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hiya jazzguitar forum. i bought an epiphone semi hollow yesterday after years of wanting to learn/compose for guitar and im really enjoying using it. im a proficient jazz pianist already, so im finding being at the start of the learning journey again a little intimidating haha. i already have the theory knowledge and ear for jazz, my main concern is how do i set about building technique on the guitar so i can execute the musical ideas i have in my head?
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09-22-2024 08:00 AM
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Why don’t you imagine your fingers feeling as fluid and comfortable as they are when you play the piano? TBH, I have always found guitar techniques to be very natural in feel. There are plenty of things that I cannot do. But feeling natural and hearing what I hear takes me a long way. In other words, I don’t fight it. It wasn’t designed for that. Maybe that’s why I can’t do guitar face.
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The best guitar book I ever read was “The Natural Classical Guitar” by F. Lee Ryan. It takes principles for the “Inner Game of Tennis” to help build technique. I find that many of these ideas can be applied to guitar in general, as well as many other pursuits. It has lots of phycological “tricks” that help with all aspects of guitar and music in general. One key point is relaxed concentration. A lot of the book talks about building technique for effortless playing.
My personal tip on starting guitar technique is to have relatively straight wrists, not stiff, just relaxed and straight. Check out William Kanengieser’s Hot Licks tapes as well. Even though it’s classical guitar again, it has some really pertinent information about guitar technique in general.
I hope you have fun in your learning guitar journey. You have the hardest part down if you understand how music is put together with your jazz piano background, I am finding the theory and how to apply it to be a big stumbling block for learning jazz.
This reminds me to dig out my copy of the book, I haven’t read it in many years. It just has so many great tips and tidbits.
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Best I can offer and is not strictly jazz centric-
don’t learn the fretboard as blocks of patterns. I wish this was clearer in every beginner book I started with. Chord grips are easy patterns to get sucked into without fully appreciating what or why that particular voicing is working. It helps quick attainment of feeling like you accomplished something and helps young kids stay engaged. Sure it has a place but….. (my opinion kicking in here)
I wish the fretboard was initially described to me as 6 parallel keyboards offset from each other. The offset is determined by the tuning selected.
You can play the same note in multiple locations. In fact you can play the same chords pitched the same in different locations
the further I go on the journey the harder I try to step away from memorising patterns and instead think in terms of the interval relationships between frets on different strings.
Yes those chord patterns will materialise from this relationship but so will so many other voicing options and melodic sequences.
Down track practicing those progression sequences as patterns can help embed the relationship until it becomes second nature. But I wish I was shown the why before the how if that makes sense?
The more I learn about this instrument the more I realise how much I don’t know.
cheers and enjoy the journey!
Emike
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30 years jazz piano experience. Arrived here in 2010 with the ambition to study guitar because I desired to play Bossa Nova on archtop’s. It’s been a very rewarding 14 year investment. Guitar technique, as many will likely express, like the piano is a lifetime ambition. We’re all working on stuff, some of us more than others, but that’s the drive that keeps you going. Piano voicings, guitar grips, it’s all working to become proficient enough to express oneself. In many ways it’s easier than piano because there’s no two hand coordination to be concerned with. But then again there’s a plethora of subjects here on picking style, string muting, here too two hands are required to develop some mastery. My choice is for finger style, and Wes style thumbing for a fatter tone, avoiding picks entirely. In short, there’s lots to consider.
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I hope you post frequently about your learning journey.
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I have a friend, accomplished classical and jazz piano player and improvizer, who started to study guitar.
He came to the point that he has to figure out his own approach. Traditional jazz guitar method are connected too much with grips and patterns and piano thinking is much more based on voice-leading.
I think if I could recommend a method I would rather advise classical studies (Carcassi, Sor etc), that will open up a fretboard more from point of view of voice-leading and actual notes/pitches... considering you already know how harmony and all work it should be a better way to get transparency on guitar.
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Thank for posting.
In January, 1966, I bought "M. Carcassi 25 ESTUDIOS PARA GUITARRA".
I've been playing the studies using a pick instead of finger style ever since. Try it.
Tony D.
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Why is nearly everyone recommending classical pieces? The OP hasn't said that. He's already a proficient jazz pianist and he's bought a jazz guitar.
I wish I'd started as a proficient jazz pianist!
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Well, I think it would be a jolly good idea to spend some time each day playing the scales and arpeggios all over the neck, naming the notes out loud as you go.
Originally Posted by lua
Chords on guitar are shapes oriented - but I think you could maybe start with shell voicings.
Maybe get the Leavitt Modern method books? They are a bit dry but they will take you through the instrument thoroughly. You can do a bit of time on that everyday and then do your own stuff for the rest of the session.
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Because classical pieces have texture that is based more on voice-leading/particular pitches rather than on grip and pattern. Originally Posted by ragman1
So he can learn the fretboard more as a keyboard layout.
For a person who already knows harmony well it will not be a problem to recognize a harmonic structure behind it/add/reduce something etc.
I am not sure that an accomplished pianist should learn for example all the conventional Cmaj7 drop2 etc. on guitar (unless he wants to do it on some particular reason of course), through exploring the fretboard he will just find his way to build up these harmonies in much more natural (and musical) way.
