Learning jazz
- Thread starter Danuda
- Start date
Memorization i s a significant challenge. Having a teacher and weekly assignments really helped me with motivation. Any college level music theory book should get you started. Once you get a handle on it, you will probably be more than thrilled with your new skills. Best of Luck :rock-on:
erogenousjones17
Hero Member
- Messages
- 1,709
I'd recommend The Advancing Guitarist, by Mick Goodrick. It's no so much on theory or technique per se, but more on the way of looking and at the guitar. It's a good book to open if you feel like you're in a rut. The only proviso is that it tends to be a little flaky. :laughing7:
It's been my experience that the best way to learn jazz is to study with a jazz player, but I realize that's not possible for everyone. I took jazz guitar lessons at university (though not as an actual music student) with a cool old jazz-cat named Mike Gauthier, who really taught me a lot.
Both of the above really changed the way I think about guitar.
It's been my experience that the best way to learn jazz is to study with a jazz player, but I realize that's not possible for everyone. I took jazz guitar lessons at university (though not as an actual music student) with a cool old jazz-cat named Mike Gauthier, who really taught me a lot.
Both of the above really changed the way I think about guitar.
R
Rouse
Guest
http://www.jazzguitar.be/
I have a GuitarTricks.com subscription, and I went to the forum and asked if there would be a jazz primer added in the future. I can't afford regular guitar lessons, but a subscription to Jamplay or GuitarTricks can be extremely helpful if you're self-teaching. It's $13/mo.
This is the answer I got back from one of the site teachers about jazz:
"A good, knowledgable teacher is invaluable. But in my personal estimation, the first and foremost thing to do if you are serious about jazz is to learn tunes. As in "standards" from the "great American song book". Real Books of tunes are a great resource in this respect.
Learn to play the melody and chords (separately at first, then together later as a "chord melody") to tunes by George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, Richard Rogers, Fats Waller, W.C. Handy, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, etc.
Also, I can't let this opportunity go by without mentioning my personal jazz hero, Art Tatum. Get one of his Solo Masterpiece CDs (there are 8 to pick from and a "best of" compilation). Just listening to Tatum is an education in how to play jazz. From there, you can go to the man, Joe Pass. His Virtuoso CD series is a treasure trove of jazz guitar.
Finally, have a look at this page:
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorials.php
And scroll down to the Jazz section. Guys like Gavin, Bobby, Hanspeter have lots of great jazz tutorials that will give you insight into Jazz Guitar after you have the basics down.
Best of success with it!"
I still haven't even gotten around to the jazz lessons (having too much fun in the blues section). I'll get there eventually though.
This is the answer I got back from one of the site teachers about jazz:
"A good, knowledgable teacher is invaluable. But in my personal estimation, the first and foremost thing to do if you are serious about jazz is to learn tunes. As in "standards" from the "great American song book". Real Books of tunes are a great resource in this respect.
Learn to play the melody and chords (separately at first, then together later as a "chord melody") to tunes by George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Irving Berlin, Richard Rogers, Fats Waller, W.C. Handy, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, etc.
Also, I can't let this opportunity go by without mentioning my personal jazz hero, Art Tatum. Get one of his Solo Masterpiece CDs (there are 8 to pick from and a "best of" compilation). Just listening to Tatum is an education in how to play jazz. From there, you can go to the man, Joe Pass. His Virtuoso CD series is a treasure trove of jazz guitar.
Finally, have a look at this page:
http://www.guitartricks.com/tutorials.php
And scroll down to the Jazz section. Guys like Gavin, Bobby, Hanspeter have lots of great jazz tutorials that will give you insight into Jazz Guitar after you have the basics down.
Best of success with it!"
I still haven't even gotten around to the jazz lessons (having too much fun in the blues section). I'll get there eventually though.
hey man!
I recommend "Creative Guitar Techniques 1" by Guthrie Govan. Although it doesnt tackle jazz as a major topic it really has everything you need to know theory wise before you attempt to understand Jazz as a style. (that is if your not too up on your theory)
If your looking for a few jazz licks then youtube is were to go. Either that or go to music college and they will spoon-feed you jazz theory...
