Remember at junior school playing football when you chucked your jumpers down to use as goalposts and said the player you’ll be for the match? I’d often be Mark Hughes – everyone loved Sparky the great local player. Well tomorrow at Cubar, I’m gonna grab my Godin n be Sylvain Luc and Jason’s grabbin his archtop to be Bireli Lagrene. Jason Henson’s ace, equally at home with bebop and straight ahead jazz styles and also Gypsy Jazz. Check out his album – “Jason Henson plays Wes & Benson”! There’s no footage of this Jazz guitar duo you’ll see tomorrow but this is what it’s gonna be like…
Spring is in the air! What better way to spend Thursday nights in the preamble to the balmy, Brighton summer evenings than with Latin Jazz vibes? Brighton lounge Bar Cubar, a stone’s throw from the beach and serving up a mahoosive range of cocktails, spirits, wines n beers will be hosting weekly Latin Jazz nights with myself on guitar and a special guest each week showcasing the local talent Brighton has to offer.
Tonight we have Steve Thompson on bass. Together, we will be exploring the beautiful, rich music of South America taking you on a musical journey from the Samba, Choro & Bossa Nova of Brazil to the folk music of Argentina and the waltzes of Venezuela. Maybe just one or two jazz standards thrown in perhaps.
Inspired by my guitar heroes Baden Powell de Aquino, Raphael Rabello & Yamandu Costa, I’ll be playing classical guitar but spiced up with deep Latin grooves and extended improvisations. Chord melody guitar intertwined with the sumptuous bass lines.
It’s 8.30pm til late, Cubar, Preston St, Brighton. Free entry! Other musicians are most welcome to come and join in the fun 🙂
This is a no nonsense jazz guitar course with the aim of giving you the necessary skills to become the musician you want to be.
I will be providing specific information in key areas by introducing concepts and rinsing those concepts for all they’re worth and providing countless ways of practicing them from many angles to make learning fun whilst progressing at your maximum potential. No more plateaus, no more frustration with practice and development – but plenty of ” eureka” moments and a focused route for improvement as a jazz guitarist.
Practicing: I always found I never knew what and how to practice when learning jazz guitar. I would get frustrated and overwhelmed by the sheer volume of material to work on. Should I practice licks from books? transcribe solos? How should I practice scales and arpeggios? How can I learn and memorize tunes? “There’s just too much, I’m never gonna learn all this!”
Improvising with arpeggios & scales: When I asked musicians about how to solo over this tune, chord progression, chord whatever – I’d always get responses like, “Well, you can play D Dorian over that D minor chord” or ” To get an altered sound over C7 alt, whack Db melodic minor over it” or “play the arpeggios of the chord”etc… And I’d always think, yes fine, but HOW should I play these scales and arpeggios? How do I make it sound like JAZZ?How do I get the twisty, turny, zig zaggy melodic lines that sound jazzy? How do I apply this to tunes and make it come out in my playing ?
Time is precious, and how do I make the most of that time to learn and improve as a musician? So over the years, I started investigating concepts. I’d listen to recordings, watch live jazz gigs, read books, get the occasional lesson off a high profile jazz musician and through practice and hard work stumble upon certain concepts. I had many eureka moments finding these concepts. But the main point is that I take a concept and think of as many exciting ways to exploit it so that I practice it in countless ways using different approaches.
Exploring concepts: So rather than saying as mentioned above ” whack Db melodic minor over C7alt”, I’d explore all the possible permutations of that scale, which are the important notes, how I can incorporate passing notes, targeting and enclosure of notes, what are the arpeggios built off the scale degrees, superimpose arpeggios over the chord, which arpeggios sound best over the chord, how to link these arpeggios together, ooh well I could play the arpeggios in all possible inversions, which inversions sound best? How can I mix the scale and the arpeggios – so I devised numerous devices to mix scales and arpeggios, what interesting rhythms /time signatures can I use? Play it scacatto, legato, loud, quiet, fast, slow, standing on my head upside down, make it sound classical, baroque, old Skool, modern, jarring, nice, ‘orrible! , beautiful, sleazy, twee, anything! I want my practice to be fun and I want to sound good when I play live. I’m still learning, and am no where near where I aspire to be, but I am meeting my goals over time and am actually now where I aspired to be sometime ago when I set my old goals. So any, here’s the plan Stan!
COURSE CONTENT:
Soloing over chord changes using single note lines: We’ll be thoroughly exploring concepts using scales, arpeggios, triads, playing the melody of a tune and embellishing it, guide tones, targeting and enclosure and more to develop fluency when soloing thru the “changes”.
We’ll start by looking at the common chord types- minor, major, dominant and getting our gnashers around soloing over vamps over these chords.
We’ll move onto chord progressions such as the 2,5,1 in both major and minor keys and how to create interesting lines through the chords using guide tones and other devices.
We’ll analyse tunes, breaking them down into chord progressions and key centres and I’ll provide countless ways of practicing over the tune to gain fluency in creating meaningful lines weaving through the progressions and key changes.
We will leave no stone unturned in our quest for mastery of the fingerboard so will be practicing in all areas of the fretboard (including the dusty end!) and all string sets so that you are not limited by your easy familiar patterns. You’ll soon be flying all over the shop.
Chords: We’ll be looking at triads and 7th chords, inversions of these chords up and down the neck, quartal chords stacked in 4ths for that oh so modern sound, chord substitutions, tritones – tri what? Chord alterations, superimposing cheeky chords over chords, Voice leading, different ways of comping and of course – APPLYING it to TOONZ, it’s got be be used in context in real life.
Chord melody: The guitar is a solo instrument. As well as playing single note lines and chugging chords in a band, you can actually play it on your own playing the melody, chords and walking bass lines. It’s true! Check out Joe Pass, Martin Taylor, Fred Greene, Lenny Breau, Francecso Buzurro, Diego Figuerido and you’ll see!
