Learn Jazz Guitar

I remember when I first started playing jazz guitar. I was simply overwhelmed by everything that I had to learn. So many tunes, chords, scales, arpeggios, licks…. It was crazy. How was I supposed to learn all this stuff in a reasonable time. But I was really passionate about the music and the instrument and [...]

Anyone who’s followed my site for awhile knows that I emphasize building your jazz vocabulary by listening to the players you like and working with good transcriptions of solos.   The idea being that the more you work those licks and phrases into your own playing, you’ll eventually create your own voice when improvising.  This is [...]

In one of my previous articles, I discussed how important it is to develop a jazz vocabulary so that you actually start sounding like a jazz player instead of just playing up and down scales.  I mentioned the importance of learning licks and phrases.  But even if you know some licks, it can still be [...]

The first video in this lesson demonstrates how to play a 2-5-1 phrase in the key of F. Gm7-C7-FMaj7. The concept that I used to create this phrase is the same as with the phrase that we learned last time. I’m basically using a Gm7 arpeggio and then transitioning to a diminished substitution to the [...]

In the following video, I show how to play a nice 2-5-1 phrase in the key of C. Dm7-G7-Cmaj7. The ii-V-I progression is the most popular chord progression in all of jazz. It’s critical that you learn how to play over this progression. Take you time with this lick. Rhythmically, it might be a little [...]

Many beginning jazz musicians have misconceptions about what professional jazz musicians actually do when they improvise. In fact, many believe that they are simply playing melodies off the top of their head or that they just have a gift for creating beautiful solos on the fly. This is most certainly not true as I’ve learned [...]

I generally divide jazz guitarists into three basic camps when it comes to improvising styles: Motif style, Cliche-based, and Stream of Consciousness. Obviously all players don’t fall completely into any of these camps but it helps me to organize things.
Motif-Based
A player in the Motif camp generally will take maybe 3 or 4 ideas throughout the [...]

I noticed two different videos on Youtube recently of George Benson playing the song “Wekend in L.A.” – a great R&B tune that he recorded in the 80’s. What really struck me about the videos was not necessarily the simlarity of the arrangements. Many times a jazz artist will play the same arrangements of tunes [...]