Jazz Guitar Beginner Practice Routine

[takku]

I'm relatively new to jazz guitar. I have one hour per day to practice (limit set by my wife, I'd play for four hours a day if it was up to me ). Any ideas on how to structure my daily/weekly practice time? Any suggestions regarding study materials (I'm using Mickey Baker and a fake book right now)?

Background: I am a very disciplined person and have played various instruments all my life with varying levels of seriousness (up to four hours a day of piano in my high school years), and thus have realistic expectations about what it takes to reach mastery. My goal is to be able to comp and play simple solos in five years time. I know music theory well. I have played guitar as my primary instrument daily for the past two years (mostly metal and blues genres).

[snailspace]

I'm relatively new to jazz guitar. I have one hour per day to practice (limit set by my wife, I'd play for four hours a day if it was up to me ). Any ideas on how to structure my daily/weekly practice time? Any suggestions regarding study materials (I'm using Mickey Baker and a fake book right now)?

Background: I am a very disciplined person and have played various instruments all my life with varying levels of seriousness (up to four hours a day of piano in my high school years), and thus have realistic expectations about what it takes to reach mastery. My goal is to be able to comp and play simple solos in five years time. I know music theory well. I have played guitar as my primary instrument daily for the past two years (mostly metal and blues genres).

Well, hopefully someone more knowledgable than I am will come along and give better advice, but here is what I think:

If you only have an hour, a fake book and Mickey Baker aren't a bad place to start, because that gets you playing tunes right away. I'm not sure how far along you are in the Mickey Baker book, but once you get past the chord section, he'll give you some lines that you can try to use over the progressions in the tunes.

If you're looking for something else instead of what you're using, here are a few options:

Rich Severson's "Mastering Standards" sets are a lot more modern-sounding than Mickey Baker, and give you lots to work on, all within a tune-based context. Study and play jazz standards woodshedding the tune inside and out.

The Jimmy Bruno Guitar Workshop gives you a chance at affordable lessons, where you can learn jazz guitar from the ground up($60/3 mos.), with personalized feedback from one of the best there is. Lots of helpful people on their forum, too.
Learn Jazz Guitar | Jimmy Bruno Guitar Workshop

Personally I'm getting a lot of mileage from Robert Conti's products. He got me playing lines and chord melodies right away, and he has a variety of books and DVDs on every aspect of playing in this style.
https://www.robertconti.com/

There's a lot of stuff out there, and a lot of people here who I'm sure will be glad to help.

[takku]

Thanks, those are really great-looking resources! I will definitely dig into them to complement my Baker course. the Conti videos seemed particularly relevant for a beginner, and he's laid out a "newbie track" of recommended materials on his page.

[snailspace]

the Conti videos seemed particularly relevant for a beginner, and he's laid out a "newbie track" of recommended materials on his page.

Those materials (The Precision Technique, The Chord Melody Assembly Line, and Ticket To Improv) are what I'm using right now. After spending many years flitting from one highly-recommended book/DVD/teacher to another, I realized that I had only gotten good at flitting about. In taking stock of what I needed to learn and of what resources I had, the "Conti Curriculum" seemed like a good path for me to take.

In the Getting Started section of the forum, you'll find a thread called "Robert Conti's method," where various members speak of their experience with his products; and the Improvisation section contains a recently-formed study group based on the first volume of the Ticket To Improv series.

After more consideration, you may decide Conti's teaching is not for you, but I mention these threads so you can see what others have said, and give you the opportunity to contact them (either on the thread or via private message) if you have any questions about the effectiveness of his method.

I'm sure you can do the same in regard to other members and other methods/materials. We're blessed to have a truly helpful group of people in this forum, and I've learned much from many of them.

[goldenwave77]

I think you're setting your sights too low. Someone with your background and work ethic, can play decent solo lines without taking 5 years.

Find some decent backing tracks (major and minor 2-5'1's), hopefully based on tunes you like, learn the heads, and start in on it. If you understand tension/release, can make the changes, and have decent rhythmic sense, 5 yr.'s is not needed.

