Teacher Spotlight - Jazz Guitar Lessons

Guest Post by Dennis Winge

Most musicians learn chords as fixed units: a major triad is three notes, a seventh chord is four, an extended chord might be six or seven.

We tend to think of them as solid vertical structures, like blocks in a building. But here’s the secret: every extended chord is really a constellation of smaller chords.

Guest post by Kenny Thompson from the Facebook group The Art of Jazz Guitar.

This guitar lesson is a chord melody arrangement of a Charlie Parker blues head named “Bigfoot”.

Guest Post By Jack Handyside at pickupmusic.com

Jazz standards are some of the most beautiful and interesting pieces of music ever written, but learning these complex songs and committing them to memory can feel overwhelming if you don’t know where to start.

Luckily for you, we’re here to help! This article will introduce you to a tried and true, eight-step method that you can use to learn any jazz standard. Our focus today will be on the classic jazz standard Autumn Leaves written by Joseph Kosma.

Lesson By Nate Jarrell

This lesson is designed to help you expand your chord and voicing vocabulary through the use of modal chord scales.

Each notes of the Dorian, Mixolydian, and Lydian modes are harmonized to give you seven chord voicings based on each of those scales.

This approach is very useful for trio or solo playing because it gives you a voicing with each note in the scale on the top of the chords which allows you to easily harmonize notes from the melodies you are playing.

These are also very useful in for comping in a variety of situations and styles.

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.

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.

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.

Lesson By Thomas Berglund

This video lesson is an easy chord/melody guitar arrangement of Blue Bossa, a very popular instrumental latin jazz tune composed by Kenny Dorham. The video includes a lesson where Thomas shows and discusses the arrangement and also provides tips to make your own arrangements.

Lesson by George Nazos

In this short video lesson with tab, George proposes a guitar lick/exercise in rhythm and picking.  He shows how to use different subdivisions in arpeggios following a 2 5 1 6 chord progression while using substitution for the dominant arpeggios from the altered scale. 

Lesson By Steve Down

This video is the last installment of the lesson series on the funky Kenny Burrell version of "My Favorite Things" from his 1966 album "Soulero". In this last lesson (please consider watching the 7 previous) we finish off by looking at the final head, the outro solo and I give you my top 5 take aways from the series complete with some extra example licks!

Have fun practicing!

Lesson by Joost Zoeteman

This video lesson is taken from JGL's facebook group "Jazz Guitar Lessons". Guitarist Joost Zoeteman explains how different types of pentatonic scales can be applied to a 2 5 1 chord progression.

Lesson by George Dafnos

Here are somme ideas inspired by great jazz guitarists as Wes Montgomery ,George Benson on how to superimpose almost all the chord family degrees. This concept helps mapping the arpeggio combinations and listen different coloursounds above root ,subdominant or dominant families. After mastering all these, be sure to try making your own jazz lines and licks.

Lesson by Steve Down

Here is a transcription for guitar of So What by Miles Davis. This video lesson provides the tab of the main theme and the whole Miles Davis solo. A good introduction to modal playing on guitar thus showing how Miles Davis used the Dorian mode (D Dorian and Eb Dorian).

Lesson by Fabrizio Brusca

Oh, Lady Be Good by Lester Young is Second video from the chapter "Jazz Language And Improvisation Techniques Serie". 

In this chapter, Fabrizio made a selection of some famous solos that show how jazz phrasing has been developped from 1925 until these days. Each video of the serie (organized in a chronological order) features a history of jazz masters that have contributed to the evolution of jazz.

These lines have been transposed on guitar trying to respect all the original instrument nuances and embellishments. 

Lesson by Adam Hernandez (jamsville)

In this YouTube video lesson Adam shares the Top 7 habits that can help guitar players progress. Start implementing these advices and you will certainly be on your way to play guitar at a highest level:

Lesson by David Kennedy

This facebook post provides a YouTube video that details how to perform and compose on guitar with any polyrhythm. You will find a link to free resources, including the guitar score and tab in the video description.

Why exploring polyrhythm?

• It can deepen your understanding of rhythm and time signature.
• It’s a very useful tool for generating new rhythm ideas.
• It sounds really cool.

Don't hesitate go watch David's YouTube channel.