# Trying to get into jazz



## Kavnar (Jan 21, 2011)

Trying to get into playing Jazz guitar but a lot of the information is pretty daunting. I've got a pretty good understanding of music theory and I'm more than ready to delve in to the theory side of jazz. I just need to find a resource that's a little more approachable. Maybe you guys could share your approaches to starting jazz guitar and theory?

Like I said, I'm pretty confident as a musician been playing for 10 years. Been studying theory for pretty much as long but I've never really played any jazz. 

Any help would be greatly appreciated!


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## Kairos (Jan 22, 2011)

Some book recommendations:

Jazz Theory - Mark Levine
The Complete Jazz Guitar Method - Jody Fisher
The Real Book

Jazz Theory is an all encompassing book that is really indispensable. From beginner to the crazy stuff he covers it all. He also has tons of listening recommendations.

Jody Fisher's book is definitely the most Basic.

The Real Book is a song book of popular jazz tunes. The best way to learn jazz is to play the songs and study them.

There's a ton of other threads made already covering this.


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## StratoJazz (Jan 23, 2011)

Yeah man, i know what you mean. I'm a jazz major in college and alot of the information is daunting and overwhelming. I've found myself in ensemble situations that require one to play 3 styles at the same time. Unfortunately I never got a chance to master any of those styles.

The point I'm trying to make is to not spread yourself to thin. Concentrate on 3-4 things a time or less. 

My other suggestion is to transcribe what inspires you. Anything that doesn't inspire you is irrelevant. Let's say you like Miles Davis, but don't really like Dizzy Gillespie. Transcribe Miles, you're more likely to persevere and finish the transcription. I've found in college, you're teacher's will suggest that you transcribe who they like, which might not be who you like.

To sum all this up, learn to dissect information and practice what's relevant to your situation. Right now, if your just a beginner, i suggest a few things.

1. Find an artist, player, or composer that truly inspires you. It doesn't have to be a guitar player, but it can. Transcribe their solos.
2. Learn to read notation. You don't have to be a proficient sight reader, just figure what notes and rhythms are on the page.
3. Learn some chord grips(shapes) and how to voice lead them. Drop 2 and
3 will be good for you. You can find these all over the internet.
4. Achieve and perfect some kind of technique that makes you sound like a piano player. Hybrid picking is good, Finger picking is good too. Most jazzers hate the sound of pick strums.

Hope this helped.


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## phazyme (Mar 28, 2011)

Jazz is not as hard as it seems. To learn jazz, you need to realize that the sounds are all built of 4 note 7th chords and from there 9th, 11ths, 13ths etc. But harmonized scale of 4 notes in any key is always the same lettering, M7th, m7th,m7th,M7th,Dom7th,m7th, m7thb5,M7th. The notes of course correspond to the key . So get a book and learn 3 or 4 string sets with the 4 inversions for one key, and then just move it around. The Most common string sets are 6,4,3,2// 5,3,2,1 // 4,3,2,1 . So learn the harmonized scale chords in each string set. That takes about a year. Next learn the 5 positions of the pitch collections, which takes another year. Lastly learn to recognized key changes during a tune, which necessitates pitch collections changes on the fly when improvising. (Songs do not remain in the same key for very long, but they start and end with the key signature.). When you look at the Real Book, it will seem much easier because you'll recognize the chords instantly. Good luck. Have someone write out the 3 most common string set inversions, and you'll be on your way. The hardest one for me has been 2345 (inside chords).


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## kung_fu (Mar 28, 2011)

I'd highly recommend "Jazz Guitar" by Jeff Schroedl (Hal Leonard Publishing). I've owned many book over the years, but this is by far the best and a great introduction to the genre as well. Most jazz books i've come across are useless transcriptions of other peoples arrangements of songs, without any depth or insight which is the total antithesis of what jazz is. While this book does contain some transcribed arrangements of standards, it uses them only for illustrative purposes as the main emphasis is getting comfortable with the jazz language and how to use it to find your own voice.


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## Trespass (Apr 2, 2011)

Part of jazz is realizing that it's built on layers.

A lot of jazz tunes resolve to very simple changes - In fact, Ralph Patt wrote the "vanilla book" to highlight what those are (to "de-bopify" changes").

The Vanilla Book

Jazz is all about embellishing and enriching, and years of layering later have lead to it's modern sound. Harmonically, there are really only five common chord changes, the most common being the the II-V-I.

So you may run into a tune like Django's Nuages, which opens with:

Bm7 - Eb9 - Am7b5 - D7 - G6/9.

This whole thing can be resolved to this chord progression:

Eb7 - % - D7 - % - G

Much simpler. The pure changes here have been embellished with two fives to provide more movement (important due to melody sustaining a whole note during the opening measure) and more interesting.

The tune is in G, and the chords are leading down stepwise to resolve to the G chord. Harmonically, it's 
ii - V7 (Bm-Eb7)
ii7b5 - V7 - I

From one school of thought (Jimmy Bruno etc.), chords really resolve into three different families: Maj, min, dominant (which includes diminished for some reason). All the extra extensions beyond 7 are there for color or because they are part of the melody. If they are not part of the melody, they can usually be subbed for different chords. 

i.e. Caravan starts out with a vamp on C7. Most guitar players who are comping over that 8 bars (or whatever) or C7 will alternate between C7 and it's V chord rapidly to provide motion. (This is a "five of five", subbing the five chord with it's own five chord)


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Apr 4, 2011)

Trespass said:


> From one school of thought (Jimmy Bruno etc.), chords really resolve into three different families: Maj, min, dominant (which includes diminished for some reason). All the extra extensions beyond 7 are there for color or because they are part of the melody. If they are not part of the melody, they can usually be subbed for different chords.



To clear up the dominant family thing: the diminished seventh chord and the dominant seventh chord have the same function, in that they go to I (or i). Additionally, V7 (G B D F, doing this in the key of C) contains a vii° triad (B D F). V7b9 (G B D F Ab) is also one note away from vii°7 (B D F Ab). It's for this reason that some people call vii°7 a dominant chord without a root.


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## ken138888 (Apr 4, 2011)

StratoJazz said:


> Yeah man, i know what you mean. I'm a jazz major in college and alot of the information is daunting and overwhelming. I've found myself in ensemble situations that require one to play 3 styles at the same time. Unfortunately I never got a chance to master any of those styles.
> 
> The point I'm trying to make is to not spread yourself to thin. Concentrate on 3-4 things a time or less.
> 
> ...



Lol thans for sharing this.


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## FretWizard88 (Apr 4, 2011)

I just got Pat Metheny's Bright Size Life album and tab book. I really enjoy it and it is really easy to listen to.

You should check him out.


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