IN my case, I have a shelf full of instructional books, but THE most helpful thing is BIAB with a songs disk I have with about 200 standards and jazz tunes on it. Anything you learn can be practiced with real music---using actual songs. Change the key/tempo....play it on a different part of the neck....work on playing off chord subs rather than the actual stated progression....all of these, IMO, are best learnt while using actual musical examples.

A LOT of instructional material presupposes a fair bit of knowledge, and technique.

Technique is funny---I find learning a tune MUCH easier if I can play it briskly, and convincingly...maybe this just means I've already learned it...though there is a little more going on here, cognitively, than that.

The difficulty with chord stuff is having an overall framework...otherwise learning "10,973 chord forms" all over the neck just "doesn't take". Conti's Chord Melody Assembly Line was the most helpful to me...but it emphasizes 5th and 6th string big chords...having learned his stuff pretty well, though, has helped me immensely to organize and start using other stuff...systematic inversion on the treble 4 strings of smaller chords, for e.g. Put the two of them together, and you have a pretty good chordal toolbox, I think. Some people like Fareed Hacque's stuff. There is also fine material to be had on this very website...well-organized and with actual play-along samples.

There is professional difference of opinion on how best to learn lines. Carol Kaye emphasizes chord tone soloing and devices, and thinks practicing scale stuff is actually harmful. Conti emphasizes tweaking of various archetypical lines...and this can help people to actually sit down and rip off stuff...while learning some theory-useful stuff along the way...a pure CST approach would say learn Ionian, Lydian, Mixo, and the others, and melodic minor, alt. and diminished stuff, and their modes, and you can play anything. This CST approach theoretically works, but for the hobbyist, is unrealistic and a waste of time, IMO. Herb Ellis, advocates playing out of chord shapes. I remember looking at Ellis' book a while back, and thinking "nice but who's going to remember all these chord shapes..." Having done some chord/melod work via Conti and others, you can look at it, and realize it's not such a big deal. I've tried to look at pure "riff-based approaches" but if I don't understand WHY a line works---which presupposes some theoretical framework---I find pure riffs to be like learning "10,973 chord forms"----random, unconnected stuff. Human memory is limited...and without some concept to help us learn, pure memorization doesn't work all that well.

You can make LOTS of progress with 1 hr./practice a night...but things take time, and a good instructor can help a lot.

I actually think the future of personal music instruction will belong to those teachers who can work as "organizers and conceptual guides"....someone who meets with a student, works on a concept and sends them off to reinforce and practice, using computer-aided tools (like BIAB) and has the student check back, periodically. Someone like yourself would be an ideal student.

(The alternative polar extreme case....is the teacher who meets for a weekly lesson, works through boring material with a student, while the student is passive and resentful, and doesn't do much outside of lesson time. This doesn't work, is expensive, and usually the student and teacher are both frustrated.)

[christianm77]

I'm relatively new to jazz guitar. I have one hour per day to practice (limit set by my wife, I'd play for four hours a day if it was up to me ). Any ideas on how to structure my daily/weekly practice time? Any suggestions regarding study materials (I'm using Mickey Baker and a fake book right now)?

Background: I am a very disciplined person and have played various instruments all my life with varying levels of seriousness (up to four hours a day of piano in my high school years), and thus have realistic expectations about what it takes to reach mastery. My goal is to be able to comp and play simple solos in five years time. I know music theory well. I have played guitar as my primary instrument daily for the past two years (mostly metal and blues genres).

One hour a day! That's great.

I have absolutely no idea what you suck the most at. You need to find the thing you suck the most at and hammer it to death until it is no longer the thing you suck the most at.

Then, something else will be the thing you suck at the most, and you need to identify that and repeat the process. This continues until death, so it's not a good thing to do if you don't enjoy doing this sort of thing.

I daresay as a musician already, you know what I am talking about at least a bit, but jazz is so stupidly difficult on the guitar it come as a bit of a shock if you are used to playing musical styles where the guitar actually belongs.