My stomach hurts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCbwILeqmj8&feature=channel
I recommend "Creative Guitar Techniques 1" by Guthrie Govan. Although it doesnt tackle jazz as a major topic it really has everything you need to know theory wise before you attempt to understand Jazz as a style. (that is if your not too up on your theory)
If your looking for a few jazz licks then youtube is were to go. Either that or go to music college and they will spoon-feed you jazz theory...
My stomach hurts. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCbwILeqmj8&feature=channel
Jusatele
Hero Member
- Messages
- 2,953
biggest thing I learned when wanting to learn Jazz was to go to a Jazz teacher, I think you have to relearn how to think about a few ways to approach the instrument.
I would really like to suggest ( I know you do not want to hear this) learning to read music. A lot of the theory they go over assumes you can navigate the way you do if you are fluent in music, and that you have a firm grasp in using chords.(rootless, inversions, poly, tone over, substitutions,etc.) I do not know your level of knowledge of music, so I find it hard to suggest where to start, But I know if you were to Do a Utube search for players such as Joe Pass and decide that is the style I would lean to learning first the Diatonic Harmonized scale as a base and then go into a good chord theory book. As you listen to a Jazz Player do 5 changes in 5 beats you realize not only does h he has a huge vocabulary in chords, but he knows how to combine them to start from point a and get to point b in a manor that pulls you into the song. Suddenly your are no longer listening to melody played over chord changes but multidimensional changes that are the melody. Knowledge to do such means learning to think of chords completely different than major triads and 7ths.
I would really like to suggest ( I know you do not want to hear this) learning to read music. A lot of the theory they go over assumes you can navigate the way you do if you are fluent in music, and that you have a firm grasp in using chords.(rootless, inversions, poly, tone over, substitutions,etc.) I do not know your level of knowledge of music, so I find it hard to suggest where to start, But I know if you were to Do a Utube search for players such as Joe Pass and decide that is the style I would lean to learning first the Diatonic Harmonized scale as a base and then go into a good chord theory book. As you listen to a Jazz Player do 5 changes in 5 beats you realize not only does h he has a huge vocabulary in chords, but he knows how to combine them to start from point a and get to point b in a manor that pulls you into the song. Suddenly your are no longer listening to melody played over chord changes but multidimensional changes that are the melody. Knowledge to do such means learning to think of chords completely different than major triads and 7ths.
look into jamey aebersold, he has play along jazz cd's with charts of pretty much all the standards. the tracks are panned, so you get on one side, drums and bass, and on the other side drums and piano. i just use the drums and bass side, that way you can record a chord run, loop it and improvise with yourself.
... and a teacher doesn't hurt either
... and a teacher doesn't hurt either
I will have to do that. I was a trumpet player in high school so I learned to read music. I am really rusty though and they did not teach theory so I could only play what I saw. I thought about asking my uncle to teach me. He is a trumpet player and a retired music teacher at a university. I know he actually did some jazz back in the day so I may start there. I just thought it would be a good idea to get basics down before I went to a teacher.Jusatele said:
Jusatele
Hero Member
- Messages
- 2,953
I have to say I have read music all my musical life, now I may not be able to sit down and play it off the cuff like a professional symphony player, but I know it, and can read it and play it after a few passes, I think if you read music in high school then you could be the same way. But what this does is makes you understand the way theory is setup, you read the notes, you know the intervals so when they explain something it is real easy to understand.
Why I say that is so much about jazz involves inversions or rootless, or slash chords and you need to be able to understand them right up front, also you will be pretty fluent in arpeggios and know the arpeggio by just looking at it on teh staff.
I would also suggest that after getting fluent again to go to a teacher, or to reserve time with a teacher and buy courses, a lot of questions will come up and nothing will be better than being able to ask a question and if the answer brings up new questions to be able to ask those.
Learning Jazz will help in every style you will play as it teaches you how to play with the rules of music, and the more of that you know the easier it is to comp in any style.
Why I say that is so much about jazz involves inversions or rootless, or slash chords and you need to be able to understand them right up front, also you will be pretty fluent in arpeggios and know the arpeggio by just looking at it on teh staff.
