This is a blog on 5 quick ways to improve your jazz guitar playing.
In this blog I am going to give you 5 quick ways to improve your jazz guitar playing. These are simple things that can be applied immediately to make you sound more hip.
1) Use full chords. Most guitarists use only the top four strings when playing chords in comping situations. By using the full chord, you instantly create more harmonic tension and interest to the listener’s ear. This is because there are more notes in the chord, which are played with the same rhythm. The more notes within the same rhythm, the more tension is created. This can also be done by playing an arpeggio of a chord instead of just strumming it.
2) Create tension between your right and left hands by avoiding “obvious” rhythms and phrasing choices. For example: If you play a blues with straight 8th note phrasing in both hands, there is very little tension between your right and left hands as they both have the same rhythm. Instead, try to avoid playing these obvious choices and choose something less expected like a triplet or 16th note phrase in one hand while maintaining a swing feel in the other hand (or vice versa). This creates rhythmic
Here are 5 quick tips to get you on the road to better jazz guitar playing. Not only will these help you sound more like a jazz player, but they also apply to many other styles of music as well.
1. Work on your chords. Many guitarists spend way too much time learning licks and scales and not enough time improving their chord vocabulary and comping skills. If you can’t play chords, you certainly cannot be a jazz guitarist. Learning jazz chords will not only improve your comping skills, but it will give you a deeper understanding of harmony and help you solo better as well.
2. Learn the changes before you learn the tune. This applies to both standards and original compositions. If you want to improvise over a standard, make sure that you know the chord progression inside out before learning the melody or any solos that may have been recorded by other artists. I promise this will save you so much time in the long run! You’ll be able to focus on playing the changes and making cool stuff up without getting stuck trying to remember the melody or the licks that others have played on it.
3. Listen widely and often. Listening is one of the most important things that a musician can do, but so many people don
If you are a jazz guitar player, you probably know the feeling of being stuck at some point in your development. It’s also very likely that you have tried to fix your issues with practicing more but without a clear goal in mind.
In this article I will share five quick ways to improve your jazz guitar playing by focusing on different aspects of your musicianship. I am sure that by applying these five “cures” to your playing, you will notice a lot of progress in the upcoming weeks and months.
1) Work on Your Chops
When it comes to getting your fingers moving fast, nothing beats practicing technique-oriented exercises. However, make sure that you always try to apply them in a musical context by improvising over chord changes or comping along with backing tracks.
The best way to improve your chops is to create challenging exercises for yourself and then practice them daily for 10-15 minutes until they feel easy and effortless.
2) Improve Your Rhythm Skills
Jazz music is all about rhythm and feel. If you are not swinging hard enough or if the subdivisions of your lines are super straight, chances are that you won’t sound like a jazz player.
Start working on this issue right now by spending at least 30 minutes every
Jazz guitar is a very broad subject that can’t be summed up in a few paragraphs. Here are five quick tips to get you started on the path of becoming a better jazz player:
1. Learn the chord shapes and use them as your study material
2. Practice chords over backing tracks, including common turnarounds such as ii-V7-I
3. Work on your chord melody playing to add texture to your chords and make them sound more colorful
4. Learn how to use arpeggios over chords to spice up your rhythm playing
5. Practice soloing over chord changes by using arpeggios and scales
If you want to be a jazz guitarist, you need to practice a lot. This is true in any discipline, but I think it’s particularly true of jazz guitar. It’s hard to get good at jazz guitar if you’re only practicing 3 hours a week. It just doesn’t happen that quickly with this music. It’s important for you to have realistic expectations about the amount of time and work that’s required.
The truth is that everyone has their own schedule, and their own way of doing things. But my general recommendation for anyone who is serious about learning jazz guitar would be to practice somewhere between 8 – 14 hours per week. If you’re not able to devote that much time then I would recommend lowering your expectations a bit and trying to get as much practice in as possible within the constraints of your situation – but don’t expect to make rapid progress if you’re only practicing occasionally.
If you’d like some more information on how to plan out your practice sessions please check out this article here on my blog: How to Create an Effective Guitar Practice Schedule
I hope that helps!
1. Learn to improvise
When you listen to a jazz guitar solo, it may sound like it just came out of nowhere but the truth is that a lot of planning and practice went into it. A jazz guitarist will not randomly play something on their fretboard and hope that it sounds good. Rather, they will plan out what they want to play before they play it. Planning your solo is the first step to improvising and this process can be broken down into three simple steps:
Step 1: Determine the chord progression you are going to solo over (i.e. ii-V-I)
Step 2: Use scales and arpeggios to create your solo
Step 3: Practice playing the same solo with different rhythms (i.e. eighth notes, triplets, etc.)
2. Learn how to comp
In order for your solos to sound good, you must learn how to comp well. This means that you must learn how to play chords and rhythm behind a soloist in order for their soloing ideas to sound good over your comping. You can also think of comping as “filling in the gaps” while someone else is playing.
3. Learn how to play jazz standards
One of