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Jazz Guitar Lessons

You will find in this section the latest jazz guitar lessons: videos, PDFs, Tabs, transcriptions, licks, music theory, exercises, chord and scale diagrams, published on the blog and on the website. The content is regularly updated with fresh articles, so don't hesitate to subscribe to the newsletter.

  • How to Use a Tritone Substitution - 6 Guitar Licks

    6 tritone substitution guitar licksWhat's a Tritone Substitution?

    The tritone substitution is one of the most common substitution found in jazz. The basic application of a tritone chord substitution is to take any 7th chord and play another 7th chord that has its root a tritone away from the original. This guitar lesson demonstrates how you can play scales and arpeggios starting from the b5 (a tritone away) of the V7 chord in a II V I chord progression. This way you will highlight altered tones as the b9 and the #11. 

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  • Octave Playing - Guitar Lesson With Lines and Theory

    What's Octave Playing?

    How to play in octaves Wes Montgomery styleOctave playing is a big part of jazz guitar language, this technique has been popularized by guitarist Wes Montgomery one of the greatest improvisers and jazz genious of all times. Theoretically, the principle is quite easy to understand. You just have to play lines using two simultaneaous notes separated by twelve semitones. In practice, it is more difficult because of the fingerings. Indeed, you have to move two fingers at the same time while keeping the same hand position. This lesson provides guitar diagrams and easy guitar lines for a good mastery of this technique.

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  • 10 Dominant Octave Licks For Guitarist - YouTube Video Lesson

    Octave playing technique involves playing the same note on two strings separate by one octave. An octave is 12 semitones higher than the root note. You will find in this blog post a new video from the YouTube Channel, containing 10 dominant octave licks with tabs and standard notation overlayed.

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  • What's An Inverted Chord - Open and Close Voicings

    What s an inverted chordWhat's An Inverted Chord?

    The notes of a chord whether it is a triad (containing just three notes) or a tetrad (built with four notes) can be reshuffled in different order. The name of the chord will still remain the same, but the bass will not necessarily the root note. This is the lowest note (the bass note) that determines the name of the inverted chord. So, chord inversion simply refers to which note is in the bass. You will find here some example for a better understanding of what are inverted chords.

     

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  • One Note Samba - A.C Jobim - Transcription For Guitar

    One note samba guitar transcriptionOne note samba is a song composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim. The title refers to the main melody of the song, which consists of a serie of identical notes (F and Bb in this arrangement for guitar) with a syncopated rhythm typical of bossa nova and a number of chords typical of this genre.

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  • Extended Diatonic Arpeggios - Upper-Structure of Chords and Superimposition

    Extended diatonic arpeggiosWhen learning how to play jazz guitar, one of the most important device to master is to play each tone of a chord in order to outline a specific progression. This is what we call arpeggios. They are great melodic tools when you want to highlight the chords you are soloing over.

    This article is focused on diatonic seventh arpeggios and their extensions. In a first time, before applying these extensions, it is recommended to have a very strong knowledge of the triads, both the chords and the arpeggios.

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  • Three Kinds Of Minor Blues Scales

    Minor blues scalesThe minor blues scale is mostly referred to as the minor pentatonic scale with a b5 thus giving the interval pattern 1 - b3 - 4 - b5 - 5 - b7. However, few musicians know that there are three types of minor blues scales depending on wether you incorporate the flat fifth (b5), the major third (3) or the major seventh (7) to the minor pentatonic scale. In this lesson you will learn how to build, play and recognize each of these three minor blues scales.

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  • How To Use Triad Chords - Comping Lesson

    How to use triads lessonTriads are one of the first harmonic tools to study. They are very useful for comping and chordal enrichment. Learning close and open triad voicings increase your harmonic knowledge and at the same time help you discover your fretboard. In this lesson you will see the main triad chord shapes including root positions and inversions. You will also find some ideas on how to use triads over a II V I sequence, in order to create interesting melodic movement in your comping.

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  • What are Dominant Seventh Chords ?

