Jazz Guitar Lessons

Welcome to our jazz guitar page. This page includes some advanced lessons for jazz guitar as well as links to guitar sites and more.

Chromaticism By Hans Fahling If you've heard of arpeggios, you have probably wondered how they could possibly be used for improvising on the guitar?! This column talks about the use of chord tone structures as a grid for progressively adding the in-between elements, such as passing tones, bebop sequences and many more important musical building blocks of improv.

Pattern-playing in Bebop Scales - not just for Jazz By Hans Fahling Picking up where we left off in the first column, Chromaticism, and with the foundation acquired through it, it becomes very easy now to get into some great lines that weave in and out of those inside chord tones. I want to illustrate this on two examples, which, when developed patiently over several days of practice, will give you incredible speed and metric control in your playing.

Jazz Comping 1 By Hans Fahling This series on comping - the skill of accompanying with chord structures - will happen in four installments. We will start in this edition with harmonizing the major scale by building seventh chords on this seven step system.

Jazz Comping 2 - Extending the chord voicing vocabulary By Hans Fahling In the previous installment in this series we defined and applied chord voicings with the roots on the fifth as well as sixth strings. We will achieve an even higher degree of flexibility by defining and practicing the same major scale harmonic layout in the following system.

Jazz Comping 3 - Chord Extensions By Hans Fahling By adding extensions to the basic guitar voicings covered in the previous two columns on this subject you automatically increase your flexibility when interpreting songs and when comping for co-musicians. We will accomplish this by progressively layering these extensions over the already acquired cadence foundations.

Jazz Comping 4 - More Revelations on Extensions By Hans Fahling In this column, we will get into compound voicings - a term that I use for chord shapes featuring more than one extension - as well as applications on the I-chord and connections/positions of one last cadence that we haven't mentioned yet: II-V-I in minor.

Jazz Comping 5 - Quartal Shapes By Hans Fahling Hans concludes his series on jazz comping with a lesson in quartal harmony. There's a great exercise with the song Autumn Leaves, in which Hans starts you out and then lets you finish the arrangement of the song. Bring your guitars and pencils!

Blues Lines in Jazz - Installment #1 of a series of three By Hans Fahling Jazz and blues have always been intertwined. Now you can see how simple blues lines can add to your jazz improvisational skills, as well as other styles. Hans is back with the first of a three-part series that will sharpen your playing considerably.

Comping With Fourths By Bill Cozzo Guitarists often want to know how to grow beyond standard barre chords when they expand their playing outside of rock/blues into jazz or other alternative styles. In this series of lessons, we'll explore a cool approach to accompanying (often called comping) jazzy chord progressions.

Comping With Fourths Part 2 By Bill Cozzo While you have your guitar out, join Bill Cozzo as he returns with the second installment of his lesson on quartal harmony. This piece includes a practical demonstration, showing how one can use these chord voicings on All Along The Watchtower.

Slash Chords By Palle Pesonen Most articles on this site are written at a level that probably doesn't interest players with more than a basic knowledge of harmony and theory. This article dealing with slash chords comes to us from Palle Pesonen, a teacher at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.

Improvising with SUS structures By Palle Pesonen Here is a common improvisational tool used a lot in jazz. Palle Pesonen explains how they work in Improvising with SUS Structures.

Pentatonics By Palle Pesonen Here are some ideas for you to work on, real boxfriendly for guitarplayers, these ideas might actually help you if playing in boxes is ALL you do. But as you move along TRY to play not ONLY in boxes.

Blues Lines in Jazz II - Installment #2 of a series of three By Hans Fahling Jazz and blues have always been intertwined. In part two of this three-part series, Hans explores the relationships between the major and minor blues scales. Definitely a lot of fun!

Blues lines in Jazz III - Blues Concept in Tonal Structures By Hans Fahling So far in this series, we have talked about the usage of both minor and major blues scales in exclusive blues settings. In this installment, we will answer the question of how to apply these hip blues sounds to tonal and modal situations.

Legato Playing - Step by Step Technique Vol.I By Hans Fahling Hans Fahling returns with the first of a series of three articles, each designed to help you get better at playing faster by means of starting slowly. This is a great read (and terrific exercises!) for all guitarists, whatever style you play and whatever speed you aspire to!

Legato Playing - Step by Step Technique Vol. II By Hans Fahling Hans picks up right where he left off, giving all sorts of exercises designed to help any guitarist develop speed and accuracy. If you're not careful, you may also pick up some theory!

Legato Playing - Step by Step Technique Vol. III By Hans Fahling In the third and final section of Hans' tutorial on legato playing, he focuses on specific riffs and the horizontal playing of them. If you've been keeping up with this three-part series, and by that I mean practicing as well as reading, then you will undoubtedly be getting proficient at this technique.

Practical Insights In Songwriting By Gilbert Isbin The song Picking A Flower was the January winner in the International Songwriting Contest Song of the Year in the category jazz/world/instrumental. Guitarist (and Guitar Noise contributor) Gilbert Isbin tells us of the steps he took in writing the music for this award-winning song. At the end of the article, Gilbert is kind enough to give us more links and information on the song and the contest itself, including reviews from listeners.

Walking Bass Jazz Blues - Fingerstyle Rhythm By Peter Simms It's always a pleasure to get a new lesson from Peter Simms! His latest piece involves putting a walking bass line underneath a standard jazz blues progression. When you put it all together, you'll definitely think it was worth the extra practice!

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