Blog - Jazz Guitar Lessons

This guitar lesson provides 10 easy exercises for understanding the relationship between the Melodic Minor Scale and altered dominant seventh chords. This is a free course (or give what you want) with a printable PDF with tab/standard notation and a YouTube short video. 

This guitar cheat sheet shows the relation between a dominant 7 chord and a minor 7 chord. All the shapes are drop 2 voicings with bass notes on the fifth string. The aim being to move only one note at a time, separated by a half step (one semitone).

This lesson provides a free PDF music sheet with tab containing some easy jazz blues lines to practice dyads and chromaticisms over two dominant chords. This tutorial is also accompanied by a short YouTube video.

This short tutorial provides an effective warm-up exercise for guitar players of all styles and all levels. It comes with a YouTube short video with tab / notation overlayed and a downloadable PDF available for free on the GUMROAD STORE.

This guitar lesson lists 25 exotic scales from different cultures and countries to add new colors to your playing. You'll find two-octave guitar shapes, formula charts, audio files in the key of C for each scale and classified into five main categories : Seven Note Dominant Scales, Seven Note Minor Scales, Seven Note Major Scales, Six Note Scales and Five Note Scales.

Lesson by Mike Hayes

In this video Mike explains what is the relative minor chord and how to use it to create your own chord melody parts on guitar. This step by step lesson will help you understand how this major and relative minor tonal relationship can open up a whole new world of sonic possibilities.

In this theory lesson we will see how to add natural and altered extensions to 7th chords. The aim being to bring new colors and so to embellish your chord progressions. This concept is a very important device for composing, chordal accompaniment and chord-melody arrangements.

Here is a free lesson to learn some 2-5-1 jazz chord voicings in the style of Joe Pass. PDF with tab and Youtube short video available for free (or give what you want) here in the GUMROAD ONLINE SHOP.

Lesson By George Dafnos

This video lesson focuses on a jazz concept created by Barry Harris called "The Chromatic Scale", which is to connect whole steps and half steps with chromaticisms. You will learn how to play the chromatic scale ascending and descending and also hear the related thirds, triads and seventh chords. This technique will be discussed more in details in a future blog article, meanwhile you can also watch Nathan Borton's video to learn more about the construction of this scale.

This free guitar lesson for beginners provides an easy exercise with tab/score and video for practicing the Bebop Dominant Scale. The free related PDF is available at the end of the lesson.

This guitar theory lesson covers a very important topic that any musician must know : How To Harmonize The Natural Minor Scale? In other words, you will learn how to build triads and seventh chords starting on each note of the natural minor scale.

Here is a new free guitar lesson showing how to play the major scale (C major) in thirds. This two-in-one exercise also includes an easy walking bass line built with drop 3 chords. The full transcription with tab/score is downloadable in a PDF format here in the Online Shop.

This theory lesson for guitarists covers one the most common question asked by beginner musicians : what's the difference between a dominant seventh and a major seventh chord.

Lesson By Diego Wasserman

In this video Diego show you 20 jazz guitar lines from Django's recordings played over minor and major 2 5 1 (II-V-I) progressions. He plays them at different tempos and provides a brief analysis showing the scales, motifs and arpeggios used. Two different positions for each lick are also proposed on the fretboard. The idea is to understand how Django Reinhardt approach the famous II V I progression.

Quartal harmony is the way of building chords with intervals of fourths instead of thirds, it's a nice way to modernize and enrich your jazz guitar playing. This post provides an easy exercise for a first approach of quartal playing that is to arpeggiate three-note chords built in fourths, starting on each step of a major scale.

As is the case in many lessons on the website, you'll find a short YouTube video and the link to download the PDF for free, a little further in this article.

This exercise is the third of the serie covering ninth arpeggio practice around the cycle of fourths on guitar. While the previous two lessons dealt with major ninth and dominant ninth arpeggios, this one is about minor ninth arpeggios. As usual you'll find the related PDF transcription for free, here in the GUMROAD STORE.