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How to Play Jazz Guitar

There are many ways of starting to investigate how to play jazz guitar. Some guitar players see jazz as a way to learn improvisation. Others see jazz guitar as an instrument that accompanies a certain repertoire of songs. But once you start to actually study jazz you are confronted with a head-spinning array of odd looking chord shapes and endless discussion of modes and scales.

Just what is your average beginner guitar player supposed to think when all he wants to do is learn how to play jazz guitar? Well, jazz kind of grew like Topsy from its beginning as part of Black American culture in the early twentieth century. The rest of America and the rest of the world started adding their own interpretations of jazz music.

So now under the heading of jazz guitar we have widely diverse styles as those of Wes Montgomery, Lenny Breau, Joe Pass, Charlie Byrd, John McLaughlin, Herb Ellis, Pat Metheny and Charlie Christian. This list is just off the top of my head and these guys’ playing styles are as different from each other as cheese is from Shinola.

So where is the starting point for anybody who wants to learn how to play jazz guitar? I would have to say the repertoire. There is a body of songs and instrumental pieces that are called jazz standards. There is a website called Jazz Standards dot com that has twenty pages listing one thousand jazz standards.

Here is a list of familiar titles from the top one hundred jazz standards: Body and Soul, All the Things You Are, Summertime, ‘Round Midnight, My Funny Valentine, What Is This Thing Called Love?, Yesterdays, Stella By Starlight, Autumn Leaves, Star Dust, Willow Weep for Me, Honeysuckle Rose, Sweet Georgia Brown, Caravan, The Man I Love, St Louis Blues, How High the Moon, Oh, Lady Be Good!, Take the “A” Train, Embraceable You, On Green Dolphin Street, These Foolish Things, Sophisticated Lady, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Night and Day, Georgia on My Mind and Satin Doll.

So the jazz repertoire seems to be the one common thing amongst the diversity of styles of playing and levels of innovation. Of course you need to get into subjects like what jazz chords are and why they have evolved and the various movements in jazz music but in order to keep it simple start with a list of your favorite songs. Once you have a list of maybe twenty or so songs from the repertoire of jazz standards you can listen to how jazz guitar players have interpreted the songs on your list. From listening to interpretations you can go to learning the chords that you need to play your songs and start practicing them.

As for improvisation, many people feel that in order to learn jazz guitar improvisation you need to learn to play a multitude of exotic scales and modes. A much more enjoyable alternative is to simply play along with your favorite songs. Learn licks from other jazz guitarists. You can always put what you have learned into the theoretical framework later if you feel that you need to. As a general rule, while you are learning, stick to the major scale all over the fretboard.

So, as with any style of music, if you want to learn how to play jazz guitar the jumping off point is the jazz standards and how you want to interpret your favorite pieces.

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