Licks & Transcriptions

Lesson By Steve Down

I'm super excited to start my new lesson series on one of my favourites 'Midnight Blue' by Kenny Burrell. If you love blues and are looking to dip your toe into jazz then this is a great place to start! Have fun!

PART 1 This is a new series where we are learning the whole of Kenny Burrell's 'Midnight Blue' from his 1963 album of the same name. There will be a new lesson every Saturday where we will learn another chorus from this excellent tune! And there will be TAB on screen!

In this lesson we look at the head of Midnight Blue. The chords, the melody and some of the gear KENNY BURRELL used for the Midnight Blue recording sessions. Next week we will be looking at the first chorus from the solo!

"The Lick" is considered as the most famous phrase in jazz music (and also in other styles).

It has been played so many times, by so many players, in so many tunes that it has become a cliche.

Although there are a significant number of common jazz lines, this one is surely the most popular, an essential part of the Bebop language.

This guitar lesson with tabs, charts and theory explains what is "The Lick", how it is built and how to apply it in different harmonic contexts.

A brand new PDF method is available for download. It rounds out the two previous eBooks Ionian jazz guitar licks and Dorian jazz guitar licks. This book contains 40 dominant jazz guitar lines with tabs, audio files and theory based on the Mixolydian mode for beginners and intermediate players.

Package Details:

• 1 Printable PDF file (high resolution).
• 40 MP3 Audio files related to each lick (high quality).
• 1 Jazz backing track.

This lesson provides an easy chord melody arrangement for guitar with tablature, standard notation and chord shapes of the bossa nova latin jazz tune "Wave" by Antonio Carlos Jobim.

wave-a.c-jobim-guitar-transcription.pdf (92 Ko)

A new lesson (with YouTube video, analysis and tabs) intended for all jazz, blues, groove enthusiasts and John Scofield fans is now available for free on the website. It contains 10 John Scofield jazz guitar licks transcribed from one of his solo in the tune "Little Walter Rides Again" live at live at Estival Jazz Lugano 2007 with MMW trio (John Medeski, Billy Martin and Chris Wood). They show how Sco used to mix pentatonic scales, blue notes and altered tones.

A new printable PDF method is available for download. It contains 40 Dorian jazz guitar patterns with tab, standard notation, audio files, theory and numeral analysis. The licks are suitable for beginners, they are built from the Dorian mode and designed to be played over minor chords. Many theoretical concepts are discussed (arpeggios, diatonic substitution, triad pairs, passing tones, etc)

Package Details

• 1 Printable PDF file (High resolution).
• 40 Mp3 audio files (High quality).
• 1 Jazz Backing Track.

Follow this link for more info.

The II-V-I sequence is the most common chord progression played in jazz music and a must know for any guitarist who wants to learn jazz language.

The II, the V and the I (chords and scales) are constructed based on the corresponding second (II), fifth (V)  and first (I) step of the major scale.

In this guitar lesson you will learn what's the 2 5 1 progression and how to play easy jazz lines over a 2-5-1 using the most common scales found in jazz music.

A new video is available on the YouTube channel. It contains 10 easy Miles Davis lines with analysis, audio files, standard notation and tabs overlayed transcribed from Solar, Vierd Blues and Tune Up.

You can also check out the free full course about those 10 Miles Davis licks for guitar.

There are mutliple ways of taking an intro or ending a jazz tune.

You can start from the V of the key, simply play the last 4 or 8 bars of the tune, try to incorporate a turnaroud and its several variations, the list is long....

You''ll find in this lesson 10 jazz guitar progressions with tabs, standard notation and audio files that work both as intros and endings for any jazz standards in C major.

Altough all these exercises are in the key of C major, it is possible and very important to transpose them in any key. 

This lesson contains five free guitar studies for beginners that outline the use of arpeggios over a Bb jazz blues progression.

There are different types of jazz blues progressions.

The one used in this tutorial is built with a secondary dominant (VI7), a passing diminished (#IVdim7) and a turnaround (I7, VI7, iim7, V7). 

Joe's blues is a 12-bar blues taken from one of the many Joe Pass methods named "Joe Pass on Guitar". This lesson covers the first 24 bars of the original lesson. If you listen to the audio file provided with the book you can hear that there are a lot of mistakes in the transcription. That's why I have decided to transcribe those lines directly from what I heard.

This blog article is related to the video tutorial published on JGL YouTube channel. It contains 10 II V7 jazz bebop guitar patterns with analysis and scale shapes.

These lines come from the first chapter of David Baker's book "How To Play Bebop Vol.2 - Learning the bebop language". They correspond to the first ten exercises of the section named "The Use of The II V7 Progression in Bebop".

You 'll find in this lesson a quick analysis of each pattern with scale diagrams (Dorian, Dorian bebop, Mixolydian, dominant bebop, Mixolydian b13, altered, mixo-blues and half-whole diminished).

What'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. 

What's Octave Playing?

Octave 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.

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.

One 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.