How To Play Jazz Guitar: A How To Playing a Jazz Guitar blog.
Music is an art, and the art of music is a gift that only a few can make. Music can be used to express how you feel or to tell a story. Some use it as a hobby or just for fun, while others use it as a career. The best thing about music is that it is universal, no matter what language you speak, everyone enjoys listening to music in some way or another. For this reason, there are many different types of music for different occasions and different moments in your life. If you’re looking to learn how to play jazz guitar, here are some tips that will help you get started:
Jazz Guitar Tip
How To Play Jazz Guitar: A How To Playing a Jazz Guitar blog. Here you will find lessons and tutorials for playing jazz guitar. Learn how to play jazz guitar with our free video lessons, jam tracks, backing tracks and chord progressions.
This blog is a collection of tips and tricks that will help you learn how to play jazz guitar.
We’re going to get right down to the details and give you the tools and knowledge to take your playing to the next level.
I’ve played jazz guitar for over 15 years and have come to learn that nothing compares to the feeling of playing something for the first time that you love. There is a rush and a sense of accomplishment that is hard to describe. The more you do it, the better you can get and the more you want to do it.
With each new jazz guitar lick or solo that I learn, I always try to play it with my own personal style. Adding vibrato, bends, or hammer-ons really helps give me my own unique sound while I am soloing. That is what makes this instrument so much fun!
There is no right or wrong way to play jazz guitar. It’s all about personal expression through improvisation. You may have heard this before, but I’ll say it again. If you’re playing jazz guitar and having fun, then you’re doing something right!
It’s my goal to teach you how to play jazz guitar on this site. I’ll show you the theory, the chords, the scales and the songs. All of it will be in the context of playing good sounding jazz guitar. I don’t want to teach you how to play jazz guitar without knowing why we do what we do. I want to make sure that you understand the theory so well that you can apply it to other styles of music as well.
If you’re a beginner guitarist, don’t worry if some things are a little bit difficult for you in the beginning. It’s important that you start off with learning basic chords and scales first. You can start here with learning your first 3 major chords: E, A and B7. When you’re comfortable with those three chords, learn these 3 minor chords: Em, Am and Bm7b5. These are essential chords that every jazz guitarist needs to know!
After learning these 6 basic chords, check out this lesson on how to play a 2-5-1 chord progression in 12 keys. This is one of the most important chord progressions in jazz music and it’s essential for any aspiring jazz guitarist! I put together a 94 page booklet including exercises for learning all 12 keys for this
So, you want to learn how to play jazz. What are some of the best methods and ideas? Here are some suggestions from this author:
First and foremost, get the basics down. Learn your chords, scales and arpeggios and learn how to use them. Learn how to play your instrument in tune and with good tone. This is by far the most important thing that you can do as a musician/instrumentalist.
Learn basic music theory. In other words, learn what all those lines and dots mean on paper. Learn the difference between major, minor and dominant chords and how they function in a key or scale. Learn what a unison, 4th or 5th is (or any interval for that matter). Learn what a scale or chord is built of, etc., etc., etc…
Listen to great players and great music. Listen to players like Wes Montgomery, Grant Green, Barney Kessel, Kenny Burrell, Django Reinhardt and many others who were masters of their instruments. Listen to all types of jazz from bebop to blues to fusion and beyond. Listen to other instrumentalists like pianists, horn players and drummers (yes there is much we can learn from listening to drummers). Listen with your ear but also
Jazz guitar players usually choose a scale and play it over a specific chord. If you’re playing over a G7 chord, for example, you would use the G Dominant Scale or the G Mixolydian Scale. Jazz guitarists will pick certain notes from the scale to emphasize the chord tones, the 3rd and 7th of the chord in this case.
Jazz guitar uses “extensions” to add more color to chords. The most common extension is the 9th, which is added to the basic 7th chord. In our example, you might play an A note over the G7 chord. A common phrase in jazz is adding a 9th note, then playing a melodic line that resolves down to the 3rd of the chord. Using our scale example above, you could add a D note and resolve down to a B note (the 3rd of G7) using some kind of melodic idea like using arpeggios or other scales that land on this target note.
Resolving tension is what makes jazz cool!