Alex Skolnick Jazz Guitar 3 Breaking the Traditional Barriers

Ajouté : 2026-05-13

[00:00:06]Let's look at the triads for the minor 251 progression.

[00:00:11]For a half diminished, we're going to play a minor flat 5 triad. Here's the chord A half diminished.

[00:00:20]And here's the triad. [music] For D7, we're going to play a D major triad.

[00:00:30][music] And for G minor, we're going to play a G minor triad.

[00:00:40]Okay? Together, the triads sound like this.

[00:00:43][music] >> [music] >> Now with the D7, we have the option to play a diminish triad. Remember, we did this with the regular 251.

[00:01:01]I can play the chord and go a half step above the root.

[00:01:08]From there, I get this.

[00:01:12]And I can continue that. [music] Let's play the triads with the rhythm section. And I'm going to play both the D7 and the diminished a half step above D7.

[00:01:38]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> All All right. So, now it's your turn to play it with Matt and Nathan. Let's bring in the guys.

[00:02:14]One, two, one, two, three, four. [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Just like we took the triads and added the seventh with the 251. We can do the same thing with the minor 251. So for the first chord, a half diminished, we're now going to have the following arpeggio for D7.

[00:03:45]We get this arpeggio, D7 arpeggio.

[00:03:48][music] We can also play that from [clears throat] a half step higher, which gives us a diminished arpeggio.

[00:03:58]And from G minor [music] we get the G minor arpeggio.

[00:04:07]Okay. Together they sound like this [music] with the diminished [music] >> [music] >> Okay, now let's try those ascending and descending with the rhythm track.

[00:04:41][music] [music] All >> [music] >> right. So, now it's your turn to play it with Matt and Nathan. Let's bring in the guys.

[00:05:19]One, two, one, two, three, four.

[00:05:24][music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> You may have noticed that we're taking a very similar approach with the minor 251 that we did with the 251. We're building. We're taking triads. We're adding to them. And what we're going to do right now is take the triads for the minor 251, but descend down the mode.

[00:06:44]Then do the reverse. For the first chord, a half diminished.

[00:06:50]We're going to go up the triad and then down the mode that we looked at earlier, the Lorian.

[00:06:58][music] If we go up the D major triad, but we go down the mode uh mixelyian flat 2 flat 6.

[00:07:11]We then go to G minor 7.

[00:07:15]Go down the natural minor scale.

[00:07:20]Okay. Together, those patterns sound like this.

[00:07:28]>> [music] >> If I reverse them, I go up the mode down the triad. It sounds like this.

[00:07:48]If I descend the triad and go up the mode, it sounds like this.

[00:08:02]If I descend the mode and go up the triad, it sounds like this.

[00:08:07][music] This makes a very nice map of the chord progression. Let's check it out with the rhythm section.

[00:08:24]Try.

[00:08:28][music] [music] [music] [music] All right. So, now it's your turn to play it with Matt and Nathan. Let's bring in the guys.

[00:09:04]One, two, one, two, three, four.

[00:09:12][music] >> [music] [music] >> Okay, let's play the arpeggio for the minor 251. one progression for the A half diminished chord with our the arpeggio. We're going to add the seventh to the triad. So, we're going to get the root, third, flat fifth, and seventh.

[00:10:34][music] For the D7 chord, here's the arpeggio. [music] All right. for G minor 7.

[00:10:45]G minor 7 arpeggio.

[00:10:50]Okay. If I play these descending the mode, it sounds like this. [music] [music] Okay. Once again, we have a nice little map of the minor 251 progression.

[00:11:11]If I do the reverse [music] that also works. Let's try both of these with the rhythm track.

[00:11:42]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Okay, again, take your time with this.

[00:12:09]Um, it might be challenging to do these patterns at first, but you get used to it. And, um, the more you do it, the easier it gets. There's also a lot of other options you could do. These aren't the only options for playing over a minor 251, but these are really good ones to start with. Let's check these out right now with the band.

[00:12:29]One, two, one, two, three, four.

