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Location: Marlton, NJ | Can anyone recommend a good beginners book on Jazz guitar? My son wants to go out for the Jazz band at school next year. He already plays the guitar so he's got a good basis to start with.
Any help would be appreciated.
Mike |
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Posts: 2850
Location: Midland, MI | The gold standard of beginner's jazz guitar books has to be "Mickey Baker's Complete Course in Jazz Guitar." I also have the Hal Leonard Guitar Method "Jazz Guitar" by Jeff Schroedel, which is decent. If your kid is an intermediate to advance player, Jack Zucker puts out 'Sheets of Sound' which is worth a look and gets some good reviews from some practicing jazz players.
But, the only jazz I play is the 'when you make a mistake, play it again and call it jazz' type. ;) |
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Location: Oregon | I hope he makes it. Some jazz chords make my head explode. I don't understand how they're supposed to be fingered in any less than an hours time. |
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Location: NJ | the jack zucker book is very good.
there are a ton of them out there. I think he needs to decide if he is interested in chord melody or single note theory and start there. |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | think triads...
and keep in mind WorkShopLive as a learning source... |
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Location: Cicero, NY | Originally posted by Jeff W.:
think triads... Oww...oww....owww.... |
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Location: Marlton, NJ | Wow... sounds like fun! Maybe I'll try it. With my short stubby fingers I should have no problem!
Thanks for the advice. I'll have to find out about the chord melody or single note theory. He plays bass guitar and sax and just picked up the guitar on his own... he's already better than me! |
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Posts: 2850
Location: Midland, MI | Originally posted by alpep:
the jack zucker book is very good. Have you seen the second one, Al? I have the first one, but haven't gone to look at the second. It'll take me years to get through this one, anyway. Just wondered if it's something I *should* be looking at. |
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Location: NJ | never saw the second one.
you are right at the rate I go it will take 2 lifetimes to learn all that stuff |
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Location: NJ | I seem t'recall that there's a degree of heroin involved if y'wanna play jazz . . . |
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Location: NW Washington State | Mike-
I have a nice jazz guitar band/ensemble book with examples on CD that I don't need. If I recall correctly it has standard notation only, not tab. Email me your address and I'll send it to you.
Cruster, do you you really think that Mickey Baker books are the gold standard these days? There are so many books with standard notation, tab, and CDs available now. Maybe you're showing your age by having copies (like me!). I do like the Jeff Schrodel book- a good overview.
If jazz guitar is defined by struggling to cover up mistakes, I'm a master!
-Steve W. |
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Posts: 2850
Location: Midland, MI | Originally posted by numbfingers:
Cruster, do you you really think that Mickey Baker books are the gold standard these days? There are so many books with standard notation, tab, and CDs available now. Maybe you're showing your age by having copies (like me!). I do like the Jeff Schrodel book- a good overview. Well, that's what I've always been told. I'm not old enough to have an original copy, though. :)
I can sight read standard notation when playing keys without any problems. However, standard notation when playing guitar eludes me. When I was working through the Baker book, it was a constant struggle to figure out, for instance, where on the fretboard I was supposed to be playing that A (or E or Bb or whatever).
Which is why I've been concentrating on the Hal Leonard Guitar Method "Blues Guitar" book. Heh. |
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Location: Marlton, NJ | Steve - I just sent you an email. Thanks, I really appreciate it!
Mike |
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September 2006
Posts: 54
Location: Kingston Ontario | If you watch any of the jazz players, they do not use full chords. They are using triads or slight variations of the same.
Actually jazz doesn't sound very good with the guitar playing the same chords as the keyboard. Most of the chords I think are written for the piano anyway.
If you are playing in a group that plays jazz, forget about A, E, D and prehaps G.
If your son wants to join the school jazz band, have him concentrate on the keys of Eb, Bb, and F. If the band has any horns, I guarantee he will be playong in these keys. Also horn players don't talk in term of keys. Everything is is sharps and flatts.
The books I would recommend are Theory for the Contemporary Guitarist by Guy Capuzzo, an Alfred book, and Music Reading For Guitar by David Oakes, a Hal.Leonard book. Also pick a good chord dictionary.
Finally get your son to learn to improvise. Nothing sounds worse that a jazz guitarist reading through his solo. |
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Posts: 651
Location: Australia | As someone who plays jazz, I would have to say the best I've ever seen is the Jimmy Bruno "No Nonsense Jazz Guitar" double video and booklet set.
Learning jazz can be an absolute nightmare with so many methods, scales, modes etc.
The Bruno course is very easy to understand and he is a very good teacher. |
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OT - Jazz Instruction Book