Teachers are useful because they identify what you suck at the most and then advise you on ways to work on it. Books, DVD's etc CANNOT DO THIS. Eventually, you will develop the ability to do this, but not early on.

Personally, when I find something I am really terrible at in a small enough chunk to practice for 5 minutes a day it's like I've struck gold!

For example for me, at the moment, it's playing lines at 220bpm. 240 is fine. 200 is OK. 220 is all over the shop. Nice and specific.

Everyone is a beginner at something.

Now, it doesn't sound like you are a beginner at either music or the guitar, more a beginner at jazz. If this is the case, you need to prioritise the jazz stuff.

- The best way to learn jazz is to work stuff out by ear
- Also learn lots of tunes
- Also master 20 or so basic jazz chord grips and practice reading chord charts. Don't worry too much about anything fancy - regular boring shapes will be fine for now. (I got by with around 10 grips for years, and there's still a small number of voicings I play most of the time)
- Deal with any problems - i.e. technical etc - you find coming out of learning music

Don't bother buying any more books. That's a work avoidance strategy IMO. Every thing you need to know is on the records.

[matt.guitarteacher]

One hour a day! That's great.

I have absolutely no idea what you suck the most at. You need to find the thing you suck the most at and hammer it to death until it is no longer the thing you suck the most at.

Then, something else will be the thing you suck at the most, and you need to identify that and repeat the process. This continues until death, so it's not a good thing to do if you don't enjoy doing this sort of thing.

I daresay as a musician already, you know what I am talking about at least a bit, but jazz is so stupidly difficult on the guitar it come as a bit of a shock if you are used to playing musical styles where the guitar actually belongs.

Teachers are useful because they identify what you suck at the most and then advise you on ways to work on it. Books, DVD's etc CANNOT DO THIS. Eventually, you will develop the ability to do this, but not early on.

Personally, when I find something I am really terrible at in a small enough chunk to practice for 5 minutes a day it's like I've struck gold!

For example for me, at the moment, it's playing lines at 220bpm. 240 is fine. 200 is OK. 220 is all over the shop. Nice and specific.

Everyone is a beginner at something.

Now, it doesn't sound like you are a beginner at either music or the guitar, more a beginner at jazz. If this is the case, you need to prioritise the jazz stuff.

- The best way to learn jazz is to work stuff out by ear
- Also learn lots of tunes
- Also master 20 or so basic jazz chord grips and practice reading chord charts. Don't worry too much about anything fancy - regular boring shapes will be fine for now. (I got by with around 10 grips for years, and there's still a small number of voicings I play most of the time)
- Deal with any problems - i.e. technical etc - you find coming out of learning music

Don't bother buying any more books. That's a work avoidance strategy IMO. Every thing you need to know is on the records.

This is good stuff. If it's only one hour a day , you definitely want to make sure it's focused. That's the trap of pursuing jazz on the inter-webs . it's easy to flit from one thing to another as people talk about interesting ideas/concepts. I would think a teacher is really helpful for keeping you focused on the most important things for the time being.

[Takemitsu]

Your story sound a bit like mine. I have played music professionally all my adult life and took guitar later as a hobby. The First thing that allowed me to improvise was to learn arpeggios all over the fretboard in position first. If you know maj7, dom7, min7, b5m7 and diminished arpeggios inside out over the neck you are able to improvise with an unlimited vocabulary since you can play almost any note as long as you hit base with arpeggios notes (chord tones) enough.

i would say 15 min of this, maybe 5 min of scales, and tunes and chord work for the rest of your hour.

i assume of course that you are listening records on a regular basis.

[takku]

Those materials (The Precision Technique, The Chord Melody Assembly Line, and Ticket To Improv) are what I'm using right now. After spending many years flitting from one highly-recommended book/DVD/teacher to another, I realized that I had only gotten good at flitting about. In taking stock of what I needed to learn and of what resources I had, the "Conti Curriculum" seemed like a good path for me to take.

In the Getting Started section of the forum, you'll find a thread called "Robert Conti's method," where various members speak of their experience with his products; and the Improvisation section contains a recently-formed study group based on the first volume of the Ticket To Improv series.

