The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
Reply to Thread Bookmark Thread
Page 1 of 4 123 ... LastLast
Posts 1 to 25 of 78
  1. #1

    User Info Menu

    Hi All,

    In your opinions... what is the best, maybe most popular beginner jazz method book/course out there? I see many, but will rely on the forums years of experience. Thanks.

    Dave

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2
    I wish there was one, at least in the sense that you, me and others have asked that question over the years. There really isn't one definitive resource.

    Mickey Baker's book is ancient but a classic. Don't ask too many questions with that one. It's more immersion without a lot of explanation.

    William Leavitt's modern guitar method vol 1 is kind of standard. It's more modern than baker, but it's dated now as well. It's not a dedicated JAZZ method really, but the sequencing of the chord lessons alone are near perfect for beginners to jazz. It has a lot of theory and plenty of note reading, it's really a guitar reading/literacy type book. Careful not to get bogged down for years without a teacher in that one.

    Others will recommend Jody Fisher. See my Amazon review/tirade for discerning viewpoint re its being a waste of life for beginners.

    Those are the biggest kind of consensus books. Garrison Fewell's 2 improv books and Joe Elliott's jazz guitar soloing are probably on the next tier in terms of popularity and influence.

    The frustrating thing is that all of these books are vastly different, and there's nothing remotely approaching consensus. Most beginners are going to have a great deal of trouble without a teacher.

    Baker and Leavitt are cheap and probably worth it, at least to start with. There are tons of resources online for them, because they've been around so long. Study groups on the forum, videos etc. Maybe add fewell's "melodic approach".

    Better yet to get a teacher though. Once a year or once a week. Don't go it on your own. Learn tunes... Transcribe...

  4. #3

    User Info Menu

    That is a tough question.

    Is there a book like that?

    I suggest you don't need a book. Taking lessons from a good jazz guitarist would be the best if you can swing it (pun).

    The following would work as well as any book:

    1) Find a list of jazz tunes in order of difficulty and start with the first tune.


    2) Learn the melody by ear or with a lead sheet. Pick it out on your guitar.

    3) Learn the chords of the tune. Use this: Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary (228 Chord Shapes)

    Look up the chords with this: Chord Search

    4) Improvise over the tune. Use the major scale and the pentatonic scale and chromatic notes at first.

    5) Get a software program like Band-in-a-Box or Impro-visor (Welcome to Impro-Visor) to jam with.

    6) Listen to jazz. Ask questions. Use the internet to look up things.

    7) Rinse and repeat.

  5. #4

    User Info Menu

    I started out with Jazz Picture Chords. First book I bought when I bought my first guitar back when I was shorter than I am today. I think that if you get it you won't feel so overwhelmed.

  6. #5

    User Info Menu

    I'm very tempted to say Mick Goodrick's Advancing Guitarist book even though the beginning of the volume it explicitly says its not a method book. Its not a direct route to jazz much but I would definitely say that is a 'definite beginner's guitar book'. Perhaps even the most important guitar book in my opinion.

    The most direct jazz guitar method book is probably Garrison Fewell's Melodic Approach. I don't think its difficult or confusing so I would consider this as beginner book. Its simplistic and intuitive by design but you still got to put into the work.. I'm not very familiar with the rest of the methods so take my opinion with a grain of sugar!

  7. #6

    User Info Menu

    IMO, the free lessons on Jazz Guitar Online, the parent site for this forum are an excellent place to begin.

  8. #7

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Stuart Elliott
    IMO, the free lessons on Jazz Guitar Online, the parent site for this forum are an excellent place to begin.
    Totally agreed! When it comes to a book, Garrison Fewell's "Jazz Guitar Improvisation - A Melodic Approach" gave me a kick start as a beginner at jazz guitar (which I still am...). It gets you to playing and understanding what you're doing there and at @ 20 or 25 bucks including a CD it's inexpensive, too. Lots of material to work on.

    For digging a bit deeper there's his follow up "A Harmonic Approach" - you could work with both of them simultaneaously...

  9. #8

    User Info Menu

    For me it was somewhat different from many others, though I doubt my experience was unique.

    I'd played guitar all my life, mainly a John Denver Wanna-Be during the Great Folk Music Scare of the 70's (when it almost caught on). In the late 1980's I bottomed out, and wanted to somehow be more advanced. I didn't want to do classical studies, and wasn't really a rock fan. Early in my playing I'd stumbled on the Mel Bay Chord-Melody method and thought somehow that must be the domain I was interested in, but couldn't find the book anywhere (it's old!).

    One day on NPR I heard a solo guitar track where a guy was just tearing it up. It was, I learned eventually, Joe Pass playing "Stompin at the Savoy" on a live track. I called the station and asked "Who is that? Does he have other records? What do you call that music?" The patronizing NPR DJ who had to be rolling his eyes over this yokel said "It's Joe Pass, and yes he has lots of recordings, which, by the way, are called 'CDs' now... and the music is JAZZ." Later that same day I heard Earl Klugh's solo guitar of "Embraceable You" and was hooked. I went to the music store, found all the Joe Pass CDs and just bought the entire stack!

