The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hi everyone,

    In August this year I have practiced and played the guitar for two years. I practice around twenty to sixty minutes a day, five to six days a week (right now closer to sixty minutes and six days) and I'm slowly building up a healthy foundation to work upon.

    In those two years, I have learned a lot of new music and jazz is one of the main genres I greatly enjoy listening to and would love to learn to play.

    I have completed the beginners course of Justin Guitar and I'm working on the Intermediate Method right now (I'm close to starting phase 2 there). The content of those courses are can be read very easily on the site.

    And now I'm wondering at what moment I could actually start working on learning to play jazz?.

    I plan on finishing the intermediate method of the Justin Guitar course first, but would I be skilled enough to start learning jazz when I have the beginners course and intermediate method down? Or should I work on improving my general playing first, before moving on to jazz (and working through the beginners package of the eStore here)?

    Thank you for your time!

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    I'd say: keep working on the basics - basic chords and scales and chord progressions, diatonic harmony and that type of stuff but don't be intimidated to start working on some basic jazz stuff at the same time - it will definitely go hand in hand.

    Justin has some basic jazz tutorials on youtube and on his site, too.

  4. #3

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    Start now!!
    Jazz is something that takes a unique combination of skills and areas of proficiency. Jump in the pool. Let yourself be the judge of what you should or need to focus on.
    How's your ear? Can you hear a simple tune and play it on the guitar?
    How's your aural knowledge? Can you identify chord movement or some rudimentary intervallic relationships?
    How's your theoretical working knowledge? Can you hear the A section of a piece, the B section? The turnaround to the end?
    Do you listen to jazz? What do you listen to?

    Really, it's hard to tell what you know but if you like the music, and you have some recognition of song forms, and you can pick out a tune, then you're ready to try stumbling around. Having fun.

    You're not going to come across a threshold where somebody tells you "Now you're ready. Play jazz".
    What do you know about song form and improvisation?
    Tell me a little about what you know, and we can tell you things you can do. OK?

    David

  5. #4

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    Start learning melodies and chords to tunes that get playing in Jazz like Summertime, Autumn Leave, and others. Then like Peter Bernstein and many others say play the melody so many times you start getting bored with it and start adding a note here and there to "Jazz" it up, you ear will help you pick notes. You can do this in adding to working on your fundamentals and you'll be learning great melodies to play and be a source lines later. Plus if someone says play me a song you'll know a few and can embellish them to add some life to them.

    Get John Coltrane's album called "Ballads" he mainly just plays the melodies to classic song, but his phrasing and feeling is so great it doesn't need more. Listen to early Louis Armstrong he mainly just embellished the melody of songs. You don't have to play a zillion scales and chords to play Jazz play a melody with soul and you got it.

  6. #5

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    Do you like to sing? Singing some standards while accompanying yourself, add some fills here and there... That would be a good way to get your feet wet.

  7. #6

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    I think whenever you love jazz and feel a strong urge to get involved with it, that's the right time.

    But that said, you should never move away from the basics. When people label a course as beginner or intermediate.. that's a great way for them to organize the material, and for the student to wrap their mind around the level of complexity and challenge to expect. But the fundamentals of music never change, no matter how complex things get. I've been playing music my entire life and specifically jazz for the past 15ish years. And just about everyone on this forum probably knows by now that I'm a triad freak. I'm sure it comes off as annoying to some. I simply love how much great, advanced, complex, colorful stuff can be discovered, explored, and expressed using the triad... which is about as simple a musical concept as you can get.

    Challenge yourself as much as you feel you want to. But never at the expense of moving on from the basics. imo

  8. #7

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    Thank you for the answers all! It is great to have some guidance in this guitar journey .

    @Tommo

    Justin's jazz course was one of the main reasons I got interested in learning to play jazz! I started playing the guitar because of guitarists like Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Eddie van Halen, but I fell in love seeing Justin play Autumn Leaves (chords and melody). I immediately knew this was something I would love to learn. And I've started doing a very small bit of playing that song already mixed with working on the foundations.