[00:12:33][music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> It's time to talk a little bit about chromaticism.

[00:13:41]Chromaticism in a nutshell is taking notes that are outside of the key you're playing in. Uh these this can include non- chord tones.

[00:13:52]Uh there's something called the chromatic scale, which basically means every note. Um if I play all 12 notes in order, it sounds like this.

[00:14:09]But I'm not going to use the chromatic scale to uh come up with chromatic ideas. Instead, I'm going to use the other ideas that we've looked at, the triads. So, going back to the 251 and B flat, our main triad, our tonic triad is the B flat major triad.

[00:14:30]Now, when we looked at blues earlier in the program, we stuck in this note.

[00:14:39]That note is outside of the scale and it resolves to the chord tone. That is an example of chromaticism.

[00:14:48]So, we did that a lot with the third.

[00:14:51]But what if we put a chromatic note before the fifth? We get this.

[00:15:00]That might sound like a familiar melody.

[00:15:07]There's another melody that does that and it's also from a cartoon. See if you recognize this.

[00:15:19]Okay. Okay, so these are notes that are from outside of the chord, outside of the scale, but they resolve to the chord tones. I can do the same thing with a minor triad. So, here's a C minor triad.

[00:15:35]Now, watch what happens if I insert a note from below the root and approach the root.

[00:15:44]Okay, I can do the same thing with the third Now, in this case, the chromatic note, it's a neighboring note, but it's not outside of the scale. This note happens to be a scale tone. [music] But these work together.

[00:16:05]I could also insert a chromatic note from above. If I do that to the fifth, I get this.

[00:16:14]I put these together, I get a familiar melody.

[00:16:18]>> [music] >> If I take the seventh, the C minor arpeggio, and I put in a chromatic note above the seventh to approach it, I get another familiar melody.

[00:16:41]Okay, that melody has a note approaching the seventh from above and the fifth from below.

[00:16:50]So you can take these triads and approach all the notes from either above or below.

[00:16:57][music] [music] B flat major from above.

[00:17:16]>> [music] >> So, it sounds a little strange if you're not used to it, but as you can tell, there's melodies that you probably already know that use chromaticism.

[00:17:29]We're going to be looking at chromaticism more in the rest of the program.

[00:17:39]Now that we've started exploring chromaticism, uh it's time to look at an exercise involving chromatics. There are many, many variations we could do. Uh far too many for this program. So, we're just going to keep things simple. And uh we're going to look at the 251 and taking each arpeggio and approach each of these notes from below. So for C minor 7, we're going to get the following pattern.

[00:18:14]For F7, we get this.

[00:18:20]And for B flat major 7 we get this.

[00:18:27]We can also do the same pattern descending the arpeggio.

[00:18:41]Okay. Notice how each note resolves to a chord tone. Eventually, when you digest this, you'll be able to improvise ideas doing the same thing, resolving to chord tones. Let's try it with the rhythm section.

[00:18:59][music] [music] [music] Okay. So, take this, go slowly, and have fun with it. Most important.

[00:19:20]So, now we're going to hear what this sounds like played with the band. One, two, one, two, three, four.

[00:19:31][music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> Uh, now let me show you one more example of chromaticism. Um, you not only can approach a note from right below, you can use two notes from below. So, if I do that, I'm going to get this for a C minor.

[00:20:23]Okay. So, what is that? It's a C minor triad, but I'm approaching the root from two notes below.

[00:20:31]I could also approach it from above, but that's a little trickier. So, right now, we're just going to stick to two notes below.

[00:20:40]And if we go to F7, we get the F major triad starting on E flat, B flat major.

[00:20:57]So all of these are triads with the root being approached two notes from below.

[00:21:02]You could also uh apply this to any note in the triad, but for now uh we don't want to get overwhelmed. So, we're just going to concentrate on the root two notes from below. Let's try it with the rhythm track.

[00:21:22][music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] >> Okay. Okay. When I descended, I went down the triad, but I did the same approach to the root.

