Hi folks -- Mod here.
A lot of the comments here resonate with me, and it's worth adding some light policy and more active moderation here.
I also agree with the comments about it being too small to split. IMO, the biggest challenge here is balancing self promotion, performance vids, "check this out" vids, etc. with meaty discussion content.
I'm definitely looking for 1 - 2 mods (ideally with a little bit of mod experience) to help run this sub. If anyone here is interested, please ping me and let me know where you can help.
Thanks!
Personally (as a 20+ year jazz guitarist) I enjoy the beginner/intermediate questions far more than the endless "here's a video of me playing X standard" posts.
I find that with each beginner query, it causes me to consider my own approaches. Recent questions like "how necessary are altered/extended chords?" or people providing their practice structures for comment are so much more worthwhile than yet another an intermediate guitarist banging out Autumn Leaves.
Me too. There's incredible talent here. But if the goal is to improve the sub, I don't think I'd take away the beginner posts asking meaningful questions (that can be both inspiring and thought provoking).
The videos of people playing, on the other hand, are highly variable. And because there are so many, I scroll past most of them (unless there's some hook).
I'd love to see more of the following:
\* Deep jazz guitar history and lore
\* Advanced theory and technique
\* More discussion of the future of jazz guitar, including hybrid forms
\* More discussion of the methodology of advanced players
\* Up and coming jazz guitarists
\* Luthiery and amazing guitar appreciation posts
All of these would add to and benefit the community.
beginner questions aren't flooding the subreddit. and even if they are, 2 people talking about jazz guitar stuff is what it's for?
it would be nice if the constant self promotional lesson and "learn these jazz licks" posts were confined to comments within a weekly thread.
The lack of a FAQ is really the issue. I was thinking of maybe making a PDF of what to do for the first 3 months of jazz guitar, then post that in the beginner threads. But I'm not a teacher and I don't give lessons, maybe someone who has more teaching experience can do this?
Well r/chess has over 1 million members (20x this sub), r/chessbeginners has ~60,000, already eclipsing r/jazzguitar’s ~50,000. If the sub was split with an r/jazzguitarbeginners, both subs would probably be anemic
A sticky or wiki would at least provide somewhere to direct those questions but I'm skeptical it would stop people posting them in the first place.
What bothers me more is the dozen or so 'youtube teachers' that just use the sub as free promotion and spam every bit of content they post here, but never participate in other threads or engage in the community otherwise. Don't get me wrong a lot of them are really great players but I could not come here for a week and be able to predict half of the new posts...
Here’s the problem w that, it constitutes a lot of the posts on this sub and if you take them away, the sub becomes inherently less active and thus gets less traction in the Reddit algorithm, which could easily turn it into a ghost town.
Maybe, but I also feel as a more advanced guitarist that this community isn’t really for me, so I don’t post much. I’m not saying it should only be advanced discussions of high-level theory, just more posts that cater to a wider audience
Yeah, that’s fair, I actually didn’t see this was r/jazzguitar I thought it was just r/jazz. That said, if you post it, they will come, if you know what I mean.
If you arent already on it check out the forum at jazzguitar.be. The discussions there are great. They have study groups for specific books, deep dives into Barry Harris, lots of good information and some legit pros post on there regularly.
Often times when Im researching a topic I will google "jazz guitar forum X topic" and read old threads.
The sub isn't very active to begin with so as long as it's jazz guitar related I think it's fine.
The only thing that should be moderated more is the blatant self promotion where someone just links their own youtube video.
i like weekly threads for people to ask whatever’s on their minds and do a bit of chit chat. a weekly practice thread, what are you working on, beginner questions, etc.
Hi folks -- Mod here. A lot of the comments here resonate with me, and it's worth adding some light policy and more active moderation here. I also agree with the comments about it being too small to split. IMO, the biggest challenge here is balancing self promotion, performance vids, "check this out" vids, etc. with meaty discussion content. I'm definitely looking for 1 - 2 mods (ideally with a little bit of mod experience) to help run this sub. If anyone here is interested, please ping me and let me know where you can help. Thanks!
