Jazz Standards 101 – Autumn Leaves
Online course + printable PDF eBook (243 pages) | Tabs, notation, audio & backing tracks | Instant access | Works on all devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, mobile phones, Apple, Linux, and Android
Autumn Leaves is more than just a beautiful jazz standard. It is also one of the best ways to start learning jazz guitar. Its clear harmony, strong melody, and classic chord progressions make it one of the most widely played tunes in jazz. This song is a great way to understand how jazz music works.
In this course, you’ll use Autumn Leaves as a guide to learn the key elements of jazz guitar and improvisation.
As you dive into this classic tune, you’ll learn that it covers many fundamental aspects of jazz music, making it the perfect starting point for your journey into the world of jazz guitar.
What will you learn in this course?
- Harmony - You'll begin by exploring the music theory behind Autumn Leaves, covering ideas like substitution, secondary dominants, and modal interchange.
- Melody - You'll learn to play the song's melody, starting with the basics and then gradually adding ways to make it more engaging.
- Chords - You'll start with simple chords and work your way up to more complex ones, learning shell chords, drop chords, and common chord patterns. This will help you play the song's harmony effectively.
- Eva Cassidy's Twist - Take a closer look at Eva Cassidy's beautiful version of Autumn Leaves and learn how to play her unique chord arrangement.
- Chord Melody Arrangements - You'll discover how to play Autumn Leaves as a solo guitar piece, beginning with a simple arrangement and moving up to the advanced style of Barney Kessel.
- Arpeggio Studies - You'll explore arpeggios, breaking them down in a way that's easy to understand. You will learn various arpeggio patterns and substitutions to bring more variety to your playing.
- Scale Studies - Explore the scales that work well with Autumn Leaves and practice exercises to make them second nature.
- Solo Studies - You'll work on a solo study designed to boost your improvisation skills, using classic jazz guitar patterns and vocabulary.
- Real-life Examples - You'll pick up ideas and the musical language from jazz legends such as Wes Montgomery, Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Jim Hall, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, and Paul Desmond. Learn from their techniques and borrow their musical language.
- And more!
What You Get With Jazz Standards 101 - Autumn Leaves
- Learn to play and improvise over Autumn Leaves with a clear, step-by-step approach that builds your confidence.
- Get lifetime access to the online course, where you can ask questions, add bookmarks, and play both video and audio.
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Download a PDF (243 pages) that you can print for easy reference.
- Watch video examples online or download them, and adjust the tempo to suit your practice.
- Listen to 63 audio examples online or download them, with tempo controls to help you practice at your own pace.
- Practice with 12 backing tracks, available online or for download, and adjust the tempo as needed.
- Follow along with standard notation and guitar tabs, complete with helpful annotations.
- Access Guitar Pro 8 files for every example in the course.
20 reviews for Jazz Standards 101 – Autumn Leaves
Jarmo Lehtelä (verified owner) –
I have been playing guitar for 50 years, including 5 years professionally. About 6 years ago, I started studying jazz more seriously, and at first I found it very difficult. I didn’t really understand what jazz improvisation was built on or how all the harmonic concepts were connected.
Then I discovered Dirk’s website and ordered a couple of his books to try them out. I soon realized that Dirk Laukens has a remarkable talent for explaining the foundations of jazz improvisation in a way that is extremely clear and easy to understand.
His materials are excellent: well organized, practical, and supported by clear illustrations, examples, and audio tracks. This Autumn Leaves material continues in the same high-quality direction and goes even further in guiding the student through the process.
I can highly recommend this Autumn Leaves material, as well as Dirk’s other books and lessons. I believe these resources can help not only experienced players, but also guitarists with less experience, to discover the secrets of jazz and gain a much clearer understanding of how jazz harmony and improvisation work.
Dennis Hickman (verified owner) –
This is a really good and comprehensive course. As an older student of guitar, I appreciate how clearly the explanations are provided. There is a lot of in-depth material here to keep me going. Thanks.
Ragnar Sigurdsson –
My guitars were silent for 43 years. I studied classical guitar in my youth
and wanted to be either a musician or a scientist. I studied mathematics and
after the first year at university I realized that I had to quit the music
college, but I promised myself that I would start over again one day.