[00:22:03]This is very similar to when we were looking at blues and we had the major triad with the minor third and descending, we ascended to the major third.

[00:22:18]It's the same thing here. We're taking this lick and even though we're descending the triad, the approach chromatically is ascending.

[00:22:35]So have fun with that. Go slow, digest it, and we'll look at it with the band next.

[00:22:44]One, two, one, two, three, four.

[00:22:54]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Now, I'd like to talk about the song Autumn Leaves. Autumn Leaves is a jazz standard. It's a song that every jazz musician must know. It's one of the first songs that a lot of us learn when we play jazz. It's a very good choice of a first song because it consists of two 51s as we've been looking at.

[00:23:48]Let's look at the tune and break down the um formulas in the composition.

[00:23:55]The very first chord is a C minor to an F7 to a B flat major 7.

[00:24:05]Okay, right there we have a 251. The same 251 we've been exploring throughout this program. After the B flat major 7 goes here, this is a E flat major 7.

[00:24:20]Okay.

[00:24:21]And then it goes straight into a 251 just like we've been looking at.

[00:24:32]Okay. So that forms uh what's called the A section of the tune. The first eight bars, the A section repeats. So we have the same thing. 251 to B flat major, [music] E flat major, 251 to G minor. [music] Okay, now we have what's called the bridge or the B section. And that's going to be a 25 one to G minor just like we did.

[00:25:12][music] Now there's 251 to B flat.

[00:25:25]Now we have the E flat major 7 chord.

[00:25:30]Okay. Now, for the last section, uh technically it's considered the A section because the melody is very similar, but the chords are a little different. Uh these last eight bars start with a minor 251.

[00:25:44]And instead of playing it down here as I have been, [music] I'm actually going to play it up here at the top of the neck. You'll see why in a second. So, a half diminished at the 12th fret.

[00:25:59]Now D7, G minor 7.

[00:26:05]Now what happens now is we have a 25 progression. It's G minor 7 to C7, F minor 7 to B flat 7.

[00:26:18]Okay. So what those are, those are descending 25 progressions that don't resolve. Listen to how they sound.

[00:26:27]>> [music] >> That's an important sequence to be able to play over. So, that's something you might want to do is isolate those chords and practice over those. I do that all the time when I'm learning a tune. I'll take just a couple bars and practice uh those chords before attempting to play over the whole song. After the B flat 7 goes to E flat [music] and then the last part of the song is just a minor 251 again which you can play as a minor 7 or just a G minor.

[00:27:02]Okay. So when I put all those chords together it sounds like this. One, two, three, four.

[00:27:16][music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Now, you have a lot of options for voicing those chords. I'm sticking with the most basic voicings. You also have a lot of options rhythmically for um comping or accompanying.

[00:28:26]We're going to keep it very simple now.

[00:28:28]We're just sticking to that one basic groove because we don't want to get overwhelmed. But as you get more comfortable with this, um you can sneak in different voicings. You can sneak in different rhythmic variations. And I encourage you to seek out recordings of this by jazz musicians. There's a lot of jazz albums that have this. and just listen to how the rhythm is played. Uh it's the type of thing it can't really be taught in one lesson and it's best just to start simple and ease your way into it. Uh, as we continue with the song, we're going to look at a whole solo and the approach to that. And we're also going to look at it with the band.

[00:29:10][music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hey, hey, hey.

[00:31:19]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Yeah. [music] >> [music] >> I'd like to talk about the solo that I just played on Autumn Leaves. This is a solo designed for study using all the concepts that we've looked at so far in this program.

[00:32:31]Let's take a closer look at it right now. The very first measure is C minor 7.

[00:32:39]And I'm starting the solo with one of the most basic patterns that we've looked at, the triad. So in this case, it's the C minor triad.

[00:32:51]Okay. I'm going from there to F7 and I'm playing an F triad.

[00:33:01]It's actually an F7 arpeggio.