    But how to play? I still felt lost. One day I was walking down the hallway at our school and passed the guitar teacher's studio and heard something a lot like what I'd been wanting to play. I opened the door, asked "Hey, is that jazz?" he said it was, and that he used jazz to teach theory because most contemporary church musicians don't want to study classical. So I took lessons for a year from him using Leon White's "Styles for the Studio," Steve Crowell's jazz standards in melody arrangements, and Jamey Aebersold's "Nothing but Blues" and "Maiden Voyage" sets.

    I think jazz usually begins with a guitarist who already has some ability but wants to plunge into something more rewarding. The key for me was that I heard someone playing the music I wanted to play, found a teacher who was in the ball park, and lucked into some excellent materials for study.

    So a beginning jazz method... find what you want to play and start trying to do that.

  10. #9

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    Mickey Baker's book is ancient but a classic. Don't ask too many questions with that one. It's more immersion without a lot of explanation...
    I've come to think that's a good way to do it. It is common now for teachers of jazz guitar to act as if the music is a puzzle to be solved. It's like teaching kids grammar before teaching them words. (And we don't really teach them wors so much as marvel at what they pick up and how fast it happens.) If one works through Mickey's book, one will know a good many chords and progressions and be able to solo over blues and rhythm changes (and other "vamps"). That's a lot to get from an 8-dollar book!

  11. #10

    User Info Menu

    If you cannot find a tacher I would recommend a book that explains harmony from the beginning...

    Jazz methods often go to one of these cathegories:

    - very restricted without lots of explanation... sometimes promising something quickly... close rock guitar methods.. more commercially focused aiming for amateur players who expect some miraculous mysteries to be discovered there in guaranteed and short trms

    - solid methods with harmony explanation and all - but unfortunately often oriented to musicians with some basic educational background (like to those who studied classical music at least as kids and know about functional harmony and all that) - so again amateur players from folk or rock may be discouraged or interprete the materieal in a wrong way



    My recomedation would be: take two books - something like Mickey Baker and together with this - find some good conventional book on basic classical functional harmony... work with it abstractly without jazz context... it will help you to understand how the same things work in jazz context

    To me the first methof should the one that treats the most common and conventional idiomas in the most common and basic forms - it should throw you right in the middle of the mainstream (not Mick Goodrick for sure)
    Last edited by Jonah; 11-24-2016 at 11:19 AM.

  12. #11

    User Info Menu

    only one approach of course and its immersive immediately... forget BOOKs...theory .. Start playing TODAY.....BAND in a BOX

  13. #12

    User Info Menu

    Best beginning jazz method is copying stuff off of recordings, it's also the best method for r&b, country, rock, and blues...imagine that.

  14. #13

    User Info Menu

    That is definitely the best way to become good at copying stuff off recordings.

  15. #14

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Jonzo
    That is definitely the best way to become good at copying stuff off recordings.
    I can only speak for myself, but I got far more from doing this than from any book.

  16. #15

    User Info Menu

    We all learn different ways. "Transcribing" never worked well for me. My brain would keep getting in the way. If I didn't understand why they did what they did I could never get comfortable trying to do it.

    Weirdly, although I've been playing guitar for 25 years, jazz only became accessible to me after learning about "jazz". Not jazz guitar theory, I mean the history of jazz. This book was amazing:

    The History of Jazz: Ted Gioia: 9780195399707: Amazon.com: Books

    Also the Ken Burns series on Jazz. Understanding the roots of the music, how it evolved, what the innovators of jazz were thinking, and even their cultural framework all helped to understand the music.

    THEN I began with jazz method books and online courses. It all made more sense. For example, understanding that jazz evolved from brass marching bands of the late 19th century helped me to understand why swing and bebop jazz places an emphasis on arpeggios rather than scales. You can't blow a four note chord on a trumpet. But if you are a trumpeter in a rhythm section you are going to be playing arpeggios all day long. Say you want to stand out of the crowd? Maybe embellish those triads and arpeggiated chords. I am sure there is someone who will angrily say that I COMPLETELY misinterpreted the origins and structure of Swing and Bebop. But it is what made sense to me and helped me break out of my modal playing (what scale to play over the I, IV and V of a blues) and play a more "jazz" improvisation.

    In any case, a slightly different twist. Hope it helps.

  17. #16

    User Info Menu

    Been reading Herbie Hancocks book. He says pick your favourite artist and transcribe. I have heard Kenny Burrell Robben Ford Eddie van Halen say the same thing plus many others including the top players around here.

