Take Note

Guest post by Chad Johnson – guitarist, author, & Hal Leonard digital content specialist

For many guitarists who start out as rock, country, or blues players, learning jazz can be a bit intimidating. At first glance, there seems to be very little in common between jazz and popular music. The scales have weird names like “Lydian Dominant,” there are lots of key changes, and what’s up with all those crazy chord names with “#9” and “13” and all that? However, it’s not nearly as daunting as it may seem. For these players interested in learning jazz, there are a few hurdles to get over, but it’s very doable with a structured approach. And the musical reward is well worth it!

The journey to jazz fluency relies on a few key elements. We’ll take a look at each here and provide suggestions for helpful relevant instructional materials.

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Sightreading and Music Theory

Although it’s not required to read music as a jazz musician, it will certainly help in many ways and expedite the process. For one, it’s fairly common practice on a jazz gig to play from a chart and “sightread” music you’ve never seen before.

It’s also incredibly helpful when communicating with other jazz musicians, as is some musical theory knowledge. Guitarist’s Guide to Music Reading is an excellent resource for the guitarist who wants to learn to read, and Music Theory for Guitarists provides an effective, guitar-based approach to learning music theory.

Chord Vocabulary and Rhythm Guitar

It’s true that jazz makes use of many chords not found in your typical rock or pop song, so you’ll need to get familiar with a new set of chord shapes.

A nice systematic approach is provided in the Berklee Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary and Jazz Guitar Chords, both of which present a wealth of usable chord voicings along with many exercises to help put them to use in a musical context.

Scales and Improvisation

Although the minor pentatonic and blues scale do see a good deal of action in jazz, you’ll still need to know a few more scales to be able to comfortably improvise over a typical jazz standard.

To help in this regard, check out the Hal Leonard Guitar Method – Jazz Guitar and Introduction to Jazz Guitar Soloing.

Both books will arm you with the melodic tools necessary to play over common jazz changes with confidence.

Repertoire

Finally, we have repertoire. In jazz, this generally means learning as many “standards” as you can.

On a jazz gig, it’s common for musicians to show up without a setlist at all, instead calling on well-known songs (standards) in the moment. Today, we have access to many different versions of “real books,” which contain many well-known jazz standards in lead sheet format (melody and chords only).

You should certainly start with The Real Book – Volume 1 (Sixth Edition), though, as it will get consistent use throughout your music career. Another great guitar-specific resource is First 50 Jazz Standards You Should Play on Guitar, which contains arrangements for 50 must-know jazz tunes in “chord melody” format, in which you’re playing both the melody and the chords of a song at the same time. This is an indispensable skill to have when playing in a guitar/bass/drums trio, for example.

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Conclusion

While each of these topics is important to jazz guitar, you’ll likely want to start with reading music if you don’t already. Being able to read well will undoubtedly make mastery of the other three topics much easier. Be sure to also learn the melodies to any standard you look at, as opposed to just the chord changes. Not only does this prepare you for when you may actually have to play “the head” (jazz slang for a song’s melody) on a gig, but it’s a great way to add to your melodic library of phrases.

Regarding chords, the books suggested above will help you get the essential voicings under your fingers, but developing a strong chord vocabulary is an ongoing pursuit. You can never know too many chords! And finally, in order to play jazz well, remember that you need to listen to jazz! It’s nearly impossible to convincingly play in a style with which you’re not intimately familiar. Besides, the simple act of listening to a jazz song (or solo) can sometimes help crystalize a musical concept more easily than 10 pages of explanatory text!

Learning jazz guitar is fun and enlightening, so enjoy the journey! A whole new musical world awaits!

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