[00:33:06]Okay. Okay, now that's resolving to the major third of B flat. [music] It's also starting on the upbeat. I mentioned earlier in the program that you want to mix up your patterns and your lines rhythmically. Uh you don't want too much repetition. So in this case, I'm starting on the down beatum.

[00:33:29]The next phrase, right? Starts on the upbeat. So it creates this um rhythmic tension. So just those phrases right there sound like this.

[00:33:43][music] Okay.

[00:33:48]Now here it resolves to the third of E flat major 7. That brings us to our first minor 251 progression.

[00:34:00]So the minor 251 progression starts with a half diminished.

[00:34:07]And once again I'm choosing to do a um arpeggio.

[00:34:12][music] Okay. But this time to make it interesting I'm starting on the third beat. 1 2 Okay. And that's going to go to this.

[00:34:29]Now, that's just the D7 arpeggio from the third.

[00:34:36]And what's happening there?

[00:34:40]It's the D7 arpeggio, but it's connecting chromatically to the root.

[00:34:50]Okay. And this resolves to the chord tones of G minor.

[00:34:58]Okay. And notice that that final note, the the root G minor hits a little bit before the chord.

[00:35:07][music] All right? So, you can do that. You can anticipate a note before the chord hits.

[00:35:17]That's another technique that you'll see used in jazz.

[00:35:21]Let's look at the second A section. So this time I don't want to start exactly like I started before with an ascending triad, right?

[00:35:33]How about a descending triad?

[00:35:36][music] Okay. And I'm also starting on the upbeat this time. So [music] So I'm descending the triad. I don't go all the way down. I go halfway down to the minor third.

[00:35:53]>> [music] >> resolve to the third of F7.

[00:36:01]Okay, from there [music] I throw in a diminish.

[00:36:10]Remember we talked about the fact that you can play diminished over the dominant seventh chord. So we have F7, [music] right? And we can play a diminished from here.

[00:36:25]So then I'm I'm holding this note, the C, and this makes a nice tone over uh the the B flat chord. [music] That's the ninth. We also talked about the ninth. So that whole pattern [music] that sounds nice. It creates a little bit of uh color over the ninth chord.

[00:36:53]The E flat major comes.

[00:36:56][music] I descend the scale.

[00:37:01]Hold an A because now we have the A half diminished.

[00:37:07]Okay.

[00:37:10]And that this is kind of interesting.

[00:37:12]I'm starting on the three and which I haven't done yet.

[00:37:17]So from this measure we get this note 1 2 [music] 3 and it spices things up a bit.

[00:37:31]So what happened there? Um, I just did the A half diminished triad and then the D triad into the seventh and it resolves to G minor.

[00:37:47]Okay, looking at the B section, we're playing a half diminished chord, A half diminished.

[00:37:55]And once again, I'm taking a triad. In this case, it's up an octave and it ends up on this note.

[00:38:07]Well, technically that's a wrong note.

[00:38:10]It shouldn't be there, but it works. Why does it work? Because immediately after I hit that note, the chord is D7.

[00:38:20]And that's a chord tone of D7. So, this is another technique that comes up a lot in jazz. You can hit a note and as soon as the chord changes, it sounds like an inside note, even though for a second it's an outside note.

[00:38:36][music] Okay. Right there, I'm following the D7 chord.

[00:38:56]Now, I I snuck in this note.

[00:39:02]Now, technically, that shouldn't work over D7, but it does. That's actually a colorful tone, which is called the flat 13. Uh, I don't want to get into the theory behind that yet because that's a whole other can of worms, but just thought I'd throw that in.

[00:39:25]The next line, I'm quoting the melody of the song.

[00:39:32]Uh, this is another thing to keep in mind. Um, when you're playing one of these tunes, you always want to be conscious of the melody. So, every now and then, it's a good idea to bring things down to earth and play the melody of the song. Okay, so this brings us back to the 251 at the end of the bridge.

[00:39:50]>> [music] >> And what I'm doing here is um starting the C minor 7 arpeggio from the third.

