Learning Jazz Guitar

[MuyLoCo444]

I know next to nothing about Jazz music(just never got into it). While I'm young I'll probably stick to rock/metal, but when my headbanging days are over, I might give Jazz a try. My question is: What would I need to know to be a decent Jazz player? Is there much technique involved, like shred and classical? Would I be better off with a good teacher as opposed to learning on my own? I know there is a lot of theory involved with it, but what is the best way to learn?

[polishpaul]

Lesson Loft is a good first step.......plough through the back threads. A lot of what's on the web regarding jazz study finds its way here. Recently I've been hitting the forum with quite a lot of jazz stuff....maybe check my posts to see what's there.......get an idea of it. Member "gennation" is big on jazz....."JonnyPac" knows more about it than I ever will.

 

Now, stand back, and wait for more...................

[JonR]

I know next to nothing about Jazz music(just never got into it). While I'm young I'll probably stick to rock/metal, but when my headbanging days are over, I might give Jazz a try. My question is: What would I need to know to be a decent Jazz player? Is there much technique involved, like shred and classical? Would I be better off with a good teacher as opposed to learning on my own? I know there is a lot of theory involved with it, but what is the best way to learn?

A good way into it is via blues. Blues has a lot of the same attitudes as jazz, in terms of feel and improvisation strategies. It's more one-dimensional than jazz, but that's no bad thing. If you can groove with a blues, keeping it simple and laid-back, clean, plenty of space.... you're well set up for jazz. Jazz is technically more challenging than any other music, but is just as much about what you DON'T play as what you do.

"It's taken me my whole life to learn what not to play." - Dizzy Gillespie.

 

You also need to listen to a lot of jazz - and I mean a LOT - which means you have to really love it. You can't just dabble in it. (I mean, I've dabbled in jazz all my playing life (45 years) - alongside rock, blues, etc. But I'm still an amateur at it. Which is OK!)

[JonnyPac]

I'm here to help. Hit me up with specific questions whenever. Cheers!

[girevik]

I know there is a lot of theory involved with it, but what is the best way to learn?

 

 

Tunes. One tune at a time. You'll pick up the theory as you go along. The majority of your jazz practice time should be devoted to learning and practicing tunes, not exercises.

[ednakayama]

There are many schools of thought, though most put learning tunes and transcribing at the top of the list, right behind listening, which is the most important thing you can do.

 

You also need a theoretical framework to drop all that stuff into that you absorb through the above. That means learning functional harmony: how each chord functions within the key. I would study harmony and ear training at the same time - learn to sing a I chord, ii chord, V chord, etc. to the seventh degrees using solfege.

 

I.e. Re - Fa - La - Do; Sol - Ti - Re - Fa; Do - Mi - Sol - Ti (move the roots to suit your vocal range)

 

If you do this homework up front (should not take you that long), then you'll do much better at understanding and memorizing all those Charlie Parker heads. You can also try singing them using solfege syllables.

 

This ear training stuff is so crucial to efficiently learning jazz music. It's the one thing nobody wants to learn but that everybody needs. You don't have to use solfege, but I think it works much better than numbers, especially b/c it can accommodate accidentals so well.

 

Jazz is about building frameworks, not about cobbling together a ton of disparate knowledge and hoping for it to eventually seep in. The basic frameworks are harmony and ear training, and you fit the tunes and transcriptions into that.

[gennation]

I just posted this a couple of weeks ago I think...

 

Listening to a lot of Jazz, learning the heads to jazz tunes, learning many jazz tunes, etc...are all at the heart of it. But, if you also want to get some of the "Jazz sound" or concepts under you fingers...

 

Here are a couple of lessons that will help you...DEFINITELY READ THEM IN THIS ORDER. They cover a lot of chording as well as how to play through the changes, not just over them:

 

Playing the Changes, the IIm-V-I: http://mikedodge.freeforums.org/ii-v-i-playing-over-the-changes-t19.html

 

I-VI-II-VPart 1: http://mikedodge.freeforums.org/substitutions-and-the-vim-iim-v-i-progression-part-1-of-2-t3.html

 

I-VI-II-V Part 2: http://mikedodge.freeforums.org/substitutions-and-the-vim-iim-v-i-progression-part-2-of-2-t4.html

 

Minor II-V-I: http://mikedodge.freeforums.org/autumn-leaves-some-concepts-t14.html

