Learning Jazz Guitar: Do You Need to Memorize the Fretboard First?
No. On guitar, the same note lives in many places, so the real skill is choosing where to play each phrase given what came before and what comes next. Answer that question tune by tune and the fretboard memorizes itself.
Jazz Guitar Mindset: Why Did Miles Davis Tell Herbie Hancock Not to Play the Butter Notes?
Miles Davis's advice to Herbie Hancock wasn't a ban on the 3rd and 7th — it was permission to leave them once they live in your ear. Here's what that means for how you learn jazz guitar.
Why Does a Jazz Guitar Teacher With No University Post Still Livestream Every Sunday Night?
There was no faculty position waiting, and for a long stretch there was barely an audience — some nights just three or five people, sometimes none at all. Here's why the stream kept happening anyway, and what 'passing it on' turned out to actually mean.
es a Jazz Guitarist Actually Do All Day?Wes Montgomery Said He Never Practiced. So What Do
Wes Montgomery said he didn't practice, he played — and for Wes it was true. For the rest of us the honest routine is simpler than you'd guess: transcribe, then learn tunes in layers, forever.
Why Does Your Own Playing Sound Stale to You? You’re Its Most Frequent Listener
Almost every jazz player dislikes their own playing, and the reason is arithmetic: you hear yourself more than anyone else does. Here is what actually moves you out of a slump.
Stop Being Popular? It Didn’t Die — It Stopped Being PopWhy Did Jazz
Jazz was America's pop music and its Cold War export. Then studio technology, Miles Davis, and the teenage record market moved pop elsewhere. Jazz didn't die — it moved to the same track as classical.
What Makes Jacob Collier a Genius? His Ear — and That's the Lesson
Jacob Collier's genius isn't the 200-track loops — it's an ear that hears between the twelve notes and a voice that can sing what it hears. The lesson for jazz guitarists: the ear leads, the hands follow.
Why Did Wes Montgomery Say No to John Coltrane?
John Coltrane really did invite Wes Montgomery to join his band, and Wes really did decline — saying, with typical humility, that he had nothing to contribute. The full story touches McCoy Tyner's account, the guitar's strange position in jazz, and why the sounds Coltrane's band chased were already living inside Wes's lines.
Is Jazz Theory Only for Jazz? I Transcribed a Pop Ballad and Found All of It
Every composer already uses voice leading — they just don't call it that. Transcribing a pop ballad revealed the same 3rd-targeting melody and passing 7ths that jazz musicians spend years learning. The theory isn't a jazz dialect; it's the grammar underneath.
Should You Learn Licks or Transcribe Solos? What You’re Really Copying Is Time Feel
Licks give you fragments. Transcribing a whole solo gives you the player's time feel — and time feel is what makes American music sound like itself. Here's why 'play what you hear' is useless advice unless someone teaches you what to listen for.
Practice Just Running Laps? A Lesson From a Bad Soccer CoachIs Your Guitar P
A soccer coach who only makes you run laps never lets you touch the ball. Scale-only guitar lessons do the same thing. Fitness work matters — but the game is tunes, and you have to get in the water to learn to swim.
Why Can’t You Stop Playing? Your Solo Needs Breath, Not ‘Space’
When masters praise 'space,' they don't mean silence for its own sake — they mean breath. If you can't stop playing, the fix isn't restraint: it's checking whether your ear or your hands are leading, and singing what you play.
an’t You Follow Your Jazz Guitar Teacher? They Forgot the Steps They ClimbedWhy C
When a jazz guitar course loses you halfway, the problem is usually missing steps, not missing talent. Experts forget the stairs they climbed — here's how one teacher rebuilt his entire method after learning that.
Why Do You Always Play the Same Rhythms? Because You Sound Like What You Listen To
If every solo comes out in straight eighth notes, the problem is your listening diet, not your hands. Learning jazz guitar works like learning a language: you absorb the rhythm of whoever you immerse in — so choose Wes Montgomery, George Benson, and Grant Green.
es Montgomery Write His Own Blues? Four Tunes That Teach the Whole SystemWhy Did W
Wes Montgomery didn't just play the blues — he wrote his own: Cariba, The Thumb, Fried Pies, West Coast Blues. Each tune distills one side of his system — the sound, the line, the voice — and the jazz-waltz West Coast Blues ties them together.
The George Benson Answer: Do You Need Jazz to Play Modern R&B Guitar
Modern R&B guitar is jazz wearing new clothes: the vocabulary of today's hottest players traces straight back to George Benson. From Tom Misch sampling Benson's Stella by Starlight intro to Peter Bernstein playing Prince, here is why learning jazz makes you a better R&B player.
The ‘Big Ears’ Secret: How Jazz Guitar Masters Really Learned to Play
The real secret to playing jazz guitar like the masters isn't a scale system — it's the ear. George Benson learned tunes in one listen; Wes Montgomery memorized big-band parts without reading. Here's how 'big ears' are built.
GuitarYour Sound Is Inherited: A Weekend Reflection on Lineage in JazZ
Your sound on jazz guitar isn't invented from nothing — it's inherited from the teachers and heroes you study, then quietly personalized. A weekend reflection on lineage, the thumb, and the strings that carry someone else's influence.
Jazz’s Real Revolution Was Rhythm, Not Notes — A Weekend Reflection
By the time Schoenberg pushed note choice to its limit with twelve-tone music, jazz had already changed everything — not by inventing new notes, but by inventing a new rhythm. Swing, not harmony, was the revolution.