[00:40:05]Okay, we talked about that in an earlier lesson as well.

[00:40:15]So then I'm just descending the scale, inserting a chromatic note, right? Which into the fifth of B flat.

[00:40:33]So when E flat comes, [music] I'm just sneaking in these chord tones.

[00:40:39]This is the seventh and the fifth.

[00:40:41]seventh and the third.

[00:40:44][music] Okay, this brings us to our final section of the tune. Uh, a half diminished.

[00:40:53]So now I'm returning to the lower octave arpeggio except I'm not going to the seventh. I'm just doing the triad.

[00:41:07]And I'm resolving to this D, the root of D7.

[00:41:13]Or this creates the effect of surrounding the note chromatically.

[00:41:17][music] Okay. So what's happening there?

[00:41:31]That's the diminish pattern. So over D7 once again from a half step above we have the diminish resolves [music] to G minor.

[00:41:44]Remember that we're at the end of the tune. So now the 25 moves down a whole step. [music] Okay. So I come out of this G minor pattern.

[00:41:59][music] Okay. And I'm just going down the scale.

[00:42:05][music] That works very well over that 251 F minor 7, B flat 7, E flat [music] major 7.

[00:42:23]So we have one final minor 251.

[00:42:28]From here, I'm just uh playing the triad, [music] but I'm starting on C, the third of the minor triad, the uh minor 7 flat 5 triad, [music] and that resolves to G minor.

[00:42:55]So once again, it may sound like a lot of information, but if you digest it piece by piece, look at one lick at a time, one chord progression at a time, it's all going to start to sound like music, and it's all going to make sense.

[00:43:09]Uh, let's take a listen to the whole solo again, so you can see what these ideas sound like when they're strung together, and they sound more like music. Check it out.

[00:43:33]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> All right. So, now it's your turn to play it with Matt and Nathan. Let's bring in the guys.

[00:44:36][music] >> [music] [music] >> Okay.

[00:44:54][music] Heat.

[00:45:10]>> [music] [music] [music] >> We've looked at Autumn Leaves, which is a classic jazz standard. Uh, it's important to learn classic jazz standards. There's also such a thing as modern jazz standards. Uh, one of the things that I like to do with my group is take songs that I grew up on from the hard rock and metal genre and turn them into jazz compositions. Um, indeed this isn't possible with every single song from the metal genre, but occasionally you can find these great examples of songs with really strong melodies that work well for jazz standards. Um, one of the songs that we chose for this is um, Still Loving You by the Scorpions.

[00:46:24]You're gonna hear me play this with the band. But first, I want to talk a little bit about the tune and how this arrangement came to be. U,, I mentioned melody. Melody is the most important thing. I felt like this song had a melody on the level of the classic jazz standards. Um, here's the melody.

[00:46:47]>> [music] [music] >> Okay. It's very singable. Uh the original version of that was a power ballad. Uh the guitar part was something like uh this.

[00:47:18]which is very pretty. But how do you turn that into jazz? Well, uh the first thing we did was change the feel of it.

[00:47:26]So turned it into a 68 rhythm. That's um something we're going to look at a little more in a bit, but u I found that it fit over this groove.

[00:47:41]>> [music] >> The other thing is I didn't want to stay on one chord. So, uh, the 251 being a standard progression in jazz worked really well over that. So, I was able to take the melody and sneak in a minor 251. [music] Okay, right there. That's an A7 chord, which is close to what the original song does. It does an A major chord.

[00:48:28]And I made that a D7 chord. So turning all the chords into seven chords is one example of taking um oh it's one way a very important way to make a rock or pop song a jazz tune. If we look at the chorus of the song, the original had these power chords [music] and this melody that worked over that [music] da da [singing] da da da da da da da da da.

[00:49:09]Well, I wanted to make that a little more colorful. So making each one of these seven chords, we got this.

[00:49:18][music] And once again, the 251.

[00:49:31][music] And we can play different voicings.

[00:49:34]That's a called a 6-9 chord. [music] Now, here's another 251 voicing.