After more consideration, you may decide Conti's teaching is not for you, but I mention these threads so you can see what others have said, and give you the opportunity to contact them (either on the thread or via private message) if you have any questions about the effectiveness of his method.

I'm sure you can do the same in regard to other members and other methods/materials. We're blessed to have a truly helpful group of people in this forum, and I've learned much from many of them.

Thanks for the tip! I will place an order for these beginner materials and see where it takes me! I like how the Ticket to Improv gets you working on actual standards right away.


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[takku]

Those materials (The Precision Technique, The Chord Melody Assembly Line, and Ticket To Improv) are what I'm using right now. After spending many years flitting from one highly-recommended book/DVD/teacher to another, I realized that I had only gotten good at flitting about. In taking stock of what I needed to learn and of what resources I had, the "Conti Curriculum" seemed like a good path for me to take.

In the Getting Started section of the forum, you'll find a thread called "Robert Conti's method," where various members speak of their experience with his products; and the Improvisation section contains a recently-formed study group based on the first volume of the Ticket To Improv series.

After more consideration, you may decide Conti's teaching is not for you, but I mention these threads so you can see what others have said, and give you the opportunity to contact them (either on the thread or via private message) if you have any questions about the effectiveness of his method.

I'm sure you can do the same in regard to other members and other methods/materials. We're blessed to have a truly helpful group of people in this forum, and I've learned much from many of them.

Thanks for the tip! I will place an order for these beginner materials and see where it takes me! I like how the Ticket to Improv gets you working on actual standards right away.


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[mrcee]

I agree with all the advice above and in 5 years you should be playing pretty damn good. I think 1 hr/day is a little light though. I've played for ever and have been pretty decent for quite a while but for the last 2 or 3 years I've been practicing for 3 to sometimes 8 hrs/day and it's the first time in decades that I think I'm really starting to get it. Maybe I'm just a little dense and need more than the average guy but if I we're you I'd try and stretch it to an hour and a half or maybe... two? There was a time a few years ago when I was working 6 days a week and my practice time was limited so I'd play for 15 mins. hear and there, if I got up in the middle of the night or whenever I had a spare moment. It helped flesh out that hour of dedicated time.

[takku]

I think you're setting your sights too low. Someone with your background and work ethic, can play decent solo lines without taking 5 years.

Find some decent backing tracks (major and minor 2-5'1's), hopefully based on tunes you like, learn the heads, and start in on it. If you understand tension/release, can make the changes, and have decent rhythmic sense, 5 yr.'s is not needed.

IN my case, I have a shelf full of instructional books, but THE most helpful thing is BIAB with a songs disk I have with about 200 standards and jazz tunes on it. Anything you learn can be practiced with real music---using actual songs. Change the key/tempo....play it on a different part of the neck....work on playing off chord subs rather than the actual stated progression....all of these, IMO, are best learnt while using actual musical examples.

A LOT of instructional material presupposes a fair bit of knowledge, and technique.

Technique is funny---I find learning a tune MUCH easier if I can play it briskly, and convincingly...maybe this just means I've already learned it...though there is a little more going on here, cognitively, than that.

The difficulty with chord stuff is having an overall framework...otherwise learning "10,973 chord forms" all over the neck just "doesn't take". Conti's Chord Melody Assembly Line was the most helpful to me...but it emphasizes 5th and 6th string big chords...having learned his stuff pretty well, though, has helped me immensely to organize and start using other stuff...systematic inversion on the treble 4 strings of smaller chords, for e.g. Put the two of them together, and you have a pretty good chordal toolbox, I think. Some people like Fareed Hacque's stuff. There is also fine material to be had on this very website...well-organized and with actual play-along samples.

