Blog - Jazz Guitar Lessons

Welcome,

This blog covers different topics with several useful lessons both for beginners, intermediate and advanced jazz guitar players.

Whether you're looking for tips on playing jazz guitar, this blog surely has the information you crave and will help you expand your music knowledge and technical skills.

Here below many tutorials grouped into several distinct categories:

Jazz Guitar Lessons

Jazz Guitar Licks and Transcriptions

Scales and Arpeggios

Chords

Jazz Standards

Music Theory

Guitar Practice Tips

Teacher Spotlight - Jazz Guitar Lessons

Cheat Sheets, Methods, Posters, eBooks

Infographics

Music Gear Reviews

Music Reviews

Backing Tracks

Uncategorized

Guest Posts

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  • 49 Licks of Legendary Jazz Musicians for Guitar - Lessons in PDF with TABS and analysis

    49 essential jazz guitar licks PDF eBook49 Essential Jazz Guitar Licks With Tabs and Analysis

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    Practicing jazz guitar licks is a very important aspect of jazz learning. Particularly when these licks are transcribed from improvisations of the greatest jazz musicians of all times (Cannonball Adderley, Barney Kessel, Sonny Rollins, Charlie Christian, Emily Remler, George Benson, Grant Green,  Herb Ellis, Jim Hall, Jimmy Raney, Joe Pass, John Scofield, Kenny Burrell, Charlie Parker, Mike Stern and Wes Montgomery) who helped forge the history of jazz music.

    This eBook available for download in a PDF format contains 49 effective jazz guitar phrases and patterns with TABS and notation applied to common jazz chord progressions . These patterns both for guitar teachers and students cover different styles from swing to blues, to hard-bop to bebop.

    These essential jazz lines arranged for jazz guitarists from beginner to advanced come with easy-to-understand explanations of one of the greatest players improvisational techniques.

    Learning these jazz transcriptions make it possible to understand the approach of the great names of jazz to different chord progressions found in many standards as turnarounds, minor and major II-V-I, blues progressions, modal playing.

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  • Target Tones and Enclosures - 58 Guitar Patterns

    This guitar lesson is about a very important concept used by many jazz improvisers named "Target notes" or "target tones" or "approach notes". It has to do with targeting chord tones by scale or chromatically.

    This technique opens the door to another essential type of targeting called "Enclosures" used to surround a chord tone both diatonically and chromatically from above and below.

    Understanding and applying "Targeting" will help you solos sound more jazzy and allow you to expand your harmonic knowledge.

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  • Dominant 7 Chord Altered Extensions - Guitar Infographic

    Dominant 7 Chord Altered Extensions - Guitar Infographic

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  • Drop 2 Guitar Chord Shapes - Infographic

    This infographic with guitar freatboard diagrams show how to play all five types of drop 2 chords on the first set of strings (E, B, G and D strings). 

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  • Harmonized Major Scale For Guitarists With Shapes

    This infographic with three neck diagrams is a useful reminder for beginner guitarists and composers. It shows how to build a drop 2 seventh chord from each note of the major scale.

     

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  • Voice Leading For Guitar - 5 Easy Exercises

    "Voice leading" is a term that refers to the smooth progression of each voice of a chord.

    This technique consist to move individually one or several voices up or down by a step from one chord to the next.

    This is very used by composers and improvisers in order to connect chords instead of bouncing them around.

    The aim of this lesson is to connect or voice-lead basic four-note chords of the same types by moving only one voice.

    This should help you learn some of the most important chords used in jazz guitar. 

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  • GuitarSim - App & Smartphone Accessory For Guitarists

    GuitarSim is the smartphone accessory that turns your phone into a mini digital guitar with tons of features. It’s not just your average guitar; Guitarsim leverages your phone to give you a powerful and portable gadget to jam with, and its foldable so you can throw it into your bag without hassle.

    Guitarsim app for guitarists

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  • Guitar Arpeggio Shapes Infographic

    This guitar infographic takes the main arpeggio shapes namely ,minor 7, major 7, dominant 7, half-diminished and diminished 7. 

     

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  • 5 Jazz Tunes Arranged For Chord-Melody You Need To Know

    5 jazz standards chord melodyFocusing on jazz standards is surely the best way to accelerate the learning process of jazz guitar, making sure to choose easy songs with a few numbers of chords and melodies that can be easy to hear, play and memorize. When learning jazz guitar, it's very important to spend time learning famous jazz songs, it is an essential part of being a jazz musician. Many guitar students are able to play a ton of chords, arpeggios and scales but they can't play a jazz tune mixing both the melody and the chords.

    Here are 5 easy chord-melody arrangements of popular jazz songs for beginning jazz guitarists. Each lesson is available for free as a YouTube video with guitar chord diagrams overlayed in real time. 

