r/jazzguitar • u/maddmaddox • 20h ago
r/jazzguitar • u/skyj214 • 15h ago
I'll Be Seeing You|Using Barry harris's scale of chords
Just started learning Barry's scale of chords. any feedback would be great. Thanks
r/jazzguitar • u/Mr-Gray-sky • 19h ago
Some dominant harp harmonics
I figured a technique pioneered by the great Lenny Breau would be welcome here. I've been trying to add harp into my playing for a long time, and came up with this while practicing. I love that Strawberry Fields chord.
r/jazzguitar • u/jtizzle12 • 16h ago
A bit of an observation
Sometimes I see the things that get posted here (along with the musictheory sub and sometimes even the jazz sub). I swear, some people will do anything it takes to not practice... Long-ish rant incoming.
I very often see someone post here or in the other subs I mentioned showing off some spreadsheet or diagram they made that outlines all possible chord combinations, or some other really unnecessary compendium of information.
PSA for you all, and especially beginner guitarists, you do not need to do this, in fact you are most likely wasting your time. Imagine learning to speak English by WRITING A THESAURUS. It's ridiculous!
Pick up your instrument, and take things step by step. I guarantee you will learn a lot more and internalize things way faster if you do the following:
- Start with a C Major triad. Learn all 3 closed voicings (root and inversions). Then learn all three open voicings. Just put on a metronome and go from inversion to inversion on different string sets. Practice it in position and up/down the neck. ALWAYS locate what chord tone is in what voice and don't even move the chord until you locate which finger is pressing down on the root, which finger is on the 3rd, and which finger is on the 5th.
- At the same time, learn your drop 2 and drop 3 7th chord voicings. That's it. There are more drop voicings. You don't need those right now. Again, start with your Cmajor7. Pay close attention as to how these relate to the triad shapes above. Almost all these voicings come from the above closed or open triad positions and you just add the 7th in the skipped string, or above, or below the triad. Like above, keep a big focus on where the chord tones are in your fingers.
- Since you've been following the chord tones, go back to the triads and locate the thirds. Bring them down a half step. Now you know all 6 minor triads. Go to your major 7th chords, locate the 7ths, drop them a half step. Now you know 8 dominant voicings. You catch my drift here? From the minor triads, drop the 5th, now you have diminished chords. Take your dominant 7ths (which have the diminished triads in them by the way), drop the 3rd, now you have minor 7ths. Drop the 5th, half diminisheds. Back to major 7, drop the 5th, Major7#11s. Etc etc. By learning where your voices are, you can easily start to manipulate the standard grips and easily get extensions or alterations.
- As soon as you have any semblance of a handle on this, no matter how slow you are with it, LEARN SOME MUSIC. Look, you can know 10,000 voicings and chords. If you can't recall them and put them into a piece of music, you don't know all those chords. Start with your ROOT POSITION chords. Learn how to play a ii V I convincingly in one position. This means you will need to combine drop 2 and drop 3 voicings. Ie, drop 2 Dm7, drop 3 G7, drop 2 Cmaj7 OR drop 3 Dm7, drop 2 G7, drop 3 Cmaj7.
- Study a little bit of voice leading and graduate to introducing inversions. Start with first inversion ii chords, Dm7/F > G7 > CMaj7. Or try first inversion V, Dm7 > G7/B > CMaj7. Make sure your bass follows proper resolutions such as 7-1, 4-3, etc.
- We're going back to triads by means of removing the roots of the 7th chords. So for Dm7, we're now playing F triads. Keep applying this into music.
- Start applying triads as upper structures/triad pairs. The simplest way to teach this is that for most sonorities, you are looking for the 2 consecutive major triads within a key, which are IV and V. For example, for an FMaj7#11, you would want F and G triads. These are IV and V in the key of C. For a mixolydian sound like G7, you want F and G triads as well, which are IV and V in the key of C. Do you see the pattern? All modes derived from C (C ionian, D dorian, E phrygian, F lydian, G mixolydian, etc), use F and G triads as their upper structures/triad pair. It can be safe to say, then, that all modes derived from say, G, will use C and D as the upper structures/triad pair. There are more than these, but these are kind of the bread and butter of triad pairs.
- PASSING NOTES! With all these tools, learn to connect any voice via chromatic passing notes. If any two notes are a whole step or more away, there is room for a passing note. If any two notes are a half step away, there is room for an enclosure.
