Where do I start???

[equenda]

I’m 37 - grew up playing guitar and was in a band in High school so I “WAS” a “competent” guitar player. On a high school band level. I haven’t picked up and practiced my guitar in 15 years and I’m getting started again. I can strum Chords and remember a major pentatonic scale. But otherwise have forgotten so much.

im determined to learn and get good at jazz guitar. I have a real book. Where should I start? Should I get in person lessons? ( I live in NYC) or is there somewhere else you’d recommend that I start? Please advise

All the advices in this thred are good.
I add my small advice too and I say: before you play on your guitar, spent some weeks listening jazz albums.
No pressure here....just listen and go back on tunes that you like. You can listen to every great Musician....just choose what you like: Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Django Reinhard, Pat Metheny, Nat King Cole, George Benson......I'm sure that you will find A LOT of Great Music.

To learn a new language....before to try to speak, is very important to listen.

Ettore

[AllanAllen]

All of them contain the dominant scale.

I agree with your advice probably. Learning fingerings for the major scale first is a good idea, and then finding what you need inside of them.

But this a MASSIVE pet peeve I have. Loads of beginners get confused by internet stuff that calls this fingering this mode and that fingering that mode. Happy Birthday starts on the fifth, but it isn’t in the dominant scale or the Mixolydian or whatever.

I addressed this in my post. I was trying to simplify things at the start and then expand them.

Everyone giving every detail all the time in the most verbose way possible is a horrible way to teach anything.

[AllanAllen]

All the advices in this thred are good.
I add my small advice too and I say: before you play on your guitar, spent some weeks listening jazz albums.
No pressure here....just listen and go back on tunes that you like. You can listen to every great Musician....just choose what you like: Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Charlie Christian, Wes Montgomery, Django Reinhard, Pat Metheny, Nat King Cole, George Benson......I'm sure that you will find A LOT of Great Music.

To learn a new language....before to try to speak, is very important to listen.

Ettore

I would also recommend watching Ken Burns' Jazz documentary. It's a great launching point for general jazz exposure.

[Tal_175]

Continuing on what I was saying before. There are different fretboard and musical organizations for chords. You initially orient your fretboard references and what set of chords you choose as your main musical map based on an organization in order to make the process more productive.

You can choose Barry Harris organization, Joe Pass organization, Berklee organization etc. Sometimes players develop their own organizations. I think most just tweak an existing organization to fit their learning style.

[pamosmusic]

I addressed this in my post. I was trying to simplify things at the start and then expand them.

Everyone giving every detail all the time in the most verbose way possible is a horrible way to teach anything.

Thats not simplifying though. It’s actually more confusing. People think they’re learning a bunch of scales and not just the same group of notes in a few places.

Your major scales advice was good. Just … man … the number of students I get who think a major pentatonic and minor pentatonic are two different things is wild. Takes weeks to get that idea knocked out of their heads. Same notes different place same notes different place same notes different place.

[bediles]

Your major scales advice was good. Just … man … the number of students I get who think a major pentatonic and minor pentatonic are two different things is wild. Takes weeks to get that idea knocked out of their heads. Same notes different place same notes different place same notes different place.

I think John Mayer just realized that they are the same thing a few years ago.

[AllanAllen]

But…. minor and major pentatonics are different things.

If you’re talking dots on a fretboard diagram yeah, you have repeating shapes. But telling someone major and minor are the same. That’s bad.

[pamosmusic]

But…. minor and major pentatonics are different things.

If you’re talking dots on a fretboard diagram yeah, you have repeating shapes. But telling someone major and minor are the same. That’s bad.

Same notes different places same notes different places same notes different places.

C - Am - G - F …. You’re playing a what pentatonic?

Am - G - F - G …. You’re playing a what pentatonic? What changes?

Teach people the theory they need to identify what key something is in, teach them the major root and minor root in each pattern, how they link together, but there is one set of patterns for both major and minor.

Same deal with modes, etc etc etc.

[bediles]

But…. minor and major pentatonics are different things.

