A story about learning to play jazz guitar

This blog is intended to be my summary of discoveries while learning to play jazz. I'm a reasonable experienced guitar player, but haven't been playing jazz for more than 10 years. Hope you'll find something interesting if you're also in the learning process, and please correct me if you think I'm off on a wrong track.

I'll upload things as I discover and learn. Enjoy.

søndag 19. februar 2012

Transcribing

I've been trying to transcribe the head of a few tunes. My transcription of Grant Greens The Selma March can be found here:

The Selma March

Got some good advice on transcribing from "rainier beer" at AAJ:

To attempt to transcribe changes I would:

1. Transcribe the bass line.

2. Transcribe a solo and see what changes the soloist is playing. (Useless in this case since the solos are over a modal vamp, and you are interested in the changes played during the head.)

3. Transcribing chord voicings (extremely difficult especially with the watery organ sound). Some times if you can pick out one or two notes it can give a clue.

4. Make a best guess based on the above info. Play along with the recording to see how it sounds.


I hope I'm close to it

søndag 20. juni 2010

Comping Lullabye of Birdland


I was working on voicings that I could use when comping Lullabye of Birdland last night. This is parts of the ideas I came up with. I used a charlson-like rhythm figure to go with this, and imagined a walking bass.

Most chord voicings are rootless. I'll post more on rootless chords later.

Click on the picture to get a larger version!