[00:49:42]>> [music] >> It's a little minor 251 sound, C minor [music] 7, D7.

[00:49:56][music] Okay, that's G minor to G minor over F.

[00:50:07]E flat major 7.

[00:50:13]>> [music] >> A7.

[00:50:20]Okay. And I snuck in this. This is E flat 7 to D7. [music] So this uh E flat to D.

[00:50:31]That's a common turnaround in minor jazz tunes.

[00:50:35]So the whole process here was taking standard jazz progressions uh making them work for this great melody that happened to be done by the Scorpions. Uh we've done this with several tunes um tunes by Azie Dio um Black Sabbath Judas Priest and we have a bunch of originals as well but one of the ones that started it off was Still Loving You. Uh, take a listen as I play this with Matt and Nathan and uh, check out our arrangement of it.

[00:51:13][music] [music] Heat. Hey. Hey. Hey.

[00:53:08]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Hey, As we wind down this program, I want to briefly touch upon the subject of different rhythmic styles. Most of what we've been looking at in this program is uh the basic medium tempmpo swing groove. U I'd like to talk for a second about bosanova. Uh, Bosan Nova comes from Brazilian music. There's a lot of great tunes out there that are bosanova tunes. Um, one of the biggest bosanova composers, uh, one of the most influential ones is Antonio Carlos Yobim. He has a tune called The Girl from Epana, which was a pop hit. A lot of people associate him with that, but a lot of his tunes are part of the jazz repertoire. Uh the saxoponist Stan gets became very famous for playing bosanovas. Um when once bosanovas hit the scene, it was required for every jazz musician to be able to play at least a basic bosova. I want to look at the 251 progression, but in the style of a Boston Nova.

[00:55:39][music] >> [music] [music] >> When you've play over this rhythm, uh the pulse is going to be very different than the pulse we've looked at. Uh we've been looking at pulses based on triple time. So when we did our swing groove about underneath that is a triplet.

[00:56:18]It's this underlying pulse. Um, with the Boston Nova, you don't have a triplet.

[00:56:23]You have the beat divided into two parts.

[00:56:31][music] And for that reason, jazz musicians refer to it as u straight eighth.

[00:56:43]Uptempo swing is exactly how it sounds.

[00:56:47]It's a fast version of the groove that we've been doing, which was mid-tempo swing. It's important to learn how to play over fast tempos. And it doesn't mean that you play the same material, but fast. Um, you can play slow lines over a fast tempo and it'll sound good, but it is required that you have um facility in all different tempos. I want to look really quickly at a 251 played as uptempo.

[00:57:17]One, two, one, two, three, four.

[00:57:23][music] Okay. Now, there are some tunes that might go faster than that. Let's try the same rhythm a little faster.

[00:57:41]One, two, one, two, three, four. [music] [music] A ballad in jazz is very similar to a ballad in pop music. U, it's a slower tune, often with a uh a more of a sad feeling. Uh, but in jazz, even though the tempo is slowed down, um, you can still get away with playing fast lines over a ballad. Uh there's a whole art to playing ballads. Uh once again, this is one of those topics that uh we only have time to touch upon. You know, there could be a whole program on it, but u it's very important to listen to ballads and include ballads in your repertoire as you develop your jazz repertoire.

[00:58:37]So just playing a 251 as a ballad, uh it might sound a little like this.

[00:58:48]>> [music] [music] [music] >> A waltz is a tune that's in three four time. Um, in jazz, there's a lot of songs that have a waltz feel to them. And most songs could be converted to a waltz. If I take the chords from Autumn Leaves and I play them as a waltz, it might sound something like this. One, two, three, >> [music] [music] >> 68 is similar to a waltz except each chord gets twice the duration.

[01:00:13]We looked a little bit at 68 when we discussed the scorpions tune, no one like you, and the arrangement that I do with Matt and Nathan, the Alex trio. So if I play a 251 in 68 time, it sounds like this.