     

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    • Beautiful love (Wayne King, Victor Young and Egbert Van Alstyne)
    • Misty (Errol Garner)
    • Moon river (Henry Mancini)
    • Stella by startlight (Victor Young)
    • Autumn Leaves (Joseph Kosma)

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  • Drop 3 Chords - Guitar Diagrams And Music Theory

    Drop voicings are chords which span more than an octave. They are very useful tools in music composition and arrangement and are greatly appreciated by guitarists for comping and soloing.

    There are several types of drop voicings as drop 2, drop 3, drop 3-4, drop 2 and 4 voicings and drop 2-3-4 voicings. 

    In this lesson you will learn how drop 3 voicings are built and how to play them on guitar.

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  • Autumn Leaves - Easy Chord Melody Arrangement For Beginners - Tabs and chords

    Autumn leaves is one of the most popular non-American jazz standards on pick-up gigs and records. It is a must-know tune for any jazz guitarist and a great choice when you want to play both chords and melody on guitar. This guitar lesson provides an easy chord melody arrangement to play this famous jazz tune.

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  • 5 Tips For Learning Guitar Scales

    5 tips for learning guitar scalesLearning to maneuver through scales on your guitar will bring about a ton of benefits to you, as a player. First of all, you'll begin to perceive music a little bit differently – you'll find logic where you ought to think there was none, you'll understand how your favorite composers got their brilliant ideas, and, most importantly, you'll get to put the theory into practice.

    What's more, the whole journey of exploring the theoretical sphere of music concerning the scales isn't all that hard. Essentially, you'll found yourself amidst the crossroads, and you'll have to choose a path – you'll either delve deep into books about music theory, or you'll have to figure everything out yourself.


    Regardless of the path you wish to take, mastering and learning guitar scales is, quite frankly, easy. We've brought together a short list of five tips that will make the process even simpler, and more entertaining.

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  • How To Play Autumn Leaves - Jazz Guitar Chords - Advanced lesson

    Autumn leaves chord arrangementAutumn leaves is a 1945 song composed by French musician Joseph Kosma. The original lyrics are in French, written by Kosma but in 1947 Johnny Mercer wrote the English ones. Since that time it has become a very popular song and surely one of the most played jazz standards.

    This song is in a AABC form (32 bars), very much appreciated by beginners because the harmonic progression is pretty simple to play and easy to understand. It covers a very important chord sequence found in jazz, the ii-V-I both in minor and major.

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  • 25 Altered Dominant Guitar Chords

    Altered dominant chords are used to bring tension and an outside flavor to jazz chord progressions. 

    They generally resolve to an inside chord as the I or a substitute as iii or vi.

    They have one or more notes lowered or raised by a half-step, in other words they contain one or more alterations.

    These alterations are b9,#9, b5 (#11) and b13 (#5).

    Altered Chords are generally used by jazz musicians, composers and arrangers as substitutions for diatonic chords for adding dissonance and spicing up the harmony.

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  • How To Connect Jazz Guitar Chords (Drop 2)

    Drop 2 chords are very important tools in jazz music. They are very useful for comping, chord soloing, harmonizing and building chord melodies.

    The first chapter of this lesson provides all the drop 2 voicing shapes, major seventh (M7), minor seventh (m7), dominant seventh (7), half-diminished (m7b5) and diminished seventh (dim7) to play on the guitar neck.

    The second explains how to connect them with notes of the major scale.

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  • What Is a Backdoor Progression And How To Play Over It

    In jazz, there are many types of turnarounds and progressions that eventually we all must encounter. A key part of how you practice should be in preparing yourself for these progressions and turnarounds.

    Whether that is by learning a shed-full of Parker’s II V I licks, by practicing exercises over progressions or even by learning a new standard.

    The end result is that you are better equipped to deal with what is in front of you in the moment on the bandstand.

    To this end, I’m going to talk to you today about a progression known as the backdoor progression.

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  • Guitar Scale Dictionary

    This E-book is a printable PDF method including over 700 scale diagrams and formula charts for guitarists.
  • Guitar Chord Dictionary

    This PDF eBook provides over 550 guitar chord shapes. This is the perfect reference guide to understand how chords are built and how to play them on the guitar neck.
  • 30 Groovy Jazz Guitar Licks

    This downloadable package contains a PDF WITH audio files giving access to 30 groovy guitar phrases mixing jazz, blues and funky licks for beginners.
  • 172 Arpeggio Shapes For Guitar

    This printable PDF is a method dedicated to guitarists of all styles who want to learn build and play the most important types of arpeggios.
  • 126 Triad Chord Shapes

    This handbook for guitar players is intended both for teachers and students. It includes 126 guitar shapes for mastering triads.
  • Harmonic Major Scale Chords

    this PDF offers diagrams and tabs for guitar to learn the chords of the harmonic major scale.
  • Major Scale Harmonization

