Best products from r/jazzguitar

We found 42 comments on r/jazzguitar discussing the most recommended products. We ran sentiment analysis on each of these comments to determine how redditors feel about different products. We found 91 products and ranked them based on the amount of positive reactions they received. Here are the top 20.

Top comments mentioning products on r/jazzguitar:

u/discount_timetravel · 7 pointsr/jazzguitar

I hear you man...same boat. I hear a lot of recommendations for the Leavitt berklee guitar method books. These books

I'm personally working on adopting a fingering system similar to Leavitt and it's helped my playing a lot. My practice routine is:

  • Warm up with scales and arpeggios and sing along to the notes to train my ear for about an hour, and warm up my voice if I'm going to work on folk music or songwriting for the day.

  • Then I get some noodling out of my system by playing along to an album.

  • Then if I'm working on jazz, I'll work on a basic song out of the fake books (Autumn leaves, Beautiful Love, Summertime all have good progressions with some typical jazz changes in them and are at a beginner level), and try to play the chords in different positions, inversions, subs voice-leading etc..

  • Then I'll loop the chords and play the head a few times and start to improvise around the melody. Then I just play the 1-3-5-7 of each chord in different positions, to lock in on the chord tones, and then I improvise for a while until I get bored with myself and move onto another tune. Each time it gets a little better, more fluid.


    You have to take it one step at a time. Learning something new will help you recognize where the holes are in your playing/knowledge. You probably have picked up a lot over the years, but if you're anything like me it's good to start over with some basics, because your knowledge is unstructured and there are a lot of holes. Adopt a fingering system like Leavitts or similar and you will start to connect things you already know. Make sure you know all the notes on the fretboard. Learn triads all over their neck and then learn the 1st and 2nd inversions of those triads.


    Check out Frank Vignolas modern method course on truefire, it's very helpful for unlocking the neck of the guitar. He goes over basic scales, arps, intervals, and pretty much holds your hand while you learn it. So if you have ADD like me, it helps. Reminds me I need to finish that course..


    Good luck, and have fun.
u/rcochrane · 2 pointsr/jazzguitar

> Obviously if I were to jump into a jazz improv session I couldn't say "wait everybody, tell me the exact order of the chords you're going to play and I'll memorize some scales to them really quick".

Exactly, this is how rock players tend to approach jazz and it's hopelessly difficult for most situations. Plus, even if you manage to do it you're unlikely to sound like a jazz musician. I wasted a fair bit of time trying to do this back in the day. Here's a clip of Hal Galper laying into this approach; incidentally, you should watch all his clips, they're great.

In particular, I wouldn't worry at all about "jazz theory". I'm not even convinced such a thing exists. I mean, if you want to you can work through a college textbook like Levine but it won't make you a jazz player. I think /u/awindupgirl is 100% right on this.

Echoing what others have already said I would say your first steps are:

  • Start listening obsessively to jazz. Not jazz-rock, not avant garde, not recent stuff but bebop and similar stuff from the '40s & '50s. Include some vocal jazz (Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan etc) because you'll also need to...
  • Start learning standard tunes. That means you can sing and play the melody and play the chords without looking at the lead sheet. I know everyone moans about them but get the Real Book and use that for now. This list is useful guidance. [EDIT: Also, lead sheets for most standards can be turned up by a Google image search.]
  • It will help to learn some jazz chord grips, which tend to be different from what rock players use. This resource will get you started. When you go to a jazz jam, most of the time you'll be comping (playing chords) so this is a key skill.
  • Slowly start attempting to solo on the changes to tunes you know using chord tones, like /u/beardling described. If you know your CAGED arpeggios from your rock days, that will help massively. When trying to solo, always keep the melody of the song in your head. You're playing the song, not noodling to a backing track.
  • Also, start transcribing. That means picking a solo that's not too fast and complicated-sounding on a tune you already know, and listenign to it over and over with your guitar in your hand until you can play some of the phrases you hear. This takes a long time and is extremely frustrating. As with many things, the people who succeed are the ones who don't give up just because it seems impossible.

    Most of the time you spend on the above should be spent listening and playing, not book-learning.

    You'll probably find this page, and the whole rest of the site, useful. It's not everyone's thing but I'd also recommend checking out Kenny Werner [EDIT: link].

