Hi, my name is Dirk Laukens and I teach jazz guitar.
I grew up with the music of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, but soon after my first guitar teacher (Jo Cassiers) introduced me to the jazz standards So What and All of Me, I got hooked on jazz.
This led me to start studying jazz guitar full-time, first at the Jazz Studio (Antwerp, Belgium) and then at the Royal Conservatory of Music, also in Antwerp.
My guitar teachers at that time were Hendrik Braeckman and Martijn van Iterson. I also followed guest lessons and workshops by John Abercrombie, Jesse van Ruller, Kenny Wheeler, Barry Harris, Maria Schneider, and many more.
In 2003, I started Jazz Guitar Online as a means to document my lessons at the Conservatory. This grew out to the biggest and most popular jazz guitar website it is today, and a thriving forum with over 65,000 members.
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have feedback or questions about all things guitar-related, I’m here to help!
After years of playing Ibanez, Heritage, and Epiphone, I found my workhorse guitar in this 1973 Gibson ES-175.
I use this Fender Telecaster for more pop orientated stuf. A versatile guitar at a great price.
This digital version of the Fender Twin Reverb has the classic sound of the Twin at half the weight.
The HOF is a great and inexpensive reverb pedal with a lot of possibilities and a great sound.
I have been using these flat wound strings since forever because of their great sound and low tension.
They ain't cheap, but I have yet to find a pick with the same sound and control as these BlueChips.
Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down) was written by Sonny Bono and originally released by Cher in 1966. Also in 1966, Nancy Sinatra recorded a cover version of Bang Bang, featuring the iconic tremolo guitar part played by Billy Strange. This version of the song regained popularity in 2003 when it was featured as
Mr. PC is a popular minor blues standard in C, written and recorded by John Coltrane in 1959 for his album Giant Steps. In this guitar lesson, you will learn how to play the melody and how to improvise a solo over its chord changes. In case you were wondering, the initials P.C. stand for
In this lesson, you will learn how to combine chords with a walking bass line, a concept that is becoming more and more in demand these days. As club and restaurant owners are cutting budgets, one way to keep our gig as a guitar player is to slim down the ensemble to a duo or
Half-diminished seventh chords are minor chords with a flat five and are commonly used as the first chord in minor-key ii V I progressions. It’s important to have this type of chord with all its inversions under your fingers because they are used in almost every jazz standard. In this lesson, you will learn how
Endings are an important part of your jazz vocabulary because they are one of the most memorable parts for your listeners. The problem is that most jazz standards don’t have a fixed ending (aka coda), so it’s a good idea to have a couple of standard endings up your sleeve. In this lesson, you will
Released by Gibson in 1958, the ES-335 was the first thinline semi-hollow body electric guitar. The Gibson ES-335 is an archtop guitar equipped with two hollow chambers separated by a solid maple wood block running down its center, and twin humbuckers. The maple block provides the ES-335 with a hybrid solid/hollow body perfect for jazz
So, you want to buy a jazz guitar, but you’re not sure how to make the right choice. What is the best guitar for jazz and how do you pick a brand and type of guitar that is right for you? This article will help you decide what jazz guitar to buy. We will explore
Known as the workhorse of jazz guitar, the Gibson ES-175 is an iconic hollow body electric guitar loved by many legendary guitarists in the worlds of jazz, blues, rock, and fusion. The Gibson ES-175 has a recognizable sound that has been imitated by many guitar makers but seldom duplicated. In its nearly 70-year history, the
In this lesson, you will learn how to play the classic jazz standard Stella By Starlight, written by Victor Young. Stella is one of the most popular jazz standards played today and one every jazz guitarist should have under his fingers. The harmony and melody of Stella By Starlight are derived from the soundtrack of
Improvising on the guitar requires you to have a good understanding of note relationships on the fretboard. The moment you need to start thinking about a particular note you want to play, it’s already too late. That’s why we study and practice scales, arpeggios, and chords. Another useful tool to visualize the relationship between notes
Unit 7 is a great jazz standard composed by bass player Sam Jones during the time he was working with Cannonball Adderley. The most famous version of Unit 7 is on Wes Montgomery’s album “Smokin’ at the Half Note”. This album, which is essential listening for any jazz guitarist, was recorded live in 1965 with
How Insensitive (Insensatez in Portuguese) is a bossa nova classic written by Antonio Carlos Jobim. In this lesson, you will learn how to play the melody of How Insensitive, how to solo over its chord changes, and you will have a look at some typical bossa nova intros. How insensitive has been recorded by a
Are you wondering how to get a good jazz guitar tone? On this page, you will learn how your favorite jazz guitar player gets his unique sound, besides using his ears and fingers. Discover what kind of guitars, guitar amps, strings, picks, and effects the jazz greats use. Jazz Guitar Players Al Di Meola Allan
Lawsuit guitars are high-quality copies of popular American brand name guitars (like Fender and Gibson) produced by Japanese companies in the 1970s. These Japanese lawsuit guitars are of legendary quality and are highly sought after. There are still gems to be found, on eBay or Reverb for example, and a lot of these auctions are
In this lesson, we’re going to have a look at chord inversions. A good grasp of inversions is one of those things many guitarists lack. Inversions can be daunting at first, but they seem a lot more complex than they really are. Here’s why chord inversions are useful: Inversions open new possibilities and enable you to
In this lesson, you’ll learn how dominant 7th chords work, how they are formed and why dominant chords are called dominant.