[01:00:32][music] >> [music] >> Okay, we've covered a lot of ground in this program and one of the things to keep in mind is that jazz is an ongoing process and um you're going to get to the point where there's some really cool licks to learn. And I'd like to play you a couple licks that sort of um take things a step above what we've looked at. And these are just cool, fun little riffs for you to play. Uh the first one you would play over a major 251, C minor to F7 to B flat.

[01:01:25][music] Okay, let me try that slowly.

[01:01:40]Okay. So, that gives us a little um arpeggio, a little bit of sweep picking, some chromaticism, [music] and it takes things a little bit outside of what we've looked at so far, but um just check it out and have fun with it.

[01:02:01]Uh, now let's do a lick over the minor 251 to the [music] [music] [music] Okay, this one involves some position shifting. U, let's take a look at it slowly.

[01:02:31]>> [music] >> Okay, that's the key right there. I make this jump.

[01:02:37][music] [music] Okay. Again, that's a step beyond everything we've covered in this program, but it's a it's a teaser and it's something uh to have fun with. So, a little goal to shoot for.

[01:02:57]Um, I hope you've enjoyed these and um, there's going to be a lot more licks like this in a future program and on the website.

[01:03:11]I want to talk briefly about gear. U, when I first started learning jazz, I had a hard time because I was using the same gear that I used for rock and metal. And uh I think it's really important to get a good sound and play gear that in that supports learning this type of material. Um in my case, this is a a heritage guitar that works great for me. Uh it's called the um H575 and uh it plays very nice and I have no problem going back and forth between this and a solid body guitar. Uh, it wasn't until I I switched to a hollow body guitar for jazz that it really started to come together. So, it doesn't mean that you only have to play a guitar with F holes and a big body, but u it helps especially for your jazz playing.

[01:04:02]So, I recommend you um check one out, whether it's a Heritage or um another company. Um the strings I use are Darios and they're size 13. Uh 13 is a pretty heavy gauge. Um there's a lot of jazz players that play 12elves. Uh there's some that even play 11s. It's very rare to play lighter strings than that. Um it's what one of the characteristics of jazz guitar is that it has a thick sound and to be able to get that sound, it really helps to have thick strings. So I recommend you have thick strings. Um, I use really small picks made by Jim Dunlop. Um, the Jazz 3 is the blueprint for these picks. I have a special version of them. Um, I think picks are really uh subjective. Uh, it depends on who's playing. Some people like big picks, some people like small picks, but in general uh smaller picks tend to be popular among jazz players.

[01:05:12]Uh the amp I use is a Buddha amp. Uh I started using this uh only in the last year and uh it's got a really warm sound. Um it's back there. I don't know if you can see it, but um it's very easy to use. Uh there aren't too many tone controls. Um one of the biggest challenges with getting a good jazz guitar sound is avoiding feedback. Um, yeah, because the jazz guitar is basically a um an acoustic instrument that you plug in, the chances for feedback are very high and you need an amp that works with the um Archtop guitar and where you have control of feedback. So, the Buddha is great for that. And finally, um I just want to talk about my pedals. Uh I don't use all these pedals all the time, but um I find that a volume pedal is really important.

[01:06:11]Uh especially when I'm playing with the band. Um dynamics are one of the most important characteristics of jazz. And with a volume pedal, it's very easy for me to play quiet and um not play loud all all the time. Um because you know it's a very different vehicle than uh playing jazz than than playing rock. Uh I use a ADA flange pedal um once in a while, not all the time, but kind of gives me a sound like this.

[01:06:42][music] [music] Yeah, it's fun to throw in there. I also use um a little bit of a delay. This is a Boss Giga Delay pedal.

[01:07:05][music] And then finally, once in a while, I'll use an Ibanz tube screamer for distortion, [music] but that's not really jazz. Uh, that's when we want to spice things up at the end of the show. So, um that's the gear I use, but u I encourage you to really uh take a look at your setup and try to uh play through a rig that uh is good for jazz playing and I think uh you'll go a lot farther faster.

