Beginning Jazz

[drunkenmaster357]

I primarily listen to metal, but I've found that some of my favorite bands I listen to incorporate jazz elements into their music and I think it sounds really cool when a band can throw in something outside of their genre into their music. What is a good starting point for learning jazz? What are some good beginner scales and techniques? It's something I'd really love to throw into my playing style.

[StratoJazz]

I'd like to direct your attention to this thread posted on the Jazz forum:

Another metal guitarist who wants to delve into something new...

Really it depends on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go actually. If you want to play Rock with Changes, you should focus on emphasizing the chord tones of each change.

I'm sure you'll get a good amount of suggestions considering that this is the Technique/Theory part of the forum.

[Santuzzo]

I'd suggest start by listening to lots of jazz.
And don't only listen to more modern/fusion kinda jazz, but also to stuff like bebop.
Listen to as many Charlie Parker, Bill Evans, Wes Montgomery, Cannonball Adderly, etc. CDs as you can get your hands on.

[chucklives6960]

So it appears I've found you Matt, I say we should check out some Shawn lane, that dude plays some crazy stuff from what I hear.

[KingAenarion]

Originally Posted by Santuzzo

I'd suggest start by listening to lots of jazz.
And don't only listen to more modern/fusion kinda jazz, but also to stuff like bebop.
Listen to as many Charlie Parker, Bill Evans, Wes Montgomery, Cannonball Adderly, etc. CDs as you can get your hands on.

This + one other thing.


One of the most helpful things I learnt when starting to play Jazz was this.

Chords and scales are the same thing. Think about them as the same thing, construct your chords with all the notes of the scale. Adding in more than just the basic triads give you different colours. Leave out the notes you don't want for particular colours...

[Trespass]

Originally Posted by KingAenarion

This + one other thing.


One of the most helpful things I learnt when starting to play Jazz was this.

Chords and scales are the same thing. Think about them as the same thing, construct your chords with all the notes of the scale. Adding in more than just the basic triads give you different colours. Leave out the notes you don't want for particular colours...

And you can superimpose different structures for even more possible colors. You can super impose any interval structure over any harmony, the key is in emphasizing that structure.

So I might super impose an Em7 over a Cmaj7 by playing an E minor seven arpeggio root, third, fifth, seventh (E G B D). Might also superimpose by chromatically anticipating each of those with a piece of an E minor scale, or perhaps chromatically.

Another great tool is accents. I could play random notes, but if I accent chord tones on downbeats, it'll have an interior logic to it that makes it listenable (if played convincingly and with authority).

i.e. Over a Cmaj7, I might played any combination of the chromatic scale randomly all over the fretboard. As long as beats 1 and 3 (and less importantly, beats 2 and 4) feature one of the notes of an Em7, it'll imply an Em7 over Cmaj7 sound, producing an overall Cmaj9 harmony.

If there was an interior logic to this superimposition, it would sound even stronger. Perhaps outlining an ascending scale every second beat, with garbled nonsense chromatic notes inbetween. The ear will pick out the difference between the logical and illogical notes, and will follow the nonsense - especially if brought out with those accents.

[drunkenmaster357]

Wow, thanks for all the replies guys they're really helpful. Now time to sit down, stomach all the information in, and practice what you guys told me lol. This might take awhile...

[mishabasi]

Listen to Allan holdsworth. His playing opened up the door for me and let me get into jazz. I got many ideas from trying to mimic his licks.