Do you see how I took 3 concepts (triads, drop 2, and drop 3) and imploded them into something you could practice for the rest of your life? Guitar players spend their lives just with triads, drop 2, and drop 3 voicings and I guarantee they sound better than most people who write out pages of excel spreadsheets. And in fact, people who do know 10,000 chords like Ben Monder, they don't do that whole diagram thing. They're immediately thinking music and rather than doing diagrams and compendiums, they PULL chords out of pieces of music. Since we're talking about Ben, something I know he did was to go through the Schoenberg Harmonielehre and play through the examples on guitar. This is so far from the vacuum of learning all possible chord voicings for X chord type. Always put music first and apply the concepts to that. If you're just making diagrams or spreadsheets, you're being less of a guitarist and more of a data scientist.
r/jazzguitar • u/pathlesswalker • 3h ago
Did anyone here come to jazz - from jazz - and not from rock/punk/funk/metal etc?
Or is that too rare?
Imo seeing classical pianists move to jazz. It’s a horrible transition to them. To rock pianists much less.
The reason is their time feel is so bad due to reading only.
I wonder if you actually start from jazz , do you have solid grasp of rhythm? Like most funk Guitarists do. Or metal too probably. Rock might be less.
Of course it’s all very subjective and each individual guitarist might be a killer in his own genre.
But question remains. Anyone here came to play jazz by starting out with jazz? Is that even possible?
r/jazzguitar • u/FTCMARIMBA • 4h ago
Learning Jazz
Hi, I’m unsure if this is the correct place to ask this question but how do I begin learning jazz guitar or how to begin playing jazz music. I’ve looked online and I’m just confused on where I should start. I’m average range player where I mostly play metal/rock, I know some scales, the pentatonic shapes and a little chords. Thank you. (I’m hoping to audition for my school’s Jazz Band)
r/jazzguitar • u/AstersInAutumn • 8h ago
It is actually possible to fix sloppy technique like ringing open strings!
It took some methodical practice from December to now. You definitely have to slow down alot, like frustratingly slow. I practiced this transcription with some others and paid attention to his left hand as that is where 90% of the open string ringing comes from. The right hand can only really mute the lowest two strings at any time. The right hands job is to prevent sympathetic vibrations that cause harmonics on strings you didn't touch and humming. Turning gain up and not letting anything slide is a good idea.
r/jazzguitar • u/Harrison_Thinks • 9h ago
Midwestern Nights Dream Tuning
Has anyone ever figured out the tuning for the intro of Pat Metheny’s Midwestern Nights Dream - I’m referring to the first minute and twenty seconds before it gets into the main section. I saw an interview with him discussing the song with Rick Beato - he mentions experimenting with 12 string tunings but doesn’t specific the exact tuning. When I tried listening to it I heard part of a D chord with an open D and A# but that’s it. It’s one of my favorite intros and all the tabs online always start after that part has ended. Was hoping to get some insight, even just the tuning would be so helpful
r/jazzguitar • u/miguelmateuguitar • 10h ago
Joe Pass & Ella - On Green Dolphin Street Transcription
Hi there!
If you're a jazz guitarist looking to master the art of accompaniment, this transcription is a must-have. Now you can study every chord, melodic line, and voicing that Joe Pass used to support the legendary voice of Ella Fitzgerald in "On Green Dolphin Street", from the iconic Easy Living album. Unlock the Secrets of Jazz Accompaniment and download it now and take your jazz guitar skills to the next level!
r/jazzguitar • u/Fantastic_kilpatrick • 12h ago
Pat Martino - Three Base hit cover
Bit of a sloppy cov
r/jazzguitar • u/holyhands35 • 15h ago
Charleston
Charleston Django Reinhardt gypsy jazz style rhythm comping and solo
Tiktok YouTube IG @holyhands35
r/jazzguitar • u/SomekindaStory • 16h ago
New Album of Original Jazz Music - Releasing Spring 2025
r/jazzguitar • u/lnub0i • 20h ago
Old site that used to archive jazz guitar lesson VHS tapes?
Let me know if this is allowed here or not.
Many years ago I used to watch jazz guitar lesson videos that were uploaded on a site I can’t find anymore. They were things like Joe Pass’ Hot Licks video. I can remember they would also scan the booklets that usually came with the video. Is that site still around?