There is professional difference of opinion on how best to learn lines. Carol Kaye emphasizes chord tone soloing and devices, and thinks practicing scale stuff is actually harmful. Conti emphasizes tweaking of various archetypical lines...and this can help people to actually sit down and rip off stuff...while learning some theory-useful stuff along the way...a pure CST approach would say learn Ionian, Lydian, Mixo, and the others, and melodic minor, alt. and diminished stuff, and their modes, and you can play anything. This CST approach theoretically works, but for the hobbyist, is unrealistic and a waste of time, IMO. Herb Ellis, advocates playing out of chord shapes. I remember looking at Ellis' book a while back, and thinking "nice but who's going to remember all these chord shapes..." Having done some chord/melod work via Conti and others, you can look at it, and realize it's not such a big deal. I've tried to look at pure "riff-based approaches" but if I don't understand WHY a line works---which presupposes some theoretical framework---I find pure riffs to be like learning "10,973 chord forms"----random, unconnected stuff. Human memory is limited...and without some concept to help us learn, pure memorization doesn't work all that well.

You can make LOTS of progress with 1 hr./practice a night...but things take time, and a good instructor can help a lot.

I actually think the future of personal music instruction will belong to those teachers who can work as "organizers and conceptual guides"....someone who meets with a student, works on a concept and sends them off to reinforce and practice, using computer-aided tools (like BIAB) and has the student check back, periodically. Someone like yourself would be an ideal student.

(The alternative polar extreme case....is the teacher who meets for a weekly lesson, works through boring material with a student, while the student is passive and resentful, and doesn't do much outside of lesson time. This doesn't work, is expensive, and usually the student and teacher are both frustrated.)

Thanks for your very detailed and thoughtful response!

I really like your idea of BIAB & standard files. I had sometimes been practicing with a self created Cubase backing track, which allowed me to tweak the chances and tempo to my liking, and even record my playing, but that's a bit tedious for casual practice. Sounds like ready BIAB materials are the way to go.

I also take your point about just playing on top of standards as opposed to theorizing about it. I am classically trained, and like many others, really struggle to improv as I'm accustomed to just playing sheet music what's in front of me, note for note. As you learn more concepts, you can always incorporate new ideas into your playing.

I really agree with your comment about the optimal instruction style. For a self-starter learner, just getting pointers to ideas at the right time is the way to go. It's more like acting as a curator and guide to musical ideas than traditional blow-By-blow instructor. Real learning happens on your own anyway, and in a genre like jazz, you can choose which bits you like and fit your style, and which ones to leave for less attention.


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[goldenwave77]

Good luck.

RE: classical training, many, many great jazz players had strong classical training (Earl Hines, Tatum, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Benny Goodman) but I think all these players had to make a conscious effort to learn a new feel, and mindset. Important to listen a LOT.

It's a little like playing snooker and billiards. If you are good at one, you can probably pick up the other, more easily, but they are definitely different games. (I learned this from a 92 yr. old billiards player who wiped me out game after game at the Senior Ctr. outside of Detroit where my gf volunteers. I was not dumb enough to be playing for money.)

Gotta go: 21 inches of snow forecast for the Hudson Valley starting tomorrow.

[takku]

I agree with all the advice above and in 5 years you should be playing pretty damn good. I think 1 hr/day is a little light though. I've played for ever and have been pretty decent for quite a while but for the last 2 or 3 years I've been practicing for 3 to sometimes 8 hrs/day and it's the first time in decades that I think I'm really starting to get it. Maybe I'm just a little dense and need more than the average guy but if I we're you I'd try and stretch it to an hour and a half or maybe... two? There was a time a few years ago when I was working 6 days a week and my practice time was limited so I'd play for 15 mins. hear and there, if I got up in the middle of the night or whenever I had a spare moment. It helped flesh out that hour of dedicated time.

I totally agree 1 hour being a bit light. But it's what I have to work with most days :-) But to your point, I'm trying to stretch it though - I keep guitars around the house in strategic locations and in my office and I'm able to "steal" 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there when I'm waiting or have a dead moment. I also often travel on business trips with a headless Steinberg Spirit so I can turn hotel nights into practice nights. I guess the bottom line is, squeezing your passion into what time you have available.