    Finally, good time is the single most important thing in jazz. Set the metronome to click on the 2 and 4 like Emily Remler tells you in the video in the sidebar and really nail your timing. You can play any note on any chord and make it work but if you're out of time nothing will sound good.
u/Monkee11 · 4 pointsr/jazzguitar

if you can read sheet music decently I'd recommend William Leavitt's Modern Guitar Method - It's fairly tough for new guitar students because most of them don't know how to sight read, but if you can do that then this is a really great resource and will teach you scales and chords in different areas all over the guitar. This book doesn't hold your hand, so go in expecting that it's dense and might take time a long time to get through.

Outside of working through books, it sounds like you want to know the fretboard notes more than anything, so I'd recommend learning in this order:


  • Memorize the notes on the low E string and the A string. (playing e minor and a minor scales vertically [up one string] are useful for this so you don't have to worry about accidentals much yet)

    playing vertically is important to know but isn't very efficient

  • Memorize the notes on the 5th fret (ADGCEA) and come up with an acronym to speed things up and to be able to find notes between 5th and 12th frets much faster - A Dog Got Caught Eating Apples for example

  • Check out an app (also an online version) called [Tenuto] (https://www.musictheory.net/exercises) and practice Fretboard note identification, and eventually interval training (learning chords tricks you into doing this too). I especially like this on mobile because you can learn the fretboard pretty well when you're on the bus or taking a dump or whatever. Use the test mode and you'll see yourself getting way faster over time and eventually you'll start to see frets as letters instead of numbers.

  • My biggest advice to most guitarists who want to be well rounded is to learn chords. Chord knowledge is super useful on guitar - you can start to see intervals/arpeggios/scales really well by knowing chords on guitar - they're like the skeletons that outline scales and arpeggios.

    my advice for this is to learn E shape, A shape, and D shape barre chords, assuming you already know CAGED+F open chords. That paired with a good knowledge of the E and A string and you are off to a great start. Guitar takes a lot more work than piano in order to see chords and be able to move around efficiently.

    Tl;dr get the app Tenuto, also available on pc here and work through William Leavitt's Modern Guitar Method (i'm in no way affiliated with either - I'm a professional musician and teacher and they're both tools that I use daily)
u/onlyforjazzmemes · 2 pointsr/jazzguitar

I've played a decent amound of rock, (mostly into Wilco, Sufjan type stuff) and I feel that playing Bach helped me a lot for writing memorable parts with good voice leading. It's mostly about giving yourself a solid harmonic framework to go off of. Like building a house... you can kinda do whatever you want with the decorations, but the framework and structure has to be there. Bach gives us that framework, even for rock/pop/jazz (to an extent).

Some things of his that might help you for guitar parts: his solo violin (and solo cello) stuff. He was able to coax polyphonic sounds and a sense of harmony out of two instruments which are mostly monophonic, and you really learn how to write a good melody. For two-part structure (bass+melody, the most important voices), check out his Inventions, and for 3-part, check out the French Suites. For heavier stuff, check out the Well-Tempered Clavier or B Minor Mass. It's mostly about being aware of how you're moving the voices, and how your parts are moving melodically... thinking of harmony as melody.

Obviously, there's a huge difference between Bach and something like funk or afrobeat, which are groove-based, but I think studying him is really helpful for writing parts that "just fit" with the rest of the band, or knowing how to keep strong harmonic structure with minimal instrumentation (solo, duo, etc).

Some other books to maybe consider:

Exploring Jazz Arranging (He also talks about Bach)

Contemporary Counterpoint

Tonal Counterpoint for the 21st Century Musician

Voice Leading: The Science Behind a Musical Art

u/[deleted] · 7 pointsr/jazzguitar

Eric Clapton, despite making an album of standards, is not a jazz player. This is coming from someone who bought Disraeli Gears as a kid around the time it came out (Cream record with Eric as guitarist if you're not already familiar). I'm not saying he's not fine to listen to, but calling him "jazz" in the company of other jazz players is probably not a good idea. ;-)

I'm reading some of the other comments and see you're getting downvoted. If you're serious about learning this music I'm sorry other people are taking this attitude towards you.