We’ll also have a look at how they look on the guitar and how they are used in jazz and other genres of music.
This jazz guitar chord dictionary is a reference to help you find great-sounding 7th-chord voicings to play and improvise over jazz standards.
The 244 chord shapes in the chord dictionary are essential knowledge for any jazz guitarist and will enable you to comp chords with confidence.
Kind of Blue, Miles Davis’ best-selling album, was released in 1959. The entire album was composed as a series of modal sketches, in which each performer was given a set of modes that defined the parameters of their improvisation. While So What is the most famous tune of the album, All Blues is definitely a
There Will Never Be Another You is one of my favorite jazz standards. I love the melody and the chord changes are easy, but not too easy to improvise over. The song was first recorded in 1942 by clarinetist Woody Herman but wasn’t very well known until Chet Baker recorded his vocal rendition in 1954.
In this jazz guitar lesson, you will learn how to play Misty, a great and fun-to-play jazz ballad written by Errol Garner.
You will learn a chord melody arrangement and how to solo over Misty’s chords (backing tracks included).
The minor pentatonic scale is usually one of the first scales you learn as a guitar player. It is used a lot in blues, rock, and pop, but many jazz guitar players seem to neglect this scale.
This doesn’t have to be the case though, because the pentatonic scale is very useful, in jazz as well as other genres.
In this lesson, you will learn all the necessary fingerings of the minor pentatonic scale, and how you can use it to spice up your jazz solos.
Charlie Parker (aka “Bird”) is one of the founders of bebop. He was the master of chord tone improvisation and that’s why his playing is so interesting for guitarists to study. Though translating lines from sax to the guitar isn’t always easy, studying legendary players such as Charlie Parker is time well spent. Getting your
Build your jazz guitar vocabulary by learning these 50 classic bebop jazz guitar licks, as well as the important concepts behind each lick.
Learning to understand the concepts behind jazz licks is one of the most important aspects of building a jazz vocabulary.
Exotic guitar scales are great to add some new flavor to your music. In this lesson, you will learn 11 scales from different parts of the world. You will also learn how to practice these scales and get an introduction to Indian music for guitar (ragas). Each scale is in the key of A and
Learn how to play jazz guitar arpeggios and discover how they can improve your solos. Arpeggios are the best tool to improvise over chord progressions and jazz standards and give your solos that instant “jazzy” sound. In this lesson, you will learn all you need to know to start using guitar arpeggios in your solos.
Guitar modes are a type of scale that you need to master to be able to improvise in jazz.
Modes can be a bit confusing at the start, but once you get your head around the basic idea, you will notice modes can be quite simple and very useful for improvisation.
In this lesson, you will learn the modes of the major scale. You will learn the theory behind guitar modes, the different fingerings on guitar, and how to use them in your solos.
Learn these 7 guitar scales and you will be able to solo over almost any jazz standard. Understanding and knowing how to play these scales is essential for any beginning jazz guitar player. This lesson includes diagrams, audio, scale patterns, exercises, and solo examples.
In this music theory lesson, you will learn how to construct jazz guitar chords from scratch.
Understanding this essential theory will make finding chords on the fretboard much easier and it will take the guesswork out of playing jazz chords.
Besides learning this essential piece of theory, you will also learn how to apply the theory to the guitar. After all, that’s what you are here for!
Autumn Leaves is a must-know jazz standard.
In this lesson, you will learn a chord/melody version of Autumn Leaves. You will also learn how to solo over Autumn Leaves’ chord changes.
Summertime is another one of those popular jazz standards that every jazz player needs to know.
In this lesson, you will learn a chord/melody arrangement of Summertime. You will also learn to improvise over the chord changes and learn a few soloing concepts.