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I just think that classical right hand technique is pretty different from most jazz. The etudes might help learn the fretboard better, but not so much the right hand, where a lot of the sound comes from.
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I do not really know what you mean by ‘classical’ and ‘jazz’ right hand technique Originally Posted by supersoul
Classical right hand technique varies a lot today… Lorenzo Micheli is very different from ‘orthodox’ Segovian technique
And ‘jazz right hand technique’ - what is it? Does it exist ? Benson picking? Joe Pass finger style? Wes thumb picking?
wierd Pat Metheny picking?
and also playing classical studies does not mean you should imply all the technique
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lol, I never said there is a single "jazz right hand technique." You're trying to change my words. Originally Posted by Jonah
* * *
Anyway, I had a Joe Pass Jazz Etudes book when I was starting. It didn't do anything for me. Classical etudes would have done even less.
What did help was when someone showed me how to play the major scale and how to play major and minor triads in all inversions. Everything after that I figured out from those basic building blocks. The OP says that they're proficient at jazz piano, so they'll know how to build up from that. Or not.
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Can't say I buy this one. Originally Posted by Jonah
Lots of open position. Lots of keys that aren't really used terribly often in jazz. Not to mention that the OP is setting out to learn a new instrument. I'm not really sure how much value there is in encouraging him to take the long way round because it might make the new instrument seem superficially like the old. Just learn the new instrument the way the new instrument is played.
Christian mentioned scales and arpeggios and some of the Leavitt stuff, if you're an etude type of dude. That seems much more relevant. Pieces meant to be played with quite a different technical orientation to the instrument and for musicians trying to fill a very different role might not be the best use of time.
I was a classical major in college while I was also taking jazz guitar lessons and I'll say two things:
-- I love classical guitar and would highly recommend it to anyone who likes music. For sure they should play a little classical guitar if they're so inclined. It is fun and the pieces are (mostly) lovely.
-- The overlap I found in the two pursuits was almost entirely musical (an ear for articulation, say, or a better sense of how melodies should be shaped). As far as proficiency on the instrument goes, I always found myself better acquainted with the fingerboard than the other classical guitarists my year, because I worked on jazz. Definitely not the reverse. It's like telling an aspiring jazz saxophonist to learn classical clarinet for starters. Lots of overlap, but .... not the most effective way about it, perhaps?
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No, I am not trying to change your words. Originally Posted by supersoul
You opposed jazz guitar right hand technique to classical, and you mentioned it as essential to the sound.
I assume there should be qualities then in all the variety of approaches to right hand technique in jazz that are still more or less the same and essential.
if not then what is the common reference for right hand technique in jazz? What makes it 'jazz' right hand technique in every particular case?
So I just asked what did you mean?
as for Joe Pass
you started with right hand but now (when you mention Joe Pass) it seems like more about left hand and texture - no?Last edited by Jonah; 10-02-2024 at 04:07 AM.
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I do not insist on this approach of course. And I agree with on many points Originally Posted by pamosmusic
I played classical guitar since I was a kid and by the moment I got interested in jazz I was already quite accomplished on classical. And my personal opinion is that though it helped in some aspects, it was also an obstacle. I knew the fretboard, I could sight-read quite fluently but I did not know the guitar from the perspecitve that is needed for jazz (I am not sure I could play for example Abmaj7 arpeggio in closed position all over the fretboard immediately, I am not sure many classical players can to be honest, they just do not practice these things a lot)... I had really to study many things over and also changed the technique a lot and it affected also my classical playing...
But! Though I could play some piano I was not accomplished jazz pianist.
So my advice is more addressed to the person who already has a huge musical background in jazz...
And also my advice is a bit personal... of course one can and should play scales and arps. But also it is nice (at least it was always like that for me) to start with something musical: to see immediately the connections on the fretboard.
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The OP asked about learning JAZZ guitar TECHNIQUE. Originally Posted by Jonah
Jazz guitar and classical guitar SOUND different, so they're going to have different requirements as far as technique goes. As the OP learns their way with the left hand, their right hand will learn how to make those ideas sound in a jazz way. The left and right hand work together. A musical idea with the left hand also needs the right hand to articulate.
It's a bit recursive, but a commonality of jazz right hand technique is that it should let the player sound like jazz.
Peter actually expressed really well, better than me. I really like his analogy between jazz clarinet and clarinet. They use different mouthpieces, fingerings, embouchure, intonation, slurring, tonguing, breathing, phrasing, rhythms, posture, standing/sitting.... I dare say that classical clarinet is more standardized, while jazzers are all over the map. The commonality is that jazzers sound like jazz.
It seemed like most of the responses were that the OP should learn classical guitar etudes in order to learn jazz, almost as if it's a requirement. It's not a requirement at all, and I was trying to express that. Learn the fretboard, learn how to put together jazz phrases and chord moves, learn how the right hand fits in with the left hand. The left and right hand have to work together.
I'm sorry that this became personal. I didn't mean that at all. I'm not attacking your perspective. Jazz is a nebulous term and we all come at it