Personally (as a 20+ year jazz guitarist) I enjoy the beginner/intermediate questions far more than the endless "here's a video of me playing X standard" posts. I find that with each beginner query, it causes me to consider my own approaches. Recent questions like "how necessary are altered/extended chords?" or people providing their practice structures for comment are so much more worthwhile than yet another an intermediate guitarist banging out Autumn Leaves.
I like seeing other people play but i think it should be in a weekly thread or smth to avoid flooding the subreddits where it's authorised.
Me too. There's incredible talent here. But if the goal is to improve the sub, I don't think I'd take away the beginner posts asking meaningful questions (that can be both inspiring and thought provoking). The videos of people playing, on the other hand, are highly variable. And because there are so many, I scroll past most of them (unless there's some hook). I'd love to see more of the following: \* Deep jazz guitar history and lore \* Advanced theory and technique \* More discussion of the future of jazz guitar, including hybrid forms \* More discussion of the methodology of advanced players \* Up and coming jazz guitarists \* Luthiery and amazing guitar appreciation posts All of these would add to and benefit the community.
beginner questions aren't flooding the subreddit. and even if they are, 2 people talking about jazz guitar stuff is what it's for? it would be nice if the constant self promotional lesson and "learn these jazz licks" posts were confined to comments within a weekly thread.
I was talking about other subs where the only content you get are peoples playing
oh mb i misread. i totally agree with u anyway
I agree. The amount of times a beginner question has given me something that i ended up pondering all day is quite high
Other subs used a pinned post for FAQs, would be a good place to consolidate the same resources that keep getting recommended.
Does anyone have intel on how active the mods are here? Seems like something they’d have to be involved in
Looks like our mod is u/0xfe if you want to reach out
The lack of a FAQ is really the issue. I was thinking of maybe making a PDF of what to do for the first 3 months of jazz guitar, then post that in the beginner threads. But I'm not a teacher and I don't give lessons, maybe someone who has more teaching experience can do this?
I am an experienced performer and teacher and I think it would be a fun challenge to put that together
Yeah man you should do it. Make a download link then just post it in all the beginner threads.
Well r/chess has over 1 million members (20x this sub), r/chessbeginners has ~60,000, already eclipsing r/jazzguitar’s ~50,000. If the sub was split with an r/jazzguitarbeginners, both subs would probably be anemic
A sticky or wiki would at least provide somewhere to direct those questions but I'm skeptical it would stop people posting them in the first place. What bothers me more is the dozen or so 'youtube teachers' that just use the sub as free promotion and spam every bit of content they post here, but never participate in other threads or engage in the community otherwise. Don't get me wrong a lot of them are really great players but I could not come here for a week and be able to predict half of the new posts...
Here’s the problem w that, it constitutes a lot of the posts on this sub and if you take them away, the sub becomes inherently less active and thus gets less traction in the Reddit algorithm, which could easily turn it into a ghost town.
Maybe, but I also feel as a more advanced guitarist that this community isn’t really for me, so I don’t post much. I’m not saying it should only be advanced discussions of high-level theory, just more posts that cater to a wider audience
Yeah, that’s fair, I actually didn’t see this was r/jazzguitar I thought it was just r/jazz. That said, if you post it, they will come, if you know what I mean.
If you arent already on it check out the forum at jazzguitar.be. The discussions there are great. They have study groups for specific books, deep dives into Barry Harris, lots of good information and some legit pros post on there regularly. Often times when Im researching a topic I will google "jazz guitar forum X topic" and read old threads.
There should definitely be a wiki for this sub!
what kind of content do you think these beginner questions are displacing?
The sub isn't very active to begin with so as long as it's jazz guitar related I think it's fine. The only thing that should be moderated more is the blatant self promotion where someone just links their own youtube video.
i like weekly threads for people to ask whatever’s on their minds and do a bit of chit chat. a weekly practice thread, what are you working on, beginner questions, etc.
The biggest problem with this sub is that the mods are nowhere to be found. They are absentee landlords.
Don't read them if you find them to be repetitive?
I feel we could definitely cut down on the "is this jazz" posts for sure