  18. #17

    User Info Menu

    Hancock's Wikipedia page says that he was a highly-trained pianist and already considered a classical prodigy before he started playing jazz. It says he learned tunes from recordings, and also lists his many jazz teachers.

    This may be the quote you are referencing:

    "the time I actually heard the Hi-Lo's, I started picking that stuff out; my ear was happening. I could hear stuff and that's when I really learned some much farther-out voicings – like the harmonies I used on Speak Like a Child – just being able to do that. I really got that from Clare Fischer's arrangements for the Hi-Lo's. Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept.... He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it came from.[6]"

    Hancock had an enormous technical proficiency and theoretical foundation that allowed him to integrate what he was hearing. To suggest he learned to play jazz piano by copying recordings is a gross oversimplification. I am not surprised that many people say or think that copying is how they "learned jazz", but, obviously, if someone can tell you what ii V I means, they have done other types of study too.

    If you drop two people into a foreign country and allow one to learn the language only by ear, while the other receives grammar instruction as well, the one who learns the grammar will become proficient much faster.

    Immersion is good, but not enough.
    Last edited by Jonzo; 11-27-2016 at 02:05 PM.

  19. #18

    User Info Menu

    Apologies to op yes perhaps not absolute beginner route.

    Personally the only book that helped me develop as a guitarist were the Frederick Noad classical books.

    My recommendation would be learn blues heads. c jam blues, take the a train. Learn the blues scale and the arpeggios for those songs, remember less is more and space is good, sing a line then play it. Put it up here for feedback 99% people here are fantastic.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  20. #19

    User Info Menu

    I think books are ok up to a point. But there's a lot they can't teach you.

  21. #20

    User Info Menu

    I think the best way is just to start! Get everything you can - books, recordings, listening, trying things out, asking around, reading internet stuff - but begin. Sooner or later it begins to gel and one day you'll realise you know your stuff quite well.

    Never everything, just quite well.

  22. #21

    User Info Menu

    "learn your chords, learn your scales, learn your notes on the neck"

    - BB King

  23. #22

    User Info Menu

    I'm not taking either side here but my view is that we all have different brains - don't laugh - and what comes from one player's brain may not easily fit another's.

    The point is that what one player - famous or not - plays suits them; they understand it and it slips under their fingers. Were we to merely imitate them we may find it impossible to do that naturally. If one persists one may well be able to put together some sort of decent solo but it may not be natural to oneself.

    What I've always tried to do is study the principle behind what they were doing and then adapt it in a way that seems natural to me. That way it comes out clean rather than 'popped in' which I found could happen.

    Let's say that I found playing just like Wes was really easy for me. Before you know it I'm a Wes Montgomery sound-alike. People will gawp in amazement... but I have no voice of my own.

    I'd rather be a poor me than a poor man's someone else - although I would still study what they do, definitely. That's how you get ideas.
    Last edited by ragman1; 11-30-2016 at 11:18 AM.

  24. #23

    User Info Menu

    Any method that stresses ear training, copping licks, learning tunes, melodies, and chord/arpeggio knowledge all over the neck.

  25. #24

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
    Any method that stresses ear training, copping licks, learning tunes, melodies, and chord/arpeggio knowledge all over the neck.
    Fits Garrison Fewell's books to a T!

  26. #25

    User Info Menu

    How musically accomplished are you? What is your background in both music and in familiarity with jazz?!

    Prior knowledge base----is a huge factor.

    Have you played an instrument before? Maybe sung in a choir, or been in a band?

    There is a special rhythmic thing going on in most jazz music, that I don't think it's possible to get without listening to a lot of it. That will help a huge bit. Start with the older, simpler stuff...Dixieland, swing, Louis Armstrong, Big bands, and vocalists, bebop and hard bop, and maybe some later stuff---which is a lot trickier to get a handle on.

    Listen and hear how great players construct a line...because that is the essence of playing a decent solo.

    In the history of the music, basically players started embellishing melody lines, then they started to play off chord progressions, and then they started playing around with the chord progressions--reharmonizing....these are all very different things, and depending on your understanding and facility, may take a while to acquire.

    (The very first thing is to "learn to make the changes"...and understand what this means, and why it is important, and how this is done.)

    Then you have to figure out how to get these sounds out of your instrument....which again could be starting from scratch (or maybe not),,,huge difference....you may be needing to work on basic musicianship, first...It's impossible to play this music convincingly without having some degree of facility on an instrument.

    I think Drumbler's post (#3) has a lot of good suggestions. BIAB jamming, I feel has helped me progress the most. I use it with a disk of about 150 jazz songs and can vary tempo, keys, etc. This, and listening to good e.g.'s is probably the most important.

    Beware of the book buying fallacy---no book will help you unless you actually work through it. But, as you become more accomplished, you can go back to books you put aside, and start to get something out of them.
    Last edited by goldenwave77; 12-08-2016 at 09:01 PM.