And even if you don’t aspire to be a solo guitarist, this will still help fill out your playing in a band setting. We’ll be looking at how to come up with chord melodies by analysing the melody notes of a tune in relation to the chords, exploring which chord inversions can be used and various other techniques such as inner voice movement, baroque counterpoint and classical guitar stuff so your arrangements don’t all end up sounding like clumpy chords with the melody shoved on the top. Let’s make it sophisticated.
Threads running through the course: There will be threads running thought the subject areas. For example, it is common for jazz guitar students to learn all the info n bumpf then wonder why they can’t execute it. So I’ll be providing support on guitar “Technique”, a commonly neglected area. Minimal movement and pressure, proper hand positions, left and right hand techniques, playing with and without a pick. All the stuff that’ll help you play well and cleanly, develop speed, chops and avoid the dreaded RSI and tendonitis.
Making practicing fun so you actually want to practice and look forward to it rather than regarding it as drudgery and hard graft. As I mentioned, taking concepts apart and wringing them out, rinsing them for all they’re worth and practicing in as many fun ways as possible. Getting the most out of your valuable time, reaching your goals but most importantly practicing concepts over jazz standards, Latin and bebop tunes. Yes, I’ll show you drills, exercises and the like but when we find ways of practicing these concepts over tunes, it’ll come out in our playing.
Analysing / performing jazz standards, be-bop & latin tunes: We’ll be getting our teeth into jazz standards by analysing the chord progressions, key changes, melodies and heads so that you can play fluently through them. We will also work on MEMORIZING tunes and transposing them into all 12 keys so for example if a singer says “let’s play ‘Just Friends (or just fiends, teehee!)’ in D” you’ll be able to play it instantly without faffing with your iPhone to transpose it. I’ll be showing you techniques for this both on the guitar and AWAY from your instrument. If I’m ever in a boring que in a bank or something, I’ll take a standard and go through it in my heed in all 12 keys, stuff like that.
Course venue, structure and times: Each session will run for 2.5hours with me demonstating the material, answering any questions and you practicing it with the other students. I’ll be showing you how to play effectively in jazz guitar duos and other practical situations. I will provide students with Prepworkbefore each class – these will be key areas to look at and be aware of, which we will explore in detail during lessons so we’re all singing from the same hymn sheet. I will email the link to the Prep work to students which will be found on the Blog section of my website ; http://paulrichardsguitar.com/blog-new/
The course will be run at the Brunswick Pub (where I run the Brunswick jazz jam, which I will encourage you to play at!). The Brunswick is a buzzing hub for the local community, providing various events and workshops. It’s a great environment to learn in with lovely friendly staff and the venue will be an ideal place to meet fellow jazz guitar nuts and hang out afterwards and talk jazz guitar and other stuff over the Brunswick’s great selection of beers and wines and gorgeous meals (which are often only a fiver).
Hi guitarists. Here’s a video of the basic chords to the tune we will be working on. I don’t expect everyone to have the chords or melody nailed for Sunday, as long as you familiarize yourself with it as we will be using this Jazz tune as a vehicle to learn certain concepts on the guitar. The melody was actually in bass clef in previous blog which I have changed and also included below here.
Hi Sussex Jazz Guitarists! Hope the practising is going well! Next class we will be looking at a structured way to learn a tune and create a systematic way to approach improvising. We will look to see what is special about the chord progression, key centers and how to create a meaningful improvisation dependent upon the chord changes.
We will also analyse the melody and see how this fits in with the chordal harmony. We will look at effective methods of how to embelish the melody and use it in our improvisation so it actually resembles the tune we are playing. Through this process, we will be en route to creating thoughtful, deep ideas when playing a tune.
So in fact, we are tackling the tune from two angles. 1, Systematic use of scales & arpeggios and 2, Using melody notes of the tune which will move us on the 3, Mixing up the two ideas!
What is the Jazz standard pray tell? Well it’s the well worn tune “On Green Dolphin Street”. This will be the ideal vehicle for our analysis and work. Those of you who think, eeh it’s a bit of a monster, have no fear, just focusing on the first four bars or first A section would be sufficient. We are using this to improve our overall skills and solve problems that crop up countless times in jazz standards. For example, three specific traits of the tune just from the first section would be;
1. Major to minor key change
2. Tri tone substution – I beg your puddin’?!
3. 11,v,1 modulating up a minor 3rd
I will be referring to other jazz standard tunes which share these traits, so by mastering it in one tune you will nail it in others. The work we do will also help in transposing tunes.
Please revise the work from last lesson on triad movement as we will be using these ideas as well over the tune.
If you need a focused booster lesson before Sunday 27th, I have some slots free this and next week, just let me know in advance.
Here are the next dates, and if you book the block of three classes, discount applies. Dates can always be found on the section of my site Sussex JGS Dates. For new students just let me know and I’ll send you the sign up info. We’ve been having between 15 and 17 students at the classes so early booking recommended as I have to limit numbers at some point.
Sunday April 27th
Sunday May 25th
Sunday June 22nd
Also another date for your diary! I’m playing with my trio at the Verdict Jazz Club Saturday 21st June. It’s going to be an intricate mix of Brazilian, Argentinean, Venezuelan and Jazz tunes turned upside down. It’s a very special trio and I’ll try and get all Sussex Jazz Guitar students a discount. It’ll be an album launch too! Not that we’ve even started yet but as the date draws nearer, we hope to go into a studio and lay down some tracks. Actually if anyone knows of any good studios..
Anyway, see you Sunday 27th 11am for 2.5 hours of thorough jazz guitar work! Here’s the tune below, please print out and bring to class.