If you’re talking dots on a fretboard diagram yeah, you have repeating shapes. But telling someone major and minor are the same. That’s bad.

Woof.

[Tal_175]

Teach people the theory they need to identify what key something is in, teach them the major root and minor root in each pattern, how they link together, but there is one set of patterns for both major and minor.

Same deal with modes, etc etc etc.

I'm guessing these are not jazz students.

[pamosmusic]

I'm guessing these are not jazz students.

Nah. Or maybe aspiring jazz students.

I’ve got a handful of legit jazz students, but the first thing I ask people is if they want to play Charlie Parker tunes or if they’re looking for the “jazz toolkit.”

Lots of folks are the latter … like they want more vocabulary and to actually know their way around and to have some theory and be able to play some chord changes instead of just key centers.

That’s probably half my students. The other half split between classical and straight ahead jazz.

Though even if folks have pentatonics together, I still beat the crap out of those things. They’re really great for teaching left hand mechanics … position shifting and stuff like that. Then for arpeggios or major scales you’re just taking a couple out or adding a couple in to a device you can already get around.

[Jimmy Smith]

I wonder if the OP is coming back.

[Tal_175]

Lots of folks are the latter … like they want more vocabulary and to actually know their way around and to have some theory and be able to play some chord changes instead of just key centers.

From your earlier post it sounded like you were teaching them key center based organization for improvisation.

[Lionelsax]

You can say you play when you stop having philosophical conversations about chords and scales.
When you think more about the form, you can say you can play.
Generally speaking, it's better when theories explain what you play than the opposite.

Again, about the chromatic scale, it's important to name the notes and to know where there are.

Shapes and scales, you get stuck on that...
It sometimes works very well but they are just formulas.

It's good to avoid bad habits and clichés from the start.

Personally I learnt to play melodies and their fingerings on the keyboard by the chromatic scale.
It is not so stupid but I might be different.

[pamosmusic]

From your earlier post it sounded like you were teaching them key center based organization for improvisation.

Got to start somewhere. Usually folks who want that stuff can still use a firmer foundation with the stuff they know.

My favorite thing to do is to tell someone to play a pentatonic pattern they know starting from a note on the D string or something and watch them trip over the whole thing.

For what it’s worth, I usually go pentatonics, major arpeggios, minor arpeggios, then hexatonics for rock dudes and major scales for jazz dudes. Pentatonics are just really good for organizing the fingerboard.

[AllanAllen]

Same notes different places same notes different places same notes different places.

C - Am - G - F …. You’re playing a what pentatonic?

Am - G - F - G …. You’re playing a what pentatonic? What changes?

Teach people the theory they need to identify what key something is in, teach them the major root and minor root in each pattern, how they link together, but there is one set of patterns for both major and minor.

Same deal with modes, etc etc etc.

What changes is the key you are playing in and the sound of the melody against the harmony. The song changes.

I think this is how you end up with people saying Autumn Leaves is a major tune. What I do know is this is exactly the kind of derailment I was trying to avoid. OP is gone forever now.

[pamosmusic]

I think this is how you end up with people saying Autumn Leaves is a major tune. What I do know is this is exactly the kind of derailment I was trying to avoid. OP is gone forever now.

If he is it’s because I sent him the name of a teacher in New York already.

And no it’s not. It’s how you get people to understand that Autumn Leaves is in G minor but there is considerable overlap with Bb major and those sections might actually be kind of addressed differently. And getting to arpeggios quickly is how you get people expressing those tonalities quickly without worrying about scales and whatnot. The major scales come a bit later for me.

I don’t know man. I’ve got scope and sequence coming out my ears these days.

Goober guitar teachers keep me in business unfortunately.

[pamosmusic]

It’s actually usually really intimidating for these things to be called different things and it can be pretty liberating when folks learn that mostly we’re using the same couple tools, just oriented differently.

It sounds like six of one, a half dozen of the other, but it’s really not.

The point isn’t to tell people that everything is simple and one thing is all the things. The point is to convince them that they actually have a lot of the tools they need already, they just need to know where to point them.