I would also suggest that after getting fluent again to go to a teacher, or to reserve time with a teacher and buy courses, a lot of questions will come up and nothing will be better than being able to ask a question and if the answer brings up new questions to be able to ask those.
Learning Jazz will help in every style you will play as it teaches you how to play with the rules of music, and the more of that you know the easier it is to comp in any style.
Jusatele said:
I agree with a lot of what you say :icon_thumright:
I'm sure many hardcore jazzmen/women would argue that jazz was all about going outside the rules, especially with be-bop and its chromaticism and definitely with the dodecaphonic approach. Granted you need to know the rules before you start to break them. Talking from personal experience I can play pretty much every root and inversion of every diatonic chord at least 3 times on the neck, I know scales I know modes blah blah, and i still struggled to really apply this knowledge when it came down to improvisation, whatever I done just didn't seem fluent enough, until it clicked, I knew all this shit but i didnt know the damn progression and got lost as to where the song was and what was coming next. Reading a chord chart that you have just been given and improvising over the top is difficult and is probably harder then sight reading because its up to you where you go and what you do, as opposed to having everything layed out for you. You need to keep an eye on where you are and also keep in mind what key you are in and what you are doing, this is really where the expression "know enough to forget" really makes sense, cause if you know all the chords and scales and are fluent with your technique then it really doesn't seem a huge task, but in reality it takes years to really be a great jazz player. I can play jazz, but I'm by no means a fluent jazz musician. :laughing7:
IMO the keyboard is an invaluable tool for learning jazz, primarily due to what Justatele mentioned above: Jazz usually involves specific chord voicings, many of which are rootless inversions, slash chords, etc.. most jazz tunes must be reharmonized for the guitar since it is often impossible to play the full voicing on tunes which were composed with keyboard in mind. In my experience it is much easier to understand the logic behind the progressions if you play them out on a keyboard (even if you don't practice keyboard and aren't very proficient at it, just being able to play through the progression slowly and see how it is laid out on the keyboard does a world of good for me)
Jusatele
Hero Member
- Messages
- 2,953
yes tagent, but if you look at a keyboard, you are basically looking at how music is written, whole steps and half steps are spelled out just like the keys in a strait fashion, unlike a guitar which does not have white and black keys that are the same tone in order.
and about breaking rules, yes the more we know the rules the more we can work within them, not break them, Look at blues and the use of Dominant 7ths in the 1, 4, and 5 chords, It seems that that breaks the rules of the diatonic harmonized scale we use as a base for music, but within the basis of the blues which is formed by playing a minor pentatonic over a major progression, and look at the tones set up by that, you will that the tones in those are diatonic to the basis of the blues and if we were to use the chords set up by the Harmonized scale we would be actually breaking the rules set up by the Blues itself. Now if we are to think that that a bunch of guys at the turn of the 20th century figured that out and wrote a thesis about it we would be wrong,but what they did was use modern instruments and use them over ethnic groves and figured out a basis that was harmonized to itself.
Jazz does that, that is why there are so many different forms of Jazz and why it is always going deeper, it sets up a basis and explores all the possibilities within that credence. Not by breaking rules, but to seeing how to set up a form to a;;ow the rules as we know them to used in new ways.
and about breaking rules, yes the more we know the rules the more we can work within them, not break them, Look at blues and the use of Dominant 7ths in the 1, 4, and 5 chords, It seems that that breaks the rules of the diatonic harmonized scale we use as a base for music, but within the basis of the blues which is formed by playing a minor pentatonic over a major progression, and look at the tones set up by that, you will that the tones in those are diatonic to the basis of the blues and if we were to use the chords set up by the Harmonized scale we would be actually breaking the rules set up by the Blues itself. Now if we are to think that that a bunch of guys at the turn of the 20th century figured that out and wrote a thesis about it we would be wrong,but what they did was use modern instruments and use them over ethnic groves and figured out a basis that was harmonized to itself.
Jazz does that, that is why there are so many different forms of Jazz and why it is always going deeper, it sets up a basis and explores all the possibilities within that credence. Not by breaking rules, but to seeing how to set up a form to a;;ow the rules as we know them to used in new ways.
Similar threads
