If you’re like 99% of my students and subscribers, the answer is no. Deep inside you want to feel the freedom to flawlessly navigate your instrument and improvise incredible melodic ideas, but more often than not, you feel unsatisfied, frustrated, or even stuck.
Hey, I’m Brent Vaartstra, professional jazz musician, author, and educator. I’m best known as the jazz musician behind the internationally renowned online jazz education site, Learn Jazz Standards.
I want to help you get on that same path to accelerating your jazz improv skills, and get the help and support you need to break through barriers and become the musician you’ve always wanted to be.
That’s why I created a place for you to get everything you need, all in one place, under one roof…
The LJS Inner Circle is a premium online jazz education membership. It is my complete package of top-notch jazz training and a community platform that fosters growth and the motivation for continual musical improvement.
In the Inner Circle you get access to:
* See list of instrument courses available below
By getting a monthly study packet and training video to learn a new jazz standard alongside other members. You’ll stop being confused by jazz standards, and feel confident to improvise over them.
By getting access to all of our in-depth premium courses and practice programs. I guarantee you will improve your playing quicker just like hundreds of my current and alumni course students.
By getting access to a growing library of beginner 101 courses on topics like music theory. You won’t feel lost or left behind in other parts of your membership. You'll have the training you need for success.
By joining courses or Practice Groups on topics you need help with, or by starting your own. You can get accountability and help from other members working on specific concepts you want to improve on.
By getting access to premium community forums and discussions. You don’t have to feel afraid to ask a question, or get help with something you’re stuck on. The community is there to help, and you can help others as well.
Every month you’ll get access to a new jazz standard study course, AND all previous studies, so you can learn and practice them. Here’s what’s included in the club:
Whether you need to work on learning essential jazz standards, ear training, the blues, or a full-on jazz practice program, my premium courses will provide great roadmaps for jazz improvement for all instruments.
From my flagship course 30 Steps to Better Jazz Playing, to my basic jazz theory book and course Zero to Improv, you’ll get instant access to all of these.
Learn at your own pace, when you want, wherever you want.
Our Instrument Accelerator courses help you excel in every other area of your membership by filling in the gaps on your specific instrument.
All instruments need to work on the same things for jazz improvisation, but our Instrument Accelerator courses will help you gain the technical freedom you need to start playing jazz like a pro!
Don’t see your instrument here yet? We are continually releasing more in the future, so don’t wait to get started.
These mini-courses will give you tools and knowledge you need to succeed in other areas of your membership and help you understand the basics of becoming a better jazz musician. We add new ones each quarter!
You’ll have exclusive access to our “Monthly Jazz Mastermind,” which is a live Q&A session we do on a monthly basis.
If you can’t make it on the date of the live call you can ask questions ahead of time, and I’ll answer them on the call so you can watch back on the replay, which is made available in the Inner Circle a few days later.
This is your opportunity to get answers to jazz and music related questions that you need help with!
The Inner Circle community is the place to go for all your questions, asking for feedback, gaining support and getting to know other like minded musicians.
You can even join or create your own Practice Groups so you can learn and work on concepts with other members and get accountability.
You won’t just be interacting with musicians who play your instrument. The Inner Circle community is diverse, with musicians playing all kinds of instruments. This is a HUGE advantage.
We created our Inner Circle Power Plan course especially for our new members so you can immediately start making meaningful improvement within your first 30 days of membership, even with little practice time!
My team and I hold all of our products to the highest of standards. We go to great lengths, with a lot of effort and care to only sell things to our audience that holds extreme value. Anything less, would be unacceptable.
Because of our confidence that you are going to love the Inner Circle, we are willing to take the risk completely out of the equation for you and put it on us.
We are offering a 30-day money back guarantee from the time of your purchase. If you don’t like the Inner Circle, email us, tell us why, and we’ll issue a full refund (we’ll cover the credit card fees too).
Not just a huge library of random content. The Inner Circle provides actual jazz courses, practice plans, and monthly jazz standard studies so you get real direction and results- not a whole lot of overwhelm.
A community of musicians playing all kinds of instruments. It’s not a community of just bass players, just guitar players, saxophonists, or pianists. You’ll not only learn a lot from musicians playing your instrument, but also gain perspective from musicians playing different ones.
More than just community forums. You can join or create Practice Groups with other members to share and work on things together. If you are a part of a course you’ll be working and communicating with other members who are in that course with you.
A place to learn the way that works for you. Have a lot of time on your hands to practice? Work on one of my in-depth practice programs. Don’t have a lot of time? Work on the monthly Jazz Standards Club study and keep it light. Have a specific skill you want to work on with others? Start a Practice Group and get help from the community.
Yes. While we strongly believe you will love the LJS Inner Circle and won’t want to leave, you can easily cancel your membership at anytime. There are no hoops you have to jump through, just a few clicks of your mouse. If you are paying monthly, your subscription will not renew at the next billing cycle. If you are paying annually, you will have 30 days to ask for a refund from time of purchase.
While you may know some jazz standards that we focus on in our Jazz Standards Club, no one is ever finished studying and improving their improv over a jazz standard. Regardless of your experience, you’ll find the resources such as the etude helpful, and the opportunity to interact with the community motivating to practice and share your jam sessions. As the Jazz Standard Club library grows, you will have continual access to each study. Outside of the Club, our Jazz Standards Playbook courses feature 20 studies of jazz standards that should keep you busy.
It is possible that you may have purchased one or more of our courses prior to the release of our membership. It’s important to point out that our courses sold individually cost $95-$247 each. So for many, membership will be a better value if you were planning on purchasing one or two courses.
But it is important to remember that having access to the Jazz Standards Club, 101 Courses (which are not available a la carte), Community forums and Practice Groups adds hundreds of dollars of additional monthly value to your membership. The value of being a member is completely worth it to you, even if you have already purchased some Premium Courses.
100% absolutely yes! You can rest assured that we never process credit cards ourselves. We use PayPal and Stripe to run payments which are industry standard 3rd party services that massive retail and online businesses use for payment processing.
After purchase you will be redirected to a Welcome Page, which will give you a quick orientation so you will feel comfortable navigating the Inner Circle and know first steps. But at anytime you can go to learnjazzstandards.com and click the login button so you can get access to the main membership dashboard.
No! While you will come across music theory in your membership, you will have the tools you need to learn the basics. Our growing list of beginner 101 Courses goes over common theory you will come across in other parts of our membership. In addition, you will have access to our basic jazz theory eBook and Course “Zero to Improv” which will get you going.
Everything that is provided in your membership is geared towards ALL melodic and harmonic instruments. While drummers may not get as much value out of some of the material, bassists, guitarists, pianists, saxophonists, trumpeters, violinists, harmonica players, vibes players, and others of the like will get great value. All courses and studies focus on concepts that ALL jazz musicians need to be working on and will benefit from. All handouts and materials are provided with versions for C, Bb, Eb, and Bass Clef instruments.