An Introduction to Jazz

guitarjack66

Where would I go to find this? We are talking beginner level and the chords which are often used and the basic ideas behind them. 
I've been watching some youtube stuff with Jimmy Bruno,who is some player and it has piqued a little bit of my interest. I really enjoy his 'rough round the edges' personality but feel he can be a bit of a Jazz Snob at times. It also seems the lads and lasses involved in Jazz appear to be the most musically educated too.

smigeon

http://www.jazzguitar.be ;

The lessons on there are excellent - and free. The forums on there are also very good.

DrCornelius

Im pretty sure Ive still got the Jimmy Bruno intro to jazz guitar DVD course if you want to borrow it @guitarjack66 . If so PM your address and I'll stick it in the post later when Ive found it

joeW

smigeon said:

http://www.jazzguitar.be ;

The lessons on there are excellent - and free. The forums on there are also very good.

Agreed - lots of good resources there.  Personally, I rather like a book for the structure.  I enjoyed the books by Jody Fisher as a good place to get going. 

robinbowes

There's everything you need to know here:

joeW

robinbowes said:

There's everything you need to know here:

Just awesome 

ArchtopDave

My answer would be Frank Vignola's courses on Truefire, He has a nice laidback approach. He has loads of courses there, starting with the basics of Jazz. He's also someone to recognises the importance of Blues in Jazz, and incorporates it in his own playing of examples.

The only hazard is that Truefire can become addictive!!
Also be aware that Truefire frequently have courses at discounted prices, so, if your lucky, you can buy course(s) more cheaply.

Van_Hayden

Emily Remler's videos are still very good, accessible and not condescending...

Some very easy concepts you can use quickly.

guitarjack66

Thank you @Smidgeon and especially @DrCornelius for an unbelievably generous offer. The True Fire courses @ArchtopDave mentioned are an excellent idea. I really need to take up the offers they send. I will also watch that video posted when able to get on to a laptop as videos on my phone dont play too well on a small screen. My eyes might contribute a bit to that though.

Jalapeno

The old Mickey Baker book is good, if a bit trust-me-I'm-a-doctor in approach. (He's training your ear) Some of the chord shapes are bastids, and I discovered later on Jimmy Brunos reductionist approach with 3 fingered basic root/3/5 or 7.

Power_Freak

I'd describe Bruno as being quite far away from a jazz snob - at least compared to others.

Before deciding on where to start you should hone in on what you want to do, jazz is pretty broad and you could get 100 different (valid) answers.

Perhaps the most crucial part is to REALLY listen to jazz first, if you've not spent the time it'll be very hard to play. 

If you want just small snippets of ideas you can check out the Jens Larsen youtube channel. He tends to fall towards the Barry Harris approach most of the time (at least the videos that come up on my feed).

jdgm

Power_Freak said:

Perhaps the most crucial part is to REALLY listen to jazz first, if you've not spent the time it'll be very hard to play. 

This is by far the most important part.

Jazz uses the same musical material as everything else, so - learn major scales in multiple positions and practice chords using the cycle of 5ths/4ths.  That's a good start.  Learn the diatonic scale in 7th chords, here -

https://www.jazzguitar.be/blog/diatonic-chords/

Or try one of these -

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&sca_esv=598813290&q=diatonic+scale+in+7th+chords+guitar&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwju2Mepm-KDAxXpQUEAHZSIAX8Q0pQJegQICRAB&biw=1920&bih=1113&dpr=1

Then learn the melodies, which is what I stupidly did not do years ago and am doing now..

DonnyMac

Not a course, but I'd highly recommend Ted Gioia's book 'How to Listen to Jazz' . He describes the history of jazz, the different styles and sub-genres, key musicians, and the elements that make jazz what it is. It really is a great read and some kind soul has even compiled a 500 odd song playlist on Spotify to go along with it so it'll give you plenty of listening. 

ArchtopDave

Van_Hayden said:

Emily Remler's videos are still very good, accessible and not condescending...

Some very easy concepts you can use quickly.

Emily has been my Favourite Guitarist for a very long time.

A couple of years ago, I was delighted to come across a 1967 Gibson 330 (in extremely good nick) which had had the P90's  removed and replaced with Gibson T-Top Humbuckers, and which was modestly priced. This is as near as I have seen something near the guitar that she most commonly used.

Whilst I agree her videos are very approachable (needless to say I bought them a long time back when videos were videos, along with the majority of her CD's).

I find Frank Vignola's Truefire Courses very enjoyable, and find his style very approachable. Truefire, and Frank, have done well out of my purchases alone.

guitarjack66

Power_Freak said:

I'd describe Bruno as being quite far away from a jazz snob - at least compared to others.

Before deciding on where to start you should hone in on what you want to do, jazz is pretty broad and you could get 100 different (valid) answers.

Perhaps the most crucial part is to REALLY listen to jazz first, if you've not spent the time it'll be very hard to play. 

If you want just small snippets of ideas you can check out the Jens Larsen youtube channel. He tends to fall towards the Barry Harris approach most of the time (at least the videos that come up on my feed).

I follow Jens channel as I find him both an interesting watch and a seemingly good teacher. I like his laid back approach.

Whistler

DonnyMac said:

I'd highly recommend Ted Gioia's book 'How to Listen to Jazz'. 

Thanks for that. I looked at his books and bought his The History of Jazz. Without you I would not have known about him.

Littlejonny

Has anyone here studied the Barry Harris approach? 

I’d love to be able to play jazz, and do work on it from time to time. I’m currently trying the YouTube channel: Things I Learned From Barry Harris.

It’s a lifetime of study that’s for sure.

joeW

@Littlejonny currently going thro the Alan Kingstone book which is pretty decent. He’s was a guitar student of Barry’s so it’s been distilled with a guitar in mind.  TIL is a great resource tho - its definitely a lifetime of study but great to have some kind of framework to work from

Littlejonny

joeW said:

@Littlejonny currently going thro the Alan Kingstone book which is pretty decent. He’s was a guitar student of Barry’s so it’s been distilled with a guitar in mind.  TIL is a great resource tho - its definitely a lifetime of study but great to have some kind of framework to work from

Ooh thanks - I will buy that book.

Littlejonny

Littlejonny said:

joeW said:

@Littlejonny currently going thro the Alan Kingstone book which is pretty decent. He’s was a guitar student of Barry’s so it’s been distilled with a guitar in mind.  TIL is a great resource tho - its definitely a lifetime of study but great to have some kind of framework to work from

Ooh thanks - I will buy that book.

I just downloaded it...oof! That's some difficult to understand stuff. I'm not sure I'm clever enough!

Brad

@joeW I’ll certainly be checking that book out, nice one!

@Littlejonny I’ve been properly looking into the Barry Harris method for the past month or so, transcribed loads of the Chris Parks/TILFBH stuff, it’s a very good approach. 

With that being said, it can be hard to know where to start, particularly as Chris Parks races through the info. I think there are certain foundations one needs to get in the fingers and then everything begins to fall into place. I’d start with the major scale doing the following:

Scale up and down

Scale in 3rds up and down

Scale in triads up and down

Scale in chords (Barry language for 7th Arps) up and down

Add a half step below all of the above

Pivots

Barry’s chromatic scale 

In 3rds

Triads

Chords

All of that descending. 

Then all of the above for a Dominant scale. 

That’s certainly a lot of work, but will definitely lay the foundations for taking on the Barry Harris approach with more confidence as a lot of it, is knitting together these things. What I’ll say though, if you want to learn Jazz it’s not something you can really “do from time to time”. You do have to throw yourself in and get your hands dirty if you want to make progress