    @TruthHertz

    Haha, now I feel like a real beginner again.

    As a player I'm nearing the level I can call myself a more of an intermediate player instead of a beginner. But my understanding of music is still very limited. Hearing some basic chords on an acoustic guitar and copying that is the most I'm able to do. Identifying chord movements within a key is too hard most of the time, but depends on the chords. I, IV and V are also a lot easier than the others at the moment. "A section, B section and turnaround to the end" sound like complete gibberish to me. I also have really no idea how, for example, soloing works theoretically.

    My knowledge of music in general is limited and only in he pasts two years have I started listening a lot of different genres. I have a couple of jazz records now, from Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dave Brubeck, Wes Montgomery, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington and then some jazz related records.

    Loads to learn. But what pulls me to jazz guitar have mainly been some lessons and the idea what I could learn to play. Autumn Leaves for example. The lessons that Justin Guitar has on his site sound beautiful. Just like Achim Kohl, a jazz guitarist I found on YouTube. (
    ) The idea of playing this is beautiful (and a lot of learning like you've read)

    @Docbop

    I think this is a great idea. I have been playing the first four bars of melody from Autumn Leaves and a bit of the opening of Four on Six on my acoustic and learning to play around with Summertime and Autumn Leaves sounds like a great thing to add to my current practice (besides being more fun than trying to learn an E minor 7 bar chord around the neck ).

    I'm going record shopping at the end of this month and will try to pick up a copy of the Coltrane album. Thanks for the suggestion!

    @Fep

    My voice is as monotone as it can be. Which is a shame, because I'd love to sing a bit. Thanks for the suggestion though!
    Last edited by vinniewalker; 06-06-2017 at 02:51 PM.

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by jordanklemons
    I think whenever you love jazz and feel a strong urge to get involved with it, that's the right time.

    But that said, you should never move away from the basics. When people label a course as beginner or intermediate.. that's a great way for them to organize the material, and for the student to wrap their mind around the level of complexity and challenge to expect. But the fundamentals of music never change, no matter how complex things get. I've been playing music my entire life and specifically jazz for the past 15ish years. And just about everyone on this forum probably knows by now that I'm a triad freak. I'm sure it comes off as annoying to some. I simply love how much great, advanced, complex, colorful stuff can be discovered, explored, and expressed using the triad... which is about as simple a musical concept as you can get.

    Challenge yourself as much as you feel you want to. But never at the expense of moving on from the basics. imo
    That is exactly the reason why I decided to register for the forum right now. I have been listening more and more jazz lately and have thought a lot about how I would like to develop as a guitarist / musician.

    And I completely agree with your suggestion. I want to have the basics down well enough before I use most of my practice time to learn more jazz specific skills. So I will finish this intermediate course before I really commit to a jazz course. (And there are three triad chord grips in the last part too!)

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by docbop
    Then like Peter Bernstein and many others say play the melody so many times you start getting bored with it and start adding a note here and there to "Jazz" it up, you ear will help you pick notes.
    I'd go for that one too. I wouldn't say bored, though. I'd say the tune becomes so familiar that, if you've got any ear at all, you can instinctively hear an addition to it, or a fill, or some variation. From those small acorns do great trees grow :-)

  11. #10

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    One never abandons basics. Every spring, professional millionaire baseball players gather and spend weeks working on basics.

  12. #11

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    I recommend trying to get together with other musicians to try and make some music. It's easy to keep to yourself with a guitar, it being such a complete instrument unto itself, but I find it can isolate you from being involved with a more balanced perspective. Jazz is so much bigger than the guitar.

  13. #12

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    Quote Originally Posted by ronjazz
    One never abandons basics. Every spring, professional millionaire baseball players gather and spend weeks working on basics.
    Indeed. I only work on basics haha

    I confidently expect to able to play the melodic minor scale in all intervals and positions fluently by the year 2150.

    I may even be able to play a melody all the way through without playing a wrong note or dropping a beat by that time.

    BTW I play and teach the guitar in exchange for sums of money.