First of all, music isn't about the gear, necessarily. Plenty of great jazz players such as Ed Bickert, Lenny Breau, Mike Stern, and Ted Greene used solid body guitars even Joe Pass used one for a while. Hollow body guitars, though, can sound great and have "the vibe." The main thing you'll want to look for in an amp is that it's clean and not too bright, as in too much treble. As others have mentioned most "traditional" jazz players don't use pedals, but some like Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Mike Stern, and Alan Holdsworth do in more modern settings. In what we call mainstream it's generally only some reverb, maybe a pinch of delay or a little chorus.

I read on one post that you have had trouble transcribing. Although there are a very few good players who say they don't transcribe the overwhelming majority of good players do/did. It can be really frustrating at first but it's one of the best bangs for the buck as far as learning to play. Louis Armstrong is a good starting point, so is Charlie Christian, the first electric guitar "star." The golden rule is "learn one note at a time."

If you're not up on music theory and how to read music you will probably want to start learning how asap. Here's a good book for learning to read. If you're relying on TAB you should quit using it immediately. This is one of the few things I think is non-negotiable. TAB is fine for rock and some other styles but if you want to play jazz it will only hold you back.

The vast majority of jazz players learn to improvise on a body of songs that are loosely called "standards." There are a lot of books out there that have these tunes such as the Hal Leonard Real Books and the Chuck Sher series of New Real Books. Another source is Jamey Aebersold's play-a-long albums and books, featuring real musicians playing backing tracks for you to practice soloing with. A lot of people use the phone ap iReal Pro, but the feel is quite mechanical and you only get the chords, no melodies.

Jamey Aebersold also puts out a free handbook called the Red Book that is packed with info about how to improvise. Download it here.

Keep after it and keep coming back to this sub for tips.

u/the_emptier · 2 pointsr/jazzguitar

I found barry galbraiths comping book to be pretty helpful, it doesn't talk about voicings at all, just has different comping studies over standard changes

https://www.amazon.com/Barry-Galbraith-Comping-Play-Long/dp/1562240404

and what i love about his voicings are they are very practical and useful on all string sets, nothing too "outside" which is perfect for just getting into basic comping.

Another thing I like to add with comping is the notion that someone should be able to transcribe a chorus of your comping, and arrange it for other instruments, this means that it needs to always have good, in the pocket rhythm, and clear harmony. Imagine arranging your comping for a sax quartet or something, would you be able to hear clear harmonies and rhythms? this is of course beyond the necessary function of supporting the soloist, or band etc.

u/shortbusoneohone · 1 pointr/jazzguitar

Alright. Well, whenever you're ready, just PM me, and I'll get you my cell number and Skype info. This theory text has made the most sense to me — http://www.amazon.com/Tonal-Harmony-Introduction-Twentieth-Century/dp/0073401358/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1450929787&sr=8-2&keywords=tonal+harmony. It'll get you through all of the basics and some of the advanced stuff as well!


As far as jumping into playing stuff like CHON, depending on your technical ability, it's not that big of a leap. But understanding what's happening theoretically is the tricky part. Most people don't understand what's happening in the music that they play. What many of those people don't realize is that having a sound understanding of the theory can help articulate the music that they make more efficiently.


Do you understand how to construct chords and determine the quality of chords? If not, I would recommend checking out /r/musictheory for now. The sidebar has some great resources for a basic understanding of chords / harmony. I would check that out; play through the major scale w/ triad chords and identify the chord qualities (Major, minor, diminished etc); then, do the same thing and identify all of the seventh chords and their qualities. That'll get you off to a good start!

u/tobiasmordecai · 1 pointr/jazzguitar

I've been in a similar boat for years, just now breaking free from it. Stuff that's helped me the most:

  1. Memorize all the notes on the guitar. I just went fret by fret for a few weeks (maybe there's a better way to memorize) but that helped me identify notes and chords infinitely better.
  2. I got this book and it has been a great help understanding basic music theory https://www.amazon.com/Leonard-Pocket-Music-Theory-Comprehensive/dp/063404771X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1499725981&sr=8-2&keywords=hal+leonard+music+theory
  3. mattwarnockguitar.com -- This site has a ton of great stuff and it's where i'm primarily learning from now. There's great sections on drop-2 chords, drop-3 chords, major scale, arpeggios, etc
u/funky_old_dude · 2 pointsr/jazzguitar

What isnoreyoudrive and landonllama have said is correct. For now you've got to take those charts home and woodshed the crap out of them. Reading music on guitar can be super frustrating at first but it's better that you learn to do it now rather than later.