[01:07:44]>> Okay, jazz is a lifelong journey. Um you may just want to get your feet wet with this program and that's fine. Uh I hope this inspires you to take a further look at jazz and that involves really becoming a student and a fan of the music. Build your record collection. Uh go to concerts, play with other musicians that are learning jazz.

[01:08:10]And most importantly, build a vocabulary, a vocabulary of songs and a vocabulary of licks. Um, a few of the songs that you should check out are Jazz Standards, um, including, um, Stella by Starlight, All the Things You Are, uh, My Funny Valentine, u Solar by Miles Davis, On Green Dolphin Street. Uh, there's a lot more. These are just a few of the first ones that I learned when I was starting out. And of course, there's essential jazz musicians that you need to listen to. Uh for guitar, uh Charlie Christian is a good one to start with. Uh he's one of the early jazz guitarists and uh with jazz it's very easy to get over your head. So I would start learning the licks of Charlie Christian before somebody like say uh John Scoffield or Pat Matheni. Uh you should also check out West Montgomery. He's crucial uh very important artists to know about. Pat Martino is one of my favorites. uh Jim Hall. Uh the list goes on and on. Um and then non- guitarists. Uh as I mentioned earlier in the program, uh it's a horn players world and also piano players.

[01:09:27]These are all other instruments that you should check out. And in jazz, um you don't discriminate by your own instrument. Uh you you get beyond your instrument. You learn licks that horn players play, that piano players play, and so on and so forth. Some of the horn players you should check out are Miles Davis. Um he's the guy that got me into jazz in the first place. Uh Felonius Monk, the piano player. Uh Bill Evans, uh the piano player. John Col Train, the saxoponist. Uh Charlie Parker, of course, ve very important. Uh Charles Mingus, one of the greatest composers in the world of jazz. Um and many, many more. But this is just enough to get you started. Uh it, like I said, it's a lifelong journey and uh I think it's going to be very rewarding and you're gonna have a lot of fun with it.

[01:10:22]Okay, I'd like to talk real quick about the uh self-discipline involved with learning jazz.

[01:10:28]I've mentioned a few times that there's a lot of information in jazz. you can't absorb it all at once, which is pretty much true of any kind of music, but jazz especially can be intimidating to a lot of players. Um, so I recommend you take it in bits and pieces. And most importantly, you have to remember to have fun. Um, another interesting uh quality with jazz music is that it's very interactive. Uh, it's really important to feel it. And to feel it, you need to go to concerts. uh you need to play with other musicians. U it's interactive music. I think that I can't stress that enough. Um sometimes when [clears throat] you're learning licks, uh it's easy to get in the habit of spending hours a day locked away in your room. Uh just playing the same lick over and over. Um that that happens with all of us if you're learning a a rock uh shredding lick or uh if you're learning jazz. But with jazz, it's really important to remember to get out of the room, uh, go to the concerts and listen to other musicians and get with other musicians. That way, you're going to have a more rewarding experience. And I think it's u something you're going to be able to bring to whatever kind of music you play. Uh, it's helped me a lot as far as how I listen. I have a much better appreciation for other instruments now because I play jazz and I'm able to work better with other instruments. So, just remember remember jazz is interactive. All right, we are at the end of the program. I hope you've had a good time with this stuff. I know I've had a good time sharing this with you. U I mentioned earlier that this is to be the type of jazz program that I wish I had when I was starting out. Uh I stopped playing jazz a few times because I got frustrated, but I always came back to it. Something always pulled me back in. So, um, I don't want you to get frustrated. U, in order for that to happen, you got to take things piece by piece, uh, very slowly. And don't stop here. Uh, there's a lot more information out there to check out. Uh, for example, check out the website, check out, um, some of the other Rockhouse programs.

[01:12:47]Um, we're going to continue to update this, and I think it's going to be a journey that you're going to enjoy for many years. And once again, I want to thank uh the Rock House guys and everybody for making this possible. And hope to see you out there. Maybe I'll see you at a jazz club one of these days.