Jazz Guitar Basics: How Do You Play the Minor and Major Blues Scales With One Fingering?
Play the minor blues scale as one shape that repeats in every octave, slide one finger through the chromatic notes, and keep the root on the same finger. The major blues scale adds the major 3rd and circles around it on the way down.
Jazz Guitar Basics: How Does a 12-Bar Blues Become a Jazz Blues?
A jazz blues is the basic 12-bar blues with the same three anchors — I in bar 1, IV in bar 5, V in bar 9 — plus a quick IV, a ii-V in bars 9–10, and a 1-6-2-5 turnaround played twice as fast.
Why Do Jazz Guitar Teachers Make You Play Only Down-Picking First?
Down-picking only, for months or even years, is not old-fashioned discipline for its own sake — it is how you build one consistent attack before you ever add a second direction. Here is why jazz guitar teachers withhold up-picking, and how Wes Montgomery's own technique proves the same point.
What Is a Jazz Standard? The Two Kinds of Tunes Every Jazz Guitarist Plays
A jazz standard is a tune the whole jazz community agrees to know. Standards split into two families: show tunes borrowed from movies and Broadway that carry lyrics, and jazz standards written as instrumentals by jazz musicians themselves. Knowing the difference tells you where the repertoire came from — and what to learn first.
What Key Do You Solo In on Autumn Leaves? Neither — Follow the Melody
Autumn Leaves is analyzed in C major, but you don't solo from a key center — not C major, not A minor. You solo from the melody and the guide tones, the way the composer wrote the tune.
t Notes Do You Play in a Jazz Solo? The Melody Already Drew the MapWha
The strongest notes in a jazz solo are the 3rds of each chord — and in most standards the melody already lands on them. Learn the framework line and soloing stops being a guessing game.
What Does ‘Swing’ Actually Mean in Jazz Guitar?
Swing isn't a shuffle. It's the feeling of two and three happening at the same time — a triplet pulse with the middle note pulling the beat. Here's how to hear it and practice it with a metronome.