    This package provides a printable PDF with exercises and audio files to learn how to harmonize the major scale with 3 note chords and their extensions.
  • 30 Minor Arpeggio Licks

    This package includes a printable PDF method containing 30 exercises with tabs, staves and audio files for practicing minor arpeggios on guitar.
  • II V I Bundle - 170 Exercises

    This bundle contains 4 PDF methods for a total of 170 exercises with tabs, staves, analysis & audio files for practicing scales, arpeggios licks & chords over the 2-5-1 progression.
  • Diatonic Licks Bundle

    This package contains 120 jazz guitar lines based on diatonic modes as Mixolydian, Dorian and Ionian. PDF format with tabs, audio files and analysis.
  • 30 Smooth Jazz Guitar Licks

    In this package you'll get a printable PDF Method with tabs, notation, analysis, scale shapes and audio files for practicing 30 smooth jazz guitar licks.
  • 40 II V I Jazz Guitar Licks

    This pdf method for guitar contains fourteen 2 5 1 jazz guitar lines with tab, standard notation, analysis, scale charts and audio files.
  • 50 II-V-I voicings

    This printable PDF guitar method provides 50 exercises with audio files, analysis, tab and staves for learning major 2-5-1 chord voicings.
  • 40 Minor 2 5 1 Chord Voicings

    This PDF method contains 40 exercices with tabs, scores and audio files for practicing jazz guitar chords over the minor 2 5 1 progression.
  • 40 Minor II V I Licks

    This guitar method is a printable PDF with tabs, diagrams, theory and audio files providing 40 minor 2 5 1 jazz patterns.
  • 40 Mixolydian Jazz Guitar Lick

    PDF guitar method with tabs, audio files and theory providing 40 dominant jazz guitar lines for teachers and students.
  • 40 Minor Jazz Guitar Licks

    This printable guitar method in PDF format contains 40 easy minor jazz guitar lines based on the Dorian mode.
  • 40 Major Jazz Guitar Licks

    Printable PDF eBook method containing 40 major jazz guitar licks with tab, standard notation and audio files for beginners and intermediates.
  • Guitar Walking Bass Lines

    This jazz guitar method about walking bass lines and chords is available as a PDF files containing 35 exercises with tabs, analysis and audio files
  • 101 Dominant Arpeggio Patterns

    This printable PDF method provides 101 dominant arpeggio exercises with tab, theory and standard notation for the jazz, blues and rock guitarist.
  • 49 Essential Jazz Lines

    This printable eBook method in PDF format provides 49 jazz solo transcriptions of the greatest jazz musicians. Tab, standard notation, audio files & analysis.
  • 11 Jazz Blues Studies

    11 jazz blues chord studies with tabs, standard notation, analysis, and audio recordings and PDF.
  • 10 Easy Fingerstyle Blues

    This PDF with Tabs and audio files provides 10 easy acoustic fingerstyle blues guitar studies for kids and beginners.
  • 25 Altered Jazz Guitar Lines

    This PDF eBook method contains 25 altered jazz guitar licks with tabs, patterns, scale charts and audio files to master, apply and develop the altered scale.
  • 40 Blues Dominant Patterns

    This printable method is available as a PDF file containing 40 easy dominant jazz-blues guitar lines with tabs, standard notation, analysis, audio files and scale charts.
  • 25 Pentatonic Licks

    This jazz guitar method is an eBook available as a PDF with standard notation, guitar tabs, diagrams, analysis, audio files and backing tracks. You will find in this booklet 25 easy jazz guitar lines with theory using common and rare pentatonic scales.
  • 25 Soul Jazz Guitar Licks

    You will find here an eBook available in PDF containing 25 soul jazz and hard bop guitar licks in the style of Grant Green, Melvin Sparks, George Benson.
  • 25 Diminished Patterns

    This eBook PDF with audio files contains 25 dominant diminished jazz guitar patterns using the half-whole diminished scale and diminished 7th arpeggios.
  • 6 Tritone substitution licks

    This Printable PDF eBook available for free download contains 6 easy jazz guitar licks with tabs/notation, youtube video link and analysis about the tritone substitution.
  • 10 Minor 7 Arpeggio Patterns

    This printable PDF eBook offers 10 easy minor 7 arpeggio patterns with its related YouTube video for beginner guitarists.
  • 10 Easy Major 7 Arpeggio Licks

    This is a printable PDF for beginner jazz guitar players providing 10 easy licks to practice major 7 arpeggios.
  • 10 Chord Melody Lines

    Within this package, you'll discover a set of ten chord melody exercises for beginners. Printable PDFaudio files, a backing track, and a link to the associated YouTube video.
  • 10 Minor Blues Scale Licks

    You'll find here a PDF with 10 easy jazz guitar licks to practice the minor blues scale on guitar.

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