How to play “Take the A Train” on Guitar Approaches to the Jazz Guitar standards Greetings! If you’re trying to learn Jazz Guitar, Take the A Train, by Duke Ellington is a great beginner Jazz tune to start with. There are only 2 sections, the chords are pretty straight forward, and you can learn…
Making The Most With What You Know: Part 2 To continue from the last article, we’re going to check out some more licks, and how to start practicing them with purpose. The hardest part of learning new material is how to integrate it into your playing thoughtlessly. It should slowly become second nature, like…
Making the Most with what you know: Today we’ll be showing a few examples of how to take a single idea, and start using it in licks you already know. Although this example is primarily for Jazz, the concept can be applied to just about anything. The concept here is to take a new idea…
Dominant 7th Voicings We’ve checked out Major 7th, Minor 7th, now it’s time for some Dominants. These are all based on G dominant 7th. The spelling for the chord is G-B-D-F. Remember, no matter how the letters are organized, it can still be referred to as a G7 chord. Often times on a lead sheet…
Practice Better! An approach to learning Jazz Standards Pt. 3 We’ve got two ways to play it? Now, after this is mastered, shoot for FOUR ways. Attached again are two more ways to play the same chords. Because of the nature of the guitar, and how the notes are arranged, we have to be more…
Practice Better! An approach to learning Jazz Standards Pt. 2 In part one we looked at the first step towards mastery of a standard: the chords. As and example, I’m going to post what are most likely the chords the average guitarist will use, especially if they’re just getting started with Jazz. Now over…
Practice Better! An approach to learning Jazz Standards Pt. 1 For these examples, I’ll be using “Fly me to the moon”, written by Bart Howard. If you’ve ever sat and watched a great Jazz guitarist, such as Jimmy Bruno, Pat Metheny, or Pat Martino, you’ll see these guys flying all over the fretboard. Their chord…
Major 7th Chords pt. 2 More major 7th voicings! This time on string groups 2-3-4-5, but as with the first article, presented in C major 7th for all (C-E-G-B). The first example is the chord shape most guitarists use for a major 7th. It’s a very useful shape, and easy to locate, since the…
Minor 7th Chords Part 2 More Minor 7th chords! In part one we looked at the 4 minor 7th chords in a string group, then flipped a note from low E to high E and made 4 more chords. Now, we’ll look at the same chords presented in a different string group. Like the first…
Minor 7th Arpeggios Part 2 In the first Minor 7th arpeggios article, we looked at an A minor arpeggio in the 1st position. Here we’ll look at another A minor arpeggio only presented in 5th position. Each example posted will have the chord, then the lick. It’s important to link these together. It’s also important…