On the occasion of my retirement at the age of 71 I said to myself that now is
the right time to keep the old promise. To celebrate the retirement I bought
myself a new guitar, a wonderful instrument, and started to look for material
to study. A good friend of mine pointed out to me Dirk Laukens’ Jazz Guitar
Online, I downloaded the free material and started to work with it. I have
50 years experience of teaching mathematics and during all these years I have
been developing my own teaching methods, so by experience I immediately saw that
Dirk Laukens is and excellent music teacher and his material is of highest
quality. I registered for the web site and I took the offer to buy all the
courses to a reduced price. I work systematically with The Beginner’s Guide
to Jazz Guitar and this course, Jazz Standards 101 Autumn Leaves, every
day (a little bit at least). I also spend a lot of time glancing through
the other courses and the many lessons. It is always a happy moment to open
Dirk’s weekly messages with new material. Of course I can not play the songs
as Dirk does, but the lessons encourage me to listed to jazz and enjoy
studying the harmonics, melodies and solos. To you guys and girls, born in
the 1950’s and the 60’s, who have your old silent guitars in your living rooms
and daydreams in your heads, I say: Go to your music store, buy new strings,
start playing, join the site and study this course. It is never too late
to start over again!
Ronald Skertich (verified owner) –
I am a recent subscriber to JG+ with many years experience playing Bluegrass, Country & Classic Rock. I find Dirk’s online lessons to be the perfect forum for this intermediate level player who aspires to branch out into the jazz guitar universe. Dirk has a very wholistic approach! The list of recordings of the song by various artists at the beginning of each lesson expands awareness of the tune in a different jazz context. Dirk’s presentation of the fundamental material is very easy to follow as it gradually builds into more complex musical theory that underlies the music of the jazz guitar. This is very helpful to someone new to the language of jazz. The diagrams (scales on the fretboard etc.) are clearly detailed. The audio examples are outstanding. Each lesson concludes with a basic version of the melody and a more challenging solo version. I especially appreciated the larger notation and tab that included a description of the scales, arpeggios, triads etc. used in creating the solo. This will greatly assist as I attempt to apply the theory to my own solos. Dirk’s approach is the best I have experienced so far in my quest to achieve my desired level of proficiency with the jazz guitar. Ron Skertich
Tom Crammond (verified owner) –
Dirk’s site is perhaps the best jazz guitar site on the entire internet. Besides posting great licks and arrangements, this site will take you step by step through the learning process. Each lesson is complete in itself.
Needless to say, one must have some basics of guitar, play basic chords and scales.
But Dirk has set up his lessons so that he shows exactly what is needed to learn and play the lesson.
Another facet of these lessons is Dirk’s ability to play a number of really wonderful lines that are not so difficult that one needs to have a really advanced technique to play the melodies, chords, and lines.
Lastly, Dirk has taken the time to index his material in a way that enables a player who does not have any or very little experience with jazz to learn some nice tunes and solos pretty much right away.
Almost any guitar player who plays another style Country, Rock, Blues, etc. can start with these beginning lessons and easily in one month have a great sounding song or solo.
The secret to success is just to follow Dirk’s suggestions for starting. In a short amount of time, you will be playing some jazz material that sounds great and is authentic, plus the material will become part of your repertoire that will still sound good months or years from now.
Stefan Fiebig (verified owner) –
I’m absolutely thrilled with Dirk’s website and courses. They’re incredibly professionally presented, the backing tracks sound fantastic, and learning here is genuinely enjoyable – even if I sometimes feel a bit overwhelmed. The lessons on the blog alone are so incredibly comprehensive. Nevertheless, I bought Chords Melody and Autumn Leaves, and that was definitely a good decision.
Ben (verified owner) –
Erg complete cursus! Als gemiddeld gitaarspeler en dan nu ook nog jazz is het echt wel een uitdaging. Cursus zit erg goed in elkaar, is opbouwend en legt alles compleet uit!
Peter Schwieger (verified owner) –
Der Kurs ist jeden Cent wert! Ich selbst bin ein erfahrener Gitarrist lerne trotzdem noch viel dazu. Der Kurs ist aber auch für weniger erfahrene Gitarristen geeignet. Eswerden Grundlagen erklärt so das alles nachvollziehbar ist.
This course is worth every penny! I’m an experienced guitarist myself, but I still learned a lot. The course is also suitable for less experienced guitarists. The fundamentals are explained so that everything is easy to understand.
James O’Neill –
This is a fantastic course. I feel great playing a nice version of this song now, but I’ve only scratched the surface of the course. It’s something I’ll keep coming back to and learning from. There is a lot of depth. Great job putting it together.
Byron Henderson (verified owner) –
Absolutely outstanding course. I found one of the free web short standards courses and really liked it, and emailed Dirk that I wished he would do an expanded version and, of course, he had already done it, and many more. The coverage is amazing and is really a full “learn jazz with a song” course. I’m tackling it a layer at a time: shell voicings, harmonic analysis, melodies in one pass and then I expect to take a year or more to add the many other layers of substitutions, modes, licks, patterns, exercises and transcriptions from major players. And with it all there are audio and backing tracks for every layer. As I said, outstanding.