    A couple of years ago, I cottoned on to the fact that the great players may have some cool turbo licks (or not in the case of Bill Frisell, perhaps) and cool voicings but all of them are able to make simple things sound really really good. I mean Lage Lund might be one of the best in the world at soloing on triads, for instance.

    One thing that transcription has taught me is that 80-90% of note choices are pretty generic, and the things that make a musician sound like them are other things, tone, time, taste, touch and so on.

    So never feel that the basics of music are to be taken for granted. The best work on the fundamentals, perhaps in any field. It's easy to gloss over yawning gaps in the fundamentals and paper over them with Moar Scalez etc.
    Last edited by christianm77; 06-07-2017 at 08:18 AM.

  14. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    Indeed. I only work on basics haha

    I confidently expect to able to play the melodic minor scale in all intervals and positions fluently by the year 2150.

    I may even be able to play a melody all the way through without playing a wrong note or dropping a beat by that time.

    BTW I play and teach the guitar in exchange for sums of money.
    Love this! :-)
    Last edited by matt.guitarteacher; 06-07-2017 at 08:40 AM.

  15. #14

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    Quote Originally Posted by vinniewalker
    Hi everyone,

    In August this year I have practiced and played the guitar for two years. I practice around twenty to sixty minutes a day, five to six days a week (right now closer to sixty minutes and six days) and I'm slowly building up a healthy foundation to work upon.

    In those two years, I have learned a lot of new music and jazz is one of the main genres I greatly enjoy listening to and would love to learn to play.

    I have completed the beginners course of Justin Guitar and I'm working on the Intermediate Method right now (I'm close to starting phase 2 there). The content of those courses are can be read very easily on the site.

    And now I'm wondering at what moment I could actually start working on learning to play jazz?.
    Immediately.

    Aside from the mechanics of playing the instrument, most rock and folk style players feel immediately out of their comfort zone playing jazz - the chords are totally different for instance. So your muscle memory from playing Freebird etc may not in fact help that much.

    I plan on finishing the intermediate method of the Justin Guitar course first, but would I be skilled enough to start learning jazz when I have the beginners course and intermediate method down? Or should I work on improving my general playing first, before moving on to jazz (and working through the beginners package of the eStore here)?

    Thank you for your time!
    Another more general point as that you will never feel ready to play with other people, so the important thing is to never let it stop you.

  16. #15

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    "...the chords are totally different for instance."

    Yep. It's a major leap for someone who learned guitar the usual beginner way, starting with open cowboy chords, then incorporating various barre forms. But always major or minor, optionally with a 7th.

    Chord construction is crucial for jazz, because you can't even approach a simple lead sheet unless you know how to build them. In my early days, I learned one fingering (maybe two) for each new chord I encountered, and tried to memorize those shapes. Even though it initially means moving your hand all over the neck in awkward ways, at least you can piece together the song.

    Hopefully your brain will start to make connections, like, for example, if you raise that funky note in Gm7b5 up one fret, then hey - it's the same as the Gm7 you already know. Well, that must be the 5th! And you flatted it so it became Gm7b5! Raise the Bb and you've got G7b5. It's magic. But it requires a basic understanding of intervals, otherwise you'll be a slave to monkeying the chord diagrams you find.

    That's where I'd start. Of course, there are a dozen places to simultaneously start, which is why it seems overwhelming. But my point is that without the chords, you can't play jazz tunes at all, so you might as well learn how to build them.

  17. #16

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    Jazz requires deep knowledge of complicated harmony and melodic content. You can't possibly begin to play it until you've mastered major, minor, melodic minor, harmonic minor, diminished and whole tone scales, arps and chords. Then ear training. Then repertoire. etc.

    When I think about all the absolute requirements I just feel like giving up.

    Of course, I'm joking. Playing good jazz requires only two things. You need to be able to think of an interesting melody that fits with the chords and you need to be able to make it come out of the speaker.

    There are great players who know absolutely no theory. Andres Varady is a good example.

    There are great players who use a relatively limited number of chord grips.