My other trick is trying to squeeze maximum benefit out of the training minutes I have. I've noticed is that by being super disciplined about the time spent on individual activities within my training routine, and favoring frequency over duration of individual exercises, I can make a lot more progress over time. So for example, running scales 10 minutes a day every day and balancing that with other 5-10 minute "sprints", but consistently doing that in every practice session, gets me better results than doing the same activity for longer periods at a time, but fewer times per week.


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[dingusmingus]

I totally agree 1 hour being a bit light. But it's what I have to work with most days :-) But to your point, I'm trying to stretch it though - I keep guitars around the house in strategic locations and in my office and I'm able to "steal" 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there when I'm waiting or have a dead moment. I also often travel on business trips with a headless Steinberg Spirit so I can turn hotel nights into practice nights. I guess the bottom line is, squeezing your passion into what time you have available.

My other trick is trying to squeeze maximum benefit out of the training minutes I have. I've noticed is that by being super disciplined about the time spent on individual activities within my training routine, and favoring frequency over duration of individual exercises, I can make a lot more progress over time. So for example, running scales 10 minutes a day every day and balancing that with other 5-10 minute "sprints", but consistently doing that in every practice session, gets me better results than doing the same activity for longer periods at a time, but fewer times per week.


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Little blocks of time are a great idea, and can add up. I sneak in a little in the morning and at lunch, so my evening 1.5 hours can be more productive.

I also have a couple of things I can practice away from the instrument, like during my commute. Mostly, I do ear training/singing, but you could also do exercises to visualize the fretboard, spell chords and scales, etc.

Finally, make sure you're listening to jazz all the time. I do it during exercise, cooking dinner, at work when feasible, etc.

[christianm77]

Good luck.

RE: classical training, many, many great jazz players had strong classical training (Earl Hines, Tatum, Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Benny Goodman) but I think all these players had to make a conscious effort to learn a new feel, and mindset. Important to listen a LOT.

Benny Goodman is a unusual one because IIRC he *relearned* how to play the clarinet after having been a legend of jazz for a number of years, in order to to play all these contemporary classical pieces he had commissioned.

People say a lot of things about Benny, but you have to respect his incredible capacity for hard work.

For a lot of black musicians, they started off with classical ambitions that were somewhat thwarted due to general societal stupidness. Ended up playing 'jazz', 'soul' etc.

How times have changed! Now kids go to expensive music college to study jazz LOL.

[takku]

Your story sound a bit like mine. I have played music professionally all my adult life and took guitar later as a hobby. The First thing that allowed me to improvise was to learn arpeggios all over the fretboard in position first. If you know maj7, dom7, min7, b5m7 and diminished arpeggios inside out over the neck you are able to improvise with an unlimited vocabulary since you can play almost any note as long as you hit base with arpeggios notes (chord tones) enough.

i would say 15 min of this, maybe 5 min of scales, and tunes and chord work for the rest of your hour.

i assume of course that you are listening records on a regular basis.

That's a great suggestion, thank you!

Actually, I already have 10 mins of scales and 10 mins of arpeggios as the starting 20 minutes of my daily practice, but I didn't really have jazz soloing in mind when I adopted that routine. More of a metal shred routine, but goes to show how versatile arpeggios are! A diminished arpeggio is a diminished arpeggio whether you play that on an ES-175 or a heavily distorted 8-string Ibanez :-) I will definitely keep that up!

Guitar World has some nice arpeggio videos which I'm using as basis for my arpeggio exercises. Some of them have a bit "metallic flavor" but the substance is the same!


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[snailspace]

Mimi Fox has a good book on studying arpeggios within the context of several standards. With something like this, you could work on arpeggios and tunes at the same time.

Guitar Arpeggio Studies on Jazz Standards, Mimi Fox Book + Online Audio - Mel Bay Publications, Inc. : Mel Bay

[christianm77]

That's a great suggestion, thank you!

Actually, I already have 10 mins of scales and 10 mins of arpeggios as the starting 20 minutes of my daily practice, but I didn't really have jazz soloing in mind when I adopted that routine. More of a metal shred routine, but goes to show how versatile arpeggios are! A diminished arpeggio is a diminished arpeggio whether you play that on an ES-175 or a heavily distorted 8-string Ibanez :-) I will definitely keep that up!

