Just a quick note to let all of you jazz guitar fans know that a new music service just launched called SpiralFrog. It’s a music service like Napster, Rhapsody, and iTunes but with one BIG difference…you can download songs for FREE! and it’s legal. It looks like they’re initially offering about 800,000 tracks and 3,500 […]
SpiralFrog is Launched Read More »
Here’s a technique that I came across that has really helped me to learn jazz guitar a lot faster and more efficiently. It’s called the “5 Penny Method”. I just made up that name. You can use pennies or licorice sticks. It doesn’t really matter. The idea here is to use a goal/reward system to
How to Use the "5 Penny Method" to Learn Jazz Guitar Faster and More Efficiently Read More »
Playing jazz guitar is a fun and rewarding pursuit. But there’s no question, it’s one of the most difficult instruments to play jazz on. This can certainly increase your frustration level. Sometimes, I just feel like throwing my guitar out the window. But I always come back to it. Here’s a few tips to help you
5 Ways to Gain Maximum Enjoyment from Jazz Guitar Playing Read More »
Many beginning jazz musicians have misconceptions about what professional jazz musicians actually do when they improvise. In fact, many believe that they are simply playing melodies off the top of their head or that they just have a gift for creating beautiful solos on the fly. This is most certainly not true as I’ve learned
Discover this "Secret" and Dramatically Improve Your Jazz Guitar Playing Read More »
For those of you interested in smooth jazz guitar, at the end of this post is a YouTube video of Norman Brown playing live at the 2007 All Star Smooth Jazz Cruise. I’ve seen Norman play live many times and he’s an amazing performer. His style is similar to George Benson but with less of
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This is the second article in a series for beginning jazz guitarists. In the last lesson, I gave you what I considered to be the 8 Essential Jazz Guitar Chords. I consider them essential because they can be used right away to play through a number of jazz guitar tunes. Well, now that you’ve learned
Getting Started With The Blues Read More »
I recently came accross the following You Tube video of an all-star line up playing Chick Corea’s tune, “Spain”. Chick Corea – KeyboardsHubert Laws – FluteBill Watrous – TromboneGeorge Benson – GuitarStanley Clarke – BassLenny White – Drumsand introduced by Quincy Jones. Great Stuff! Check it out! Leon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RHzCQIvMyo Technorati : jazz guitar
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When you’re starting out as a jazz guitarist, it can be overwhelming to think of all of the chords that you have to learn. Most rock and blues guitarists are familiar with open string chords, barre chords and other “plain” chord types. Well, jazz guitarists like to spice it up and we often use extended
8 Essential Jazz Chord Forms for the Beginning Jazz Guitarist Read More »
I recently came across an excellent interview recorded by KJZZ with George Benson. It’s about an hour long and he pretty much talks about everything – how he got started, what it was like playing with many of the greats (Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow, etc…), and his newest record, a collaboration with Al Jareau. He’s
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I generally divide jazz guitarists into three basic camps when it comes to improvising styles: Motif style, Cliche-based, and Stream of Consciousness. Obviously all players don’t fall completely into any of these camps but it helps me to organize things. Motif-Based A player in the Motif camp generally will take maybe 3 or 4 ideas
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