[Tal_175]

It’s actually usually really intimidating for these things to be called different things and it can be pretty liberating when folks learn that mostly we’re using the same couple tools, just oriented differently.

It sounds like six of one, a half dozen of the other, but it’s really not.

This is just one organization. Each organization has trade offs. You can teach a student that in Bb blues, the I chord is the same as the V chord of Eb major scale for example. I mean strictly as a fretboard reference, not as harmonic analysis.

The student can get good at the major scale and all it's chords as diatonic arpeggios. Then learn to rotate the scale, so to speak, in order to apply it to all 7 type of chords, where ever they occur. This is, as I said, one organization. It isn't better or worse than learning the fretboard in a chord centric way (some call them chord-scales). They provide different challenges.

[pamosmusic]

This is just one organization. Each organization has trade offs. You can teach a student that in Bb blues, the I chord is the same as the V chord of Eb major scale for example. I mean strictly as fretboard reference, not as a harmonic analysis.

The student can get good at the major scale on all it's chords as diatonic arpeggios. Then learn to rotate the scale, so to speak, in order to apply it to all 7 type of chords, where ever they occur. This is, as I said, one organization. It isn't better or worse than learning chords (chord-scales) separately. They provide different challenges.

Sure. That’s kind of the way I approach major scales when I get there. While they’re memorizing the patterns, they use little fragments to connect the arpeggio lines they’re already playing. Once they’ve got the patterns, they start working on thirds, then triads, then seventh chords so that they’re able to find what they need in each pattern. Goal is eventually to be able to resolve a line however they start it.

Obviously lots of approaches, but I start with the arpeggios because hitting changes is a really characteristic thing in jazz and really foundational and usually a thing that folks find really satisfying when they can start making it happen.

[Jimmy Smith]

If the OP is gone it’s because I sent him the name of a teacher in New York already.

Did he reply, is he gonna get a teacher? Or did we just scare him off?

[NYC]

Not sure I'd start there. Sort of like making Everest your first mountain.

Best advice I can offer is tell us where you live, somebody here can probably recommend a good teacher. It'll save you a lot of headaches compared to trying to figure this stuff out on your own. Although now you can study with practically anybody who's got an Internet connection…

im in Manhattan, NYC

[rpjazzguitar]

Jazz info is like a fire hose.

A good teacher is like a funnel.

Or something like that.

I'd say get a teacher. Meanwhile, make a list of your goals for when the teacher asks.

[Christian Miller]

I like that. I'm a jazz funnel!

[Archie]

I spent more time trying to figure out how to learn jazz whist at jazz school, than actually learning how to play jazz.

The only thing you need to do is, DO SOMETHING.

Benson said he loves to play in the middle of the neck (around the 5th to 10th fret). He says the guitar sounds at its best there and so I would suggest drilling the 5 major shapes of the CAGED system in that area.

Learn the Major scale in those 5 shapes and then learn the dominant, dorian, diminished and Melodic minor scales based off altering the major scale shapes you learnt, in the 5 shapes. Thos scales will give you access to almost all of the bop language you'll need. Make sure you number each scale degree. The major scale is not C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C it's 1,2,3,4,5,6,7.
So if you need to make a minor scale, you flatten the 3 and 7 by one semitone (1 fret) 1,2,b3,4,5,6,b7, = dorian.

Whilst doing that make sure to single out the triads of each. Scales aren't music. Also learn to pick out the guide tones and string them together through each II,V,I you tap into your loop pedal. Make 2 bar, 4 bar and 8 bar lines out of your little triads and guide tone passages and play them forwards and backwards in position.

That's about enough for 2 years.

Have fun!

Also everyone will have an opinion on this, mine is likely no better than anyone else's. Don't get overwhelmed, just keep pushing. That's really all you need to do. Learn one little thing and work the sh*t out of it. Never had time to do that at school and I believe that's the biggest reason I never evolved and or lost interest. Too much information will kill it.