Guitar World has some nice arpeggio videos which I'm using as basis for my arpeggio exercises. Some of them have a bit "metallic flavor" but the substance is the same!


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I disagree.

Arpeggios in metal are played for display and usually unembellished.

Arpeggios in jazz are structural to lines based on embellishments.

Therefore, practice them differently. Here's my take on it:

[deselby]

We all have different needs in terms of learning. If you are disciplined, which I am not, then I think you will find benefit in any of the recommendations. The other thing is you have musical understanding. This gives you a context for understanding that I certainly lacked on starting out. My first jazz guitar method book was Mickey Baker and I had no clue what he was getting at. I think today I would be better able to appreciate him. That said, I found some of the finger stretches outside my ergonomics. I tried Bob Conti but found his approach too cavalier to my needs.

I recently picked up Garrison Fewell's books because of a post on the forum. And I am now slowly working my way through the first book. This after 50 years or so of playing. My primary approach to playing in the last 20 years or so has been informed by standard chord-scale theory. But it has never sat right with me because I don't find the result musical. Informative but not musical. The Fewell approach is based on triadic development. I think Mimi Fox articulates something similar.

The nub of this is that using triads focuses on intervals rather than the note relationship of scales to chords. The other thing that I appreciate in his method is that he pays attention to articulation. This is specific to the guitar and how to play rest-notes. Some of this I think intuitive but in a program it always helps if articulated.

So after 50 years I'm back in kindergarten. But after a month and on page 33, now going back to page 17 again, I am in the process of rediscovering the guitar. It's humbling. But omg, it's great. And I think it reflected in my playing - yow. As I said at the outset, we all have different ways of learning. There is no right way or wrong way (ok, paint me a liberal) but if something isn't working for you, don't mean you're wrong

[takku]

That was a great post! I really appreciate your personal experiences here. We all come from different places musically, and have different learning styles. I just spent an hour smiling ear to ear playing Mickey Baker changes, and although he does have this very stoic style of "these are the changes but this is how you should play them- trust me" I could see why they work from a theoretical perspective and it worked for me. But I'll definitely check out the Garrison Fewell books too - sounds like a great way to learn!


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[takku]

Those materials (The Precision Technique, The Chord Melody Assembly Line, and Ticket To Improv) are what I'm using right now. After spending many years flitting from one highly-recommended book/DVD/teacher to another, I realized that I had only gotten good at flitting about. In taking stock of what I needed to learn and of what resources I had, the "Conti Curriculum" seemed like a good path for me to take.

I just placed an order for these videos by Conti and look forward to adding them to my practice regimen. Thank you very much for the recommendation!

[snailspace]

I just placed an order for these videos by Conti and look forward to adding them to my practice regimen. Thank you very much for the recommendation!

That's great -- if you like them even half as much as I do, you'll like them quite a bit. In the "Improvisation" section of the forum, we have a study group working with Conti's Ticket To Improv, Volume One. You're welcome to join us, if you like. Don't worry that we've already begun -- just submit what you can, when you can, and we'll all be there to root for you.

[Noah D'Innocenzo]

Kudos to you for knowing that you need a structured approach. If you only have one hour then you need to think about the things it takes to do what you want to do. You need:
-technique
-good ears
-some jazz language
-ability to read (less important if this is a hobby for you and you're looking to mostly play with friends.)
-tunes to play.

Technique is its own animal and deserves unique attention. Your ears and jazz language, however, can be trained simultaneously through transcribing. Both solos and tunes. I recommend that you don't use the fake book you've purchased. If you want to learn the melody to a tune, use your ears and copy a master playing the head. You should do your best to learn the chords by ear as well and use the fake book only to check your work for both the melody and chords. If you're spending to much time learning the melody and chords to a tune, you're not ready for it.

In terms of site reading, that is also its own animal. But for now I recommend 30 minutes to work on your technique and 30 minutes transcribing tunes and simple solos.


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