    What s a dominant 7 chord

    Dominant seventh chords are the most important features in music, you can find them in many styles of music, especially in blues and, of course, in jazz. In this lesson, you will see how to construct drop 2, drop 3 and drop 2 & 4 dominant seventh chords, what is their harmonic function and how to play them on guitar.

     

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  • Jazz up Your Blues - Guitar Lesson

    Jazz up your blues on guitarOne of the most daunting shifts for any guitarist can be entering the world of jazz guitar. We’ve all read jazz tutorials and watched videos by those in the know and it’s a vast world full of new theoretical and practical concepts.

    Most guitar players get into playing through rock/blues and find jazz later on their ability spectrum. If you understand blues, you can start to make some small changes which will add a jazz dynamic to your playing. In this lesson we will cover some of those small changes you can integrate into your playing today.

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  • Drop 2 & 4 Chords - Advanced Guitar Voicings

    Drop 2 and 4 voicingsWhat Are Drop 2-4 Chords?

    Drop 2 and 4 chords are created by dropping down an octave the second and fourth note of a seventh chord in close position. They can be very important tools for composition and arrangement. This lesson with diagrams provides useful explanations on how to build and play drop 2 & 4 chords on guitar.

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  • What's a Tetrad Chord - Music Theory

    What are tetrad chordsWhat's a Tetrad ?

    A basic chord is built with three notes this is what we call "triad chords" or "triads". Tetrad chords aka "four note-chords" are simply chords containing four notes, “tetra“ is a Greek root meaning four. This means that tetrads have an additional note, a major seventh or a minor seventh. In other words , a tetrad is a triad with a supplementary note. This article will enlighten you on how these tetrad chords are built and how they can be classified.

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  • Arpeggio Practice - Seventh Chords - 4 Essential Exercises

    Guitar arpeggio practiceArpeggios are essential musical tools that allow you to build pure and beautiful lines while highlighting the harmony. When playing over chord changes, using arpeggios is the most efficient way to connect these chords together. This lesson provides four arpeggio exercises with tabs, standard notation and diagrams that will help improve your guitar skills and your theoretical knowledge.

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  • Modes of the Major Scale and Related Chords - Guitar Infographic

    This infographic provide guitar shapes that will help you to make the link between the seven modes of the major scale and their related drop 2 and drop 3 chords.

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  • 49 Licks of Legendary Jazz Musicians for Guitar - Lessons in PDF with TABS and analysis

    49 essential jazz guitar licks PDF eBook49 Essential Jazz Guitar Licks With Tabs and Analysis

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    Practicing jazz guitar licks is a very important aspect of jazz learning. Particularly when these licks are transcribed from improvisations of the greatest jazz musicians of all times (Cannonball Adderley, Barney Kessel, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Christian, Emily Remler, George Benson, Grant Green,  Herb Ellis, Jim Hall, Jimmy Raney, Joe Pass, John Scofield, Kenny Burrell, Charlie Parker, Mike Stern and Wes Montgomery) who helped forge the history of jazz music.

    This eBook available for download in a PDF format contains 49 effective jazz guitar phrases and patterns with TABS and notation applied to common jazz chord progressions . These patterns both for guitar teachers and students cover different styles from swing to blues, to hard-bop to bebop.

    These essential jazz lines arranged for jazz guitarists from beginner to advanced come with easy-to-understand explanations of one of the greatest players improvisational techniques.

    Learning these jazz transcriptions make it possible to understand the approach of the great names of jazz to different chord progressions found in many standards as turnarounds, minor and major II-V-I, blues progressions, modal playing.

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  • Target Tones and Enclosures - 58 Guitar Patterns

    Enclosures and target tonesThis guitar lesson is about a very important concept used by many jazz improvisers named "Target notes" or "target tones" or "approach notes". It has to do with targeting chord tones by scale or chromatically. This technique opens the door to another essential type of targeting called "Enclosures" used to surround a chord tone both diatonically and chromatically from above and below. Understanding and applying "Targeting" will help you solos sound more jazzy and allow you to expand your harmonic knowledge.

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