , really , for as long as they're studying music , as just everyone wants to . Well , do a doctor's check-in , and again , doesn't matter if you're a beginner or an advanced player , like we could all use that from time and time again .

Okay , so that's one kind of jazz teacher . I mentioned courses as well . A course is another kind of jazz teacher . A course that teaches you new skills . Specifically , it can be helpful . So , for example , a jazz theory course .

If you feel like you don't know a lot of jazz theory and you've noticed that that's kind of held you back from becoming a better jazz improviser or just understanding jazz tunes and stuff like that , then taking a course on jazz theory could be a helpful thing to do , right ?

Ultimately , a course without coaching or a course without direction can just be like new information you're learning , right . So if the course isn't good at teaching you how to apply that information , then that can be a problem , right ? But a course is also a teacher , all right .

So those are what I would recommend for teachers courses and actual private lesson teachers . If you want to coach , you could still have , again , a private lesson , but that teacher is more acting as a coach for you , right ?

And this is where I'm talking about more of like the doctor's checkups Maybe it's a once a month thing , maybe it's a once every quarter thing where you're checking in with someone and they're giving you a bunch of things to kind of do and a focus , and they're able to analyze what you're doing a little bit better .

Okay , so the private lesson thing totally can still work as a jazz coach , right . In fact , it makes a lot of sense if you think about it . Memberships are great too .

So obviously we have our membership and that's a place where , in our inner circle membership right You have the teachers which are the courses there , but you also have a community of other people who , even though they may not all be professionals , they're also coaching too .

They're kind of encouraging , they're kind of leaving you feedback , letting you know what's going on . And then , of course , we have coaches in there as well , including myself , who are dropping in and giving feedback , and we do live Q&A sessions where you can ask questions and I do coaching on those .

So you can do that more in a group setting , which is like a membership , which is what we offer . Okay , so those are a couple of different options there for coaches that I would recommend . Again , i really do believe in this idea of having a coach or a teacher It doesn't matter what form it's really in .

I do believe in it , though , and I believe in this especially more as I started getting coaching and help outside of just music , right . So I started getting business coaching to improve my business . I started joining mastermind groups of people other entrepreneurs , who were good at business , and the stuff that I learned from that was huge , right .

Or to me just going out and trying to do it on my own or just trying to go fish through podcasts and YouTube , right , 100% worth the time , energy and money to get that coaching .

I've also gotten therapy right For my personal life to try to help with issues with anxiety and other things that we all have right , and investing in that was huge , really important . A lot better than me just reading a self-help book Again , nothing wrong with self-help books . They're packed full of really great information , right .

But once I started realizing having that coach right , a therapist , in this example , to help me work through certain issues . Right , that was really helpful . Even apps I've used for sleeping .

I've had issues with sleeping in the past and I've used apps that do include coaching that have really helped me , that have really helped improve different personal areas of my life . So investing , of course .

Again , i'm just bringing this as an example of how investing in things even outside of music made me even more of a believer that if you want to improve on an area like music , investing in it is important .

So go look for that teacher and it doesn't have to be me , it doesn't have to be the inner circle , but go look for who you think would be the right fit for you to start achieving your goals in your musicianship . And I don't think you're going to regret investing in yourself and finding what you need .

If improving as a jazz player , if being a better musician is important to you And most people listening to this podcast , it is important to them , right , because music does improve your life . And you're probably feeling a little bit of pain at the same time . Right , you're feeling a little bit of frustration with how good you are .

You may not like listening back to your recordings as much . You may feel a little stuck like you're on a musical plateau and those aren't places that you want to be for very long , because the reason that you're into music is for the fun of it , like having fun .

It could be your outlet , it could be anything for you , but music is something that we should all be enjoying more , and so if you can't afford to invest in that and get a coach or get a teacher , then that's a really good thing for you to do And I would highly highly recommend it .

So my challenge for you this week is to think you know which one do you need more Jazz teacher , jazz coach and , depending on the two of those , if it's feasible for you right now , go find one and figure out how you can start engaging in that right away and start learning and start improving . All right , my friends , that's all for today's episode .

Thank you so much for listening . Do appreciate it . Like I said , if you feel like the Learn Jazz Standards Inner Circle would be a good jazz coach slash jazz teacher for you , check it out . Ljsnrcirclecom Link in the show notes as well . Wherever you listen to podcasts , you'll see a link in the show description there on your app .

So check it out LJSNRcirclecom . Love to have you join us . We'll be coming out with another great episode of the podcast coming up next week . Until then , happy practicing and cheers .