 

Autumn Leaves: http://mikedodge.freeforums.org/autumn-leaves-some-concepts-t14.html

 

Common Sounds Found in Jazz: http://lessons.mikedodge.com/lessons/Jazz1/Jazz1TOC.htm

 

In line with JonR's comments about Blues being a good cross over into Jazz, here's a jazz blues transcription of a solo I used to play on I Love Being Here With You: http://mikedodge.freeforums.org/cop-some-jazz-lines-love-being-here-with-you-t46.html

 

There a a TON more lessons on many specific concepts for jazz, jazz tunes, etc...as well as MANY other styles here: http://mikedodge.freeforums.org/one-off-lessons-and-concepts-f2.html

[JonnyPac]

Burt Ligon's four books are the most solid self-study books I've come across. Drop the $65 on amazon for the three big volumes. It's well worth it. They will give you the framework.

 

My book applies the theory to the fretboard. It's a nice little supplement/starter.

 

Go nuts and listen to as much jazz as possible. Not just guitar. Horn/piano jazz is often the most influential stuff out there.

 

Hope that helps. Best to ya.

[JonR]

Jazz tunes. That's really all you need , assuming you've already learned the intervals (what they sound like and what they look like on the fretboard) and how to construct chords (triads and tetrads at minimum) from intervals. If you don't know any jazz tunes, you can't play jazz. It's that simple. ... Tunes. One tune at a time. You'll pick up the theory as you go along. The majority of your jazz practice time should be devoted to learning and practicing tunes, not exercises.

+100!

(to the OP)...

Although jazz is all about improvisation, that's within a specific culture of certain types of tune. The common practices of jazz come from how jazz players have approached blues and popular music over the last 100 years. And the main jazz tradition is centred on popular tunes from the 1930s and 40s, commonly from Broadway musicals. These are the so-called "standards" that every serious jazz musician knows by heart.
A slightly later tradition began with the bebop of the 1940s and 50s, when musicians started to compose tunes themselves - beginning with melodies developed from improvisation on standard chord changes.
All of this music is based on "functional harmony": chords moving quite quickly, usually in cycles of 5ths (roots moving anti-clockwise around the circle of 5ths), in major and minor "keys". So you need some basic understanding of the theory behind that - but as girevik says, the best way to learn that is by studying the tunes themselves. You soon pick up the patterns, the common changes.
So as well as listening to as much jazz as you can, get hold of a "Real Book" - collections of popular jazz standard tunes.

Later, around 1960, a quite different type of jazz emerged, based on much more minimal changes and different types of chord - known commonly as "modal jazz". It's important to understand how fundamentally this differed from previous jazz, in principle. All subsequent jazz has mixed the two up pretty freely, but it's worth appreciating the distinction.
(This might all sound like vintage appeal stuff, but all modern jazz players are familiar with it - modern jazz is built consciously on those historical foundations.)

Technically, you need to know how to build all types of 7th chord, in as many different shapes as you can find. The following are the six basic types:
Maj7
Dom7
m7
m7b5 ("half-diminished")
dim7 ("full diminished")
m(maj7)

The last is the rarest; the other 5 are all common. And a common variation on the dom7 is the altered dominant. Don't worry too much about 9ths, 11ths, 13ths. They're decorations. Understand the 7ths, how they work, and how they fit into chord progressions (each one has a different job). Again, you'll get this by studying standard chord sequences.

For modal jazz, you need sus chords of all kinds, mainly 7sus4s.

Work especially on voicings (shapes) that omit the root, 5th, or both. You should of course know where the roots and 5ths are, but don't feel you always have to include them. The bass normally handles roots (and 5ths too), and jazz is often about not doubling up what anyone else is doing, if you can avoid it.
That's a fundamentally different attitude from rock. Rock is about making a lot of noise, filling all the space with sound. That's fine, and is largely how rock achieves its power, by overwhelming the listener. But the power of jazz comes more from implication: "less is more". Understatement is better than overstatement. The nod and the wink.

[polishpaul]

I reckon listening to Howard Roberts is a good introduction to jazz guitar. His use of space and melodic creativity is so cool. His playing is not pretentious, indulgent.....or anything bad at all really. I'd say he's a cross-over kind of player....he was proficient in many styles, and this comes out in his approach.

I'll bump up a thread I did recently featuring the only video of him playing.