Recently it occurred to me that for beginners, it can be tough to tell what separates "jazz guitar" from something that simply borrows from the style. If Maroon Five puts a major 7 chord in their song, and I played it on guitar, would it be now...
If you've ever tried to arrange your own chord melody, you'll know that finding a good final chord can be quite tricky. This is because the vast majority of standards end on the root of the I chord. There simply aren't a lot of voicings that...
Hello, jazz guitarists! This lesson will teach you about one of the basic building blocks of music - intervals. An interval is the distance between two notes. We measure this distance using the unit of a semitone. (Think one fret on a guitar, or...
First off, what's a double stop? On guitar, the term "double stops" means two notes played simultaneously. Another way to think of them is as intervals: thirds, fourths, sixths, and so on. Guitarists including Johnny Smith, Jim Hall and others...
When I was in music school, stories of Coltrane and Charlie Parker practicing jazz for 10-12 hours a day would circulate the hallways like folk tales. At the time, it was inspiring, but for prospective jazz musicians I can understand how it would...
When most people think of bossa nova music, they seem to think of paradise: relaxing in front of a beach with a nice drink in hand. Can you blame them?