I recommend you get a copy of a book called Melodic Rhythms for Guitar by Wm. Leavitt. and start practicing from it daily. It's going to sound obvious but the only way you improve is to practice daily for a period of at least a few months, but realistically for the next couple of years to get it solidified. Even as little as 15 minutes daily will go a long way towards that goal of being able to read fluently. Also, when learning the rhythm groups and studies in the Leavitt book (or any other music you're learning) it's super important to count the rhythms. Do this as slowly as you have to - it doesn't even need to be in time at this point - just plug away while audibly saying the rhythms, such as "one and two, three and four" for two 8th notes, a quarter note, two more 8th notes, a quarter note, etc. If this is confusing talk to your band director or a good reader in your jazz band to help you with it.

u/border_rat_2 · 2 pointsr/jazzguitar

The Joe Pass Guitar Style is one that I learned extensively from and used in conjunction with Levine's book in teaching an advanced jazz harmony course at a university. All standard notation and text, no tab or chord diagrams.

I have a number of the Berklee books, but the only one I consider essential is Melodic Rhythms for Guitar, which is excellent for developing reading skills.

Another great book for reading and studying improvisational approaches is Sam Most's Metamorphosis Transformation of the Jazz Solo. Unfortunately this book was reissued as Jazz Improvisation: The Best Way to Develop Solos over Classic Changes, in which they took out the very cogent explanations of how he derived all the solo principles, included a CD of backing tracks, and jacked up the price. Now the original book is a "collector's item," but I still recommend the newer one even with its flaws. It will keep you busy for a while.

u/Alejandro4891 · 3 pointsr/jazzguitar

i'll be honest, i've played guitar for nearly 10 years now and have read music for 7-8 of those years. for the most part, being able to read music is a great skill to have, but it won't automatically turn you into a completely new player.

if you feel that you're stuck in a rut and want to try something new, listen to new music, and transcribe from different guitarists or even other instrumentalists. whenever i feel stuck, i usually give the guitar a rest and pursue my other interests. when i get back to it, i feel refreshed and even the old things feel new.

if you still want to stick to reading, i recommend you check out this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Music-Reading-Guitar-Complete-Method/dp/0793581885/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452241138&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+read+music+guitar

i've used it multiple times and it has helped me out. on top of that, get yourself a real book and start trying to play tunes that are at your level. in the beginning, you should try and only play tunes that have whole, half, quarter, and eighth notes. you will be able to learn to read proficiently, but it all depends on how much effort you put into it. if you practice reading for 15-30 mins a day, in a year you'll be quite good at it.

right now, i recommend that you do two things:

  1. if you haven't, start learning the notes on the fretboard up to the 12th fret. after the 12th, the notes repeat themselves.

  2. start learning where the notes lie on a musical staff, specifically, on a treble clef staff. you should be able to quickly identify where all the notes are, up to two ledger lines, both above and below the musical staff.
u/gtani · 1 pointr/jazzguitar

Yeah, that's rough. I've had that with guitar, bass guitar and especially viola. Do you have a teacher? Somebody that watches with a trained eye and knows how you practice and can tell you to hold back, that's the most important is not to be on some multi year timeline to some exalted goal, but focus on what you can do in the next 20 minutes.

This book can help, the reviews are pretty credible: https://www.amazon.com/Playing-Less-Hurt-Prevention-Musicians/dp/1423488466. One thing i think she talks about is looking at other lifestyle factors, how you hold steering wheel or bike handlebars, power and especially manual tools, computer keyboard/mouse, sleeping on your arm etc, and don't overdo the NSAIDs (doctors frequently encourage using both tylenol and advil by saying they're eliminated by different organs, I think you can play into more damage doing this).

