Still Practicing—Just Filming It Now

I want to share my practice routine with you, and I also want to talk about how I work on my shorts. Because yes—welcome to 2026… a jazz guitar player turned into a content creator. But maybe that’s not entirely true.

So anyway, whatever your outlook on social media might be at the moment, I am very happy to have the possibility to make some shorts, as I try to do one every day. Basically, when I have the time, I try to practice two times 45 minutes every day, preferably in the morning. In the afternoon, I do more of the administrative stuff.

This morning I started by working on a new tune. It’s called “At Last You’re Here” ( Pat Metheny) and it’s such a great song—you can find it on his album “ Day Trip”. It’s a waltz and has some chord progressions that are not so easy to play over. I wanted to sit down and work on this tune, but then I thought, “Well, I might as well make a short about it.” And yes, that happens more often now—my practice sessions turn into preparation for shooting videos.

It used to be that when I was practicing guitar, I was preparing more for playing live, and now it’s the internet. But I think a lot of good things are happening for me here. On the one hand, the algorithm really pushes me to publish all the time. When something is doing well, I want to do the next thing and sort of ride the wave. But if nothing is working and I don’t get any clicks or comments, then I have to figure something out and post something more appealing soon. That can be nerve-racking.

On the other hand, I can be creative and do stuff that I love—and sort of get paid for practicing.

Especially the 1-minute shorts that I never really wanted to do are now pretty cool. I really like doing step-by-step guides, working with my looper and slowly building layer upon layer, explaining a concept and playing—all without saying a word. That’s so much fun.

So this morning I also worked on four bars of this Pat Metheny tune, and I think this short is going to be up in the next days. In the second half, I worked on a chord-melody arrangement for “Beautiful Love.” That’s more of a long-term project. I know I can’t do a chord-melody arrangement in one day—I could, but I wouldn’t like the arrangement. First of all, I need to find chords, and it just has to work. I always try to harmonize each and every note. Some passages turn out pretty well immediately, others are more tricky and I harmonize them in a more pragmatic way. Then I come back to the chord-melody arrangement again and again over the next days. I play it the tune by heart, and more often than not I get new ideas for passages I didn’t like, so I’m just rearranging the arrangement over and over again, sort of polishing it. Then I record it. ( takes me longer than i want to admit).

I included my handwritten notes. I really like to write with a good pencil on paper, and that’s what it looks like.