    There are tunes, like Passion Dance, where the solo section is a single chord. So What has two chords, one a half step above the other.

    So, there's no reason to wait. Strum the chords of a simple tune, hum a made-up melody and then see if you can find a way to play it. Repeat.

    If you want to become a well-rounded jazz sideman, brace yourself for the long haul and keep working on basic musicianship. But, when you're done with all of that, you'll still need to make up a melody that fits with the chords and make it come out the speaker.

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    when you're done with all of that, you'll still need to make up a melody that fits with the chords and make it come out the speaker.
    Yep!

  19. #18

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    Thank you all for taking the time to respond so extensively.

    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    When I think about all the absolute requirements I just feel like giving up.
    After the first few posts, this was what I was thinking. I felt like I slowly moved to a more intermediate level of playing and after reading all the reactions I felt like an utter beginner. And I still am in many ways.

    The main thing that I picked up is that it is never too early to start once you have the basics down. And that working on some basics that are necessary to start playing jazz melodies and songs is the best way to go.

    So I'm going to start with learning some basic melodies like Autumn Leaves and Summertime. Learning some new chord shapes like the 17 in the free eBook. Improving my knowledge about chord construction and basic music theory. All things that will be very helpful in my journey as a jazz guitarist. And which make my practice a lot more fun. Because mastering the E7 shaped bar chord and daily major scale practice isn't that much fun .

    I hope to continue learning a lot here. It seems like a great place full of knowledgeable and helpful people who share a love for music (and jazz in particular).

  20. #19

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    it is never too early to start once you have the basics down. And that working on some basics that are necessary to start playing jazz melodies and songs is the best way to go.
    Thanks for your thanks and humility. I have to say this is one of the most sensible posts I've seen. No impossible idealistic goals, just good sense.

    Of course, if you're getting the basics down then you've already started. They're not a prelude to starting, they are the starting :-)

    So I'm going to start with learning some basic melodies like Autumn Leaves and Summertime. Learning some new chord shapes like the 17 in the free eBook. Improving my knowledge about chord construction and basic music theory.
    Absolutely, go for those really nice tunes that everybody likes. They catch the ear and stay in the mind, just what you need to get them off the page quick.

    New shapes and basic knowledge is also good. Always try applying any new things you find, it centres them in the head and makes it real. But beware of getting confused and/or bogged down in theory. Very easy to do, and it's definitely no substitute for playing real music. Only a basic amount is actually necessary.

    which make my practice a lot more fun. Because mastering the E7 shaped bar chord and daily major scale practice isn't that much fun .
    Quite, not much fun at all :-)

  21. #20

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    There is this idea that jazz is difficult music, hard to play and learn.
    There are both easy and crazy hard musical events that are defined as jazz.

    The challenge is to break the learning process down into manageable steps that foster a connection
    between what we know and where we're headed. If you want to play jazz, start on it today.

  22. #21

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    Thank you ah.clem and bako for responding.

    I've decided to focus on the Intermediate Program from Justin's Course first and doing some basic jazz melodies and chord changes to make my practice more fun. After I finished that course, I will defenitely work through Justin's jazz course to lay a foundation and study whether or not I will hire a private teacher (big change I'll do this) or just buy some online courses. I will do that last part too, but if I can schedule it I will start working with a professional teacher to jumpstart my learning.

    Like you, bako, say, just starting today and making small steps seems to be the best plan.

  23. #22

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    The first jazz solo I ever played with a band (other than a blues progression) was scary as hell. I had no idea what to do. So I just played the melody, as best as I could, and changed the phrasing a little bit here and there. I thought for sure the more experienced guys in the group would laugh at me. Most of them smiled and nodded after I was done. And come to think of it, it actually turned out to be pretty good I think. Sometimes simple is best.

    In other words, don't over think it right now. You've got plenty of time to confuse the hell outta yourself over this stuff.

  24. #23

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    Good to hear Justin is a good reference for learning, I just started watching his videos and tutorials.

  25. #24

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    No plans, man... just do it...)