Best Jazz Guitar Etude Collection You’ve Found

[jamiehenderson1993]

In Classical Guitar, there are collections of, what are considered, “Essential” Etudes… Carcassi, Guiliani etc.

I’m wondering what the Jazz equivalent is?

I suppose to ask it a different way - is there a book, or collection of “etudes” you’d see as Essential for a budding Jazz student? (Doesn’t need to be guitar specific, or could be chord melody or whatever).

[Alter]

Everything by Joe Pass is great, and you can find lots of books at every difficulty level.

[TheGrandWazoo]

I would consider Barry Galbaith's books to be a very common collection of "etudes" amongst those who have gone to school for Jazz Guitar. Perhaps not so much anymore but at least when I went to school in the 90s theses were very common. I still use them regularly for reading studies.

Jamey Aebersold Jazz: Product Display

[pamosmusic]

Transcribing takes the role of etudes in this case.

But probably Barry Galbraith if you had to pick something. I used them with a teacher in college as late as 2010, so they were definitely still around that late. And they’re excellent.

Cecil Alexander has some stuff along these lines. Not sure how progressive they are, but he’s very cool.

[Christian Miller]

In Classical Guitar, there are collections of, what are considered, “Essential” Etudes… Carcassi, Guiliani etc.

I’m wondering what the Jazz equivalent is?

I suppose to ask it a different way - is there a book, or collection of “etudes” you’d see as Essential for a budding Jazz student? (Doesn’t need to be guitar specific, or could be chord melody or whatever).

Charlie Parker heads.

[Jimmy blue note]

Charlie Parker Omnibook. The essential compendium of melodic application of the jazz language, ornaments, rhythmic phrasing and progressive technical language with solid (and standard) harmonic structure.
Within each individual piece you will find modular studies of individual techniques that will grow in context and utility the more you study them and the more you listen to jazz.
Arguably the backbone of modern jazz music.

I will also include the fine volumes of the Greg Fishman studies, very concentrated and brilliantly concise studies of the jazz language. Worthy of deep study. They also come with recorded performances so you can assimilate them by ear as well as notation.

I will note that I really recommend that you try to learn these by ear, as opposed to reading them. Jazz is assimilated differently when processed by ear. Both of these recommendations have easy accessible recorded performances.

It needs to be said that classical music and jazz are in fact different in many ways. You're citing classical etudes is very effective in technical proficiency and the internalization of vocabulary, but they are the organizations of one composer. At some point, if you really want to take on the task of learning jazz, you will need to also learn the aspects of the composer that take you from the exercise to the solo.
Any study of a solo will open a window to a specific approach to the jazz language. Parker, Miles, Shorter, Desmond, Ayler, Coltrane, Zorn, Taylor all share the label of jazz but do not employ the 12 notes in the same way.
Look for study aids. They will give you a starting point of how to use the notes. To really study the music, attend live music as much as you possibly can, look for as many disparate sources on what music means to them and synthesize your own language based on what appeals to your ear. Train your ear. It's not a given and it doesn't come without a conscious informed effort.

[pamosmusic]

Yeah in that classical analogy, worth noting that “etude” encompasses the first installment in the Sor op 60, which is all single notes and quarter notes and purely a teaching piece, as well as the Villa-Lobos etudes, which are very difficult, sophisticated compositions, usually required for masters recitals.

So the operative thing is that most of the best etudes are actual pieces of music.

I think on the whole, I’d be less interested in a book of etudes and more interested in a list of solos to transcribe, arranged in progressive order with some notes about what’s going on.

……. which suddenly feels like something I should have

[BreckerFan]

2nd what Peter said, transcriptions are the jazz equivalent of etudes. Or write your own. I've never gotten much out of books of written etudes, but my practice mostly consists of working on technical etudes I've written or of practicing transcriptions. In both cases I find that I'm engaging my ear and internalizing much more than just working on a written out etude.

[nyc chaz]

David Baker's books The Bebop Scale and How to play Bebop will give a good foundation in jazz vocabulary.

[Bobby Timmons]

I figured it out myself cuz I'm smart. Scales, arps, intervals, chromatics.

[pamosmusic]

I figured it out myself cuz I'm smart. Scales, arps, intervals, chromatics.

I mean … I guess to ask the obvious question.

How do you apply them?

That would be the purpose of an etude, I would imagine.

[Bobby Timmons]

Individually, over the changes, with the devices you use, bare minimum. Then combine them. You can etude perpetually to ur lil heart's content.

For chords I would walk inversions up and down the neck.

[Christian Miller]

Also Bach solo partitas


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[pamosmusic]

Individually, over the changes, with the devices you use, bare minimum. Then combine them. You can etude perpetually to ur lil heart's content.

For chords I would walk inversions up and down the neck.

Not sure this is quite the same.

So for classical students I usually have practice broken into three major chunks.

The first is technique … scales, arpeggio studies, slurs, left hand independence, etc. What you describe falls into this category, I think.

The last is their piece … so whatever nice piece of music they’re working on. This is hopefully something that takes several weeks and challenges them in most areas.

The middle is etudes … ideally these are shorter than the big piece and help them incorporate some element of the technical practice into their musical vocabulary.

So working intervals through scales or even through changes really helping you integrate the intervals musically, even if it does help technically. Thats the missing piece, and where a transcription or written etude comes in.

