Guitar

If you're looking to learn how to play jazz guitar, then sooner or later you will need to learn some guitar scales. In this jazz guitar lesson, we'll go over a very useful scale in jazz guitar playing that is more commonly used amongst rock and blues guitarists: the pentatonic scale.

The word “pentatonic” comes from the Greek word pente meaning five and tonic meaning tone (remember the 70's band Pentangle consisting of guitarists Bert Jansch and John Renbourn!). The pentatonic scale consists of five notes within one octave and you'll often hear it referred to as a five-note or five-tone scale. 

In this video, jazz guitar teacher Andreas Oberg breaks down how the C Major / A Minor pentatonic scale works across the fretboard.  Using alternate picking, he shows how to play pentatonic scales in different positions and in different octaves.

In Andreas’ Online Guitar School you'll find hundreds of full length jazz guitar lessons for beginners on mastering scales including:

Jazz guitar improvisation doesn't have to be scary and award-winning jazz guitarist Martin Taylor has put together a series of online video lessons on improving your guitar improvisation skills.  Martin Taylor says:

"A lot of people that play mainstream jazz are often called melodic improvisors.  This is nothing new and goes back to Bach.  In the old days they had variations on a theme.  Something that is often forgotten is that the classical composers of Europe hundreds of years ago were improvisors.   Improvisation is about being in the moment.  I use to take a melody and then play a variation on it over the same chord structure.  Each time you can move further and further away from the theme."

The jazz improvisation section includes detailed guitar tutorials on:

Improvisation Part 1: The Importance of Using Both Hands

Improvisation Part 2: Listening

Improvisation Part 3: "You're On!"

Improvisation Part 4: Flowing Ideas

Improvisation Part 5: Open Your Heart And Mind 

Improvisation Part 6 - An Example

Improvisation Part 7: Melodic Improvisation

Paul Gilbert's a busy guy. Between promoting his new album Vibrato (which hits US stores on October 15), touring all around the world rocking crowds and doing interviews, you may be wondering when he finds time to record one-on-one video responses to his students' questions at the Online Rock Guitar School with Paul Gilbert.

As you can see in this video, Paul finds time wherever he can - even from the car!

Paul Gilbert's a busy guy. Between promoting his new album Vibrato (which hits US stores on October 15), touring all around the world rocking crowds and doing interviews, you may be wondering when he finds time to record one-on-one video responses to his students' questions at the Online Rock Guitar School with Paul Gilbert.

As you can see in this video, Paul finds time wherever he can - even from the car!

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Seventh chords are like the dressing you add to a salad. A 7th chord adds flavor. Fingerstyle guitarist Martin Taylor filmed a video lesson for his online guitar school on adding 7ths, intervals and finding transition points when using 7ths.

A "seventh chord" usually means a major triad with an added minor seventh (a dominant seventh chord). However, a variety of sevenths may be added to a variety of triads, resulting in many different types of seventh chords, as described below.  Here are a list of some lessons on sevenths that Martin gives at his online guitar school.  

Just as in improvisational lead playing, it's important to understand options that can make your rhythm playing more exciting and "in the moment". For the newest addition to the Improv Workshop, I've added a rhythm study using the great old fiddle tune, Ragtime Annie. The first installment looks at the basic chord progression, and then one level of embellishment using alternating bass and walking bass runs. Subsequent lessons will go deeper into the tool box by exploring the use of connecting chords and chord voicings. Thanks to Darol Anger for providing a fiddle lead track, which you can download and play along to. Click below to get started or find it in the Improv Workshop!

Jason Vieaux recently played a few classical guitar pieces in a session recorded for Houston Public Radio. He played some Bach on guitar, which you can watch here, as well as his own guitar arrangement of Duke Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood", which is just beautiful. But my personal favorite is hearing him play Jorge Morel's classical guitar arrangement of Fernando Bustamente's "Misionera".

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