Can you play piano painlessly? I would keep that as a backup if you can, you can try really light action MIDI controller keys w/velocity sensitive instead of piano action weighted keys to ease teh strain. And .008 strings on a solidbody, low action, tune down half step, the tone will leave a lot to be desired but you'll be playing.

u/Pink_Squier_Mini · 8 pointsr/jazzguitar

You need to start counting rhythms. You don't need a guitar to do this necessarily. There are a number of books with written out rhythms to practice, such as Louis Bellson's Modern Reading Text in 4/4 For All Instruments, Ted Reed's Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer, and Gary Hess's Encyclopedia of Reading Rhythms. There are numerous ways to practice the rhythms in these books - counting the rhythm while clapping a steady pulse, counting a steady pulse while clapping the rhythm, tapping a steady pulse with your left hand while clapping the rhythm with your right while also counting, and so on. When I say "count" I mean count out loud. Your goal is to learn to keep your place in measures while accurately executing and eventually feeling rhythms.

You can also do these steps with a guitar in your hand. Just pick a chord - maybe one you're trying to work into your repertoire - and play the written rhythm with that chord while you're counting.

This will probably seem awkward and "unmusical" when you first start, but trust me when I tell you this is going to radically improve your rhythmic vocabulary and time feel over the long haul. This is the kind of thing band and orchestra kids learn as a matter of course and most guitarists don't get because we don't learn to read in ensembles.

u/Bikewer · 2 pointsr/jazzguitar

I have two books by Mike Elliot.... Contemporary Chord Solos.

He shows how to re-harmonize standard tunes, and talks about moving bass lines, choosing chord forms that provide good harmonic movement... All those.
Very straightforward and easy to follow.
http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Chord-Solos-Simplified-Substitute/dp/0793524148

But... Looks like they are out of print and pricey.... Maybe the library?

u/yersofunny · 3 pointsr/jazzguitar

Jody Fisher’s Complete Method for Jazz Guitar

I own around 20 guitar books. This one is the best for getting a comprehensive overview of what you should know to start and grow with jazz guitar IMHO. then other books are good for supplementing specific concepts that you find along the way.

u/intheotherwords · 1 pointr/jazzguitar

Can't go wrong with the Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine

We actually used it in my jazz theory class.

Really I'd just suggest studying basic chord progressions like Bebop blues, minor blues, rhythm changes, etc. Once you can analyze those and understand why they work I feel like it wont be a stretch for you to understand most other things.

Jazz has a lot of typical chord progressions that reoccur in many different tunes and learning those 3 in all 12 keys would give you a lot of material to work with.

Basically whenever you see a dominant quality chord pay attention to how it resolves. Also pay attention to fully diminished chords and how they resolve.

A lot of the times diminished chords are also subs for dominant chords.

u/broadband_banana · 1 pointr/jazzguitar

Mickey Baker's book is a great resource for developing your comping skills and helps to connect the dots with musically coherent ideas. The second half of the book is on soloing, but I highly recommend it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0825652804/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478195849&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=mickey+baker+jazz+guitar+book+1

u/Ellistan · 5 pointsr/jazzguitar

At my school everybody takes classical theory for at least 2 years.

We used this book

Here's the work book

You'll probably need the answers too since you're teaching yourself

Really what I got out of it was being able to just instantly know chord spelling. I don't really have to think about a lot of things any more. It's just second nature. You don't really use classical counterpoint rules unless you plan on composing classical music. But it's a good vehicle for learning theory since it's rather specific and you have to consider a lot of things at once.

We use this book in our jazz theory class

But mainly I learned most from the lectures since our professor is really good. We also have to write a jazz tune every week and learn and improvise on it. As well as the ear training.

I wouldn't really even say that theory is "extremely challenging." You just have to spend a lot of time on it. There was a lot of assignments from the work book every week during classical theory. Probably spent like 6+ hours a week just on the homework for those classes. And that's not even including ear training. With any of this stuff you just have to be consistent, I don't think it's really that hard to understand and I started playing music much later than a lot of my peers.

But if you're trying to understand jazz before understanding really basic concepts like knowing your key signatures, how to spell basic triads, the chords in a given key, simple time vs compound time, etc, you're going to have a lot of trouble. Everything builds on to itself so you really have to understand the basics first which might be a little boring but you have to do it.

u/Colddeadbutt · 1 pointr/jazzguitar

The Mickey Baker books are terrible without rooting around on the internet for supplemental material in the way of explanation. Shelve it and getting something that’s actually useful. Like this: Jazz Guitar, Complete Edition (Book & CD) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0739066374/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_jpuWAbXE3WE7X