[Bobby Timmons]

Ah

[jamiehenderson1993]

I think on the whole, I’d be less interested in a book of etudes and more interested in a list of solos to transcribe, arranged in progressive order with some notes about what’s going on.

……. which suddenly feels like something I should have

well…. If you do find or make this, please feel free to share!!!

[pamosmusic]

well…. If you do find or make this, please feel free to share!!!

Same to you

[Bobby Timmons]

Not sure this is quite the same.

So for classical students I usually have practice broken into three major chunks.

The first is technique … scales, arpeggio studies, slurs, left hand independence, etc. What you describe falls into this category, I think.

The last is their piece … so whatever nice piece of music they’re working on. This is hopefully something that takes several weeks and challenges them in most areas.

The middle is etudes … ideally these are shorter than the big piece and help them incorporate some element of the technical practice into their musical vocabulary.

So working intervals through scales or even through changes really helping you integrate the intervals musically, even if it does help technically. Thats the missing piece, and where a transcription or written etude comes in.

You can still make up etudes easily. I prefer that since it's jazz and you're building improv. But I learned a new thing about the purpose of etudes.

[pamosmusic]

You can still make up etudes easily. I prefer that since it's jazz and you're building improv. But I learned a new thing about the purpose of etudes.

I feel like etudes in the context of jazz would be:

transcriptions, which usually inform the technical practice

Barry Harris style line-building type stuff, which is sort of etude composition in real time and would be a really good way of focusing on a piece of vocabulary and making it musical in real time like you mention.

and actual etudes and tough tunes. I play bebop heads in different positions and keys all the time.

[Tal_175]

Memorizing an etude (or a solo) as a fingering and playing it as a string of notes is of very limited use in my opinion even though it may feel like you're achieving something in the moment . Of course it's better than not practicing at all but any activity that you can't readily apply to your playing and improvisation in the context of tunes is a form of spinning wheels (at least in my experience).

I agree with some of the posters above that it's more useful to come up with your own etudes for different chords. That helps you be more actively involved in the phrasal ideas in the etude and their relationship to the underlying harmony. Your etudes can be based on ideas you learned from transcriptions of course or they can be based on the first principles (arpeggios, enclosures etc).

[pamosmusic]

Memorizing an etude (or a solo) as a fingering and playing it as a string of notes is of very limited use in my opinion even though it may feel like you're achieving something in the moment.

Was this ever the suggestion?

For what it’s worth learning a transcription or your own etude or improvising and just having it be a “fingering and playing it as a string of notes” would be of very limited use too.

With anything, the operative bit is how you play it, rather than what you play.

[Tal_175]

Was this ever the suggestion?

Not sure what you're referring to as "the suggestion" here or what is "the suggestion"? I was referring to the concept of memorizing an etude as maybe done by classical guitarists as a technical or reading exercise.

[pamosmusic]

Not sure what you're referring to as "the suggestion" here or what is "the suggestion"? I was referring to the concept of memorizing an etude as maybe done by classical guitarists as a technical or reading exercise.

Youre going off false premises here …

Do classical guitarists just “memorize” an etude? Nope. The whole purpose of an etude in that context is to incorporate a technical skill into something musical.

Nothing is terribly useful when you just memorize finger motions.

Youre suggesting that the idea is just memorizing fingerings and stuff and I don’t think anyone else is suggesting that that would be the purpose of an etude at all. For an etude to be useful, you need to make it musical. As with anything else.

[Tal_175]

Youre going off false premises here …

Do classical guitarists just “memorize” an etude? Nope. The whole purpose of an etude in that context is to incorporate a technical skill into something musical.

Youre suggesting that the idea is just memorizing fingerings and stuff and I don’t think anyone else is suggesting that that would be the purpose of an etude at all. For an etude to be useful, you need to make it musical. As with anything else.

Fingerings can be musical, that's not really the discussion here.

So in your mental model of the world we live in, what percentage of beginning jazz guitar students when they encounter a source like Barry Galbraith's fingerboard workbook do not just memorize a fingering per etude and play it for a few months until they are bored with it?

Also your generalization of classical guitarist not memorizing the etudes they play as a technical exercise but work on them as phrase building exercises and studying their relationship to harmony is an intersting one. Maybe you are surrounded by different type of classical musicians than the ones I met.

[pamosmusic]

Fingerings can be musical, that's not really the discussion here.

So in your mental model of the world we live in, what percentage of the beginning jazz guitar students when they encounter a source like Barry Galbraith's fingerboard workbook do not just memorize a fingering per etude and play it for a few months until they are bored with it?

Also your generalization of classical guitarist not memorizing the etudes they play as a technical exercise but work on them as phrase building exercises and studying their relationship to harmony is an intersting one. Maybe you are surrounded by different type of classical musicians than the ones I met.

Im saying that if you’re just memorizing something and learning it as a rote technical exercise, then you’re using that thing wrong, no matter what it is.

Im not convinced of the usefulness of “etudes” for jazz, but it wouldn’t be for that reason.

And yes, I must be hanging out with other classical musicians. I mean … check out the Segovia editions of the Sor etudes. Segovia would’ve burned the building down if you’d told him classical guys were just treating those things as technical exercises to be memorized and not as pieces for building musical sensibility.