Jazz Guitar - Beyond the Blues

Explore the principles of improvisation by turning simple concepts into real-time melody, using a motive and variation techniques over chord progressions to create fluent, meaningful melodies.

Learn how articulations shape a single note on jazz guitar, using slides, bands, staccato, and legato to express personal musical voice, like the human voice.

Analyze how the blues form uses three four-bar phrases to shape the melody, with movement in the first phrase, a harmonically modified second phrase, and a conclusive third phrase.

Develop melodic improvisation by guiding the solo from bottom to top toward a climax, using tension and release. Build intensity with low to high register, repeated ideas, and surprises.

Transpose the pentatonic scale by sliding the same shape across the frets, using the root position to move from D major to A major, B major, and B-flat major pentatonic.

Transpose the shapes of the D major scale to new positions by placing the root on different strings and moving the scale along the fretboard, including major and pentatonic shapes.

Master the caged system to connect major chord shapes—C, A, G, E, D—across the fretboard, moving open strings together with the index finger as a capo.

Associate every shape of the major pentatonic scale with the cages to simplify playing across the fretboard, visualize the G major and D major forms, and improvise over C major.

Explore how the minor and major pentatonic scales share the same notes and relate as relatives. Visualize fretboard patterns to play major pentatonic shapes over minor contexts.

Improvise directly over the minor shapes using an A minor example, linking sixth- and fifth-string chord forms to pentatonic scales, including the minor pentatonic’s relation to the C major pentatonic.

Learn new pentatonic scale shapes to traverse the fretboard with freedom, using G and D major chords as examples to start from root notes and connect patterns with expressive articulations.

Explore patterns over the pentatonic scale to break linear motion in scales. Practice over the five shapes, using a minor pentatonic example to boost jazz guitar phrasing.

Improvise over a minor blues using all the topics discussed in this class to practice jazz guitar.

Explore the 12-bar blues form, divided into three four-bar sections, outlining primary chords and turnarounds. Learn how root-third-seventh harmony on sixth- or fifth-string roots supports improvisation.

Master the blues scale as a minor pentatonic with a blue note and feel how it adds blues feeling to your jazz guitar; practice the first and second shapes.

Explore using the blues scale over major and minor keys, applying pentatonic and blue scales, with techniques like a sharp line on the root and downward phrasing.

Move the blues scale horizontally across the fretboard, using a minor pentatonic with sharp eleven or major pentatonic with sharp nine, shown for rock and roll on E minor.

Improvise and demonstrate the techniques discussed in this final class, focusing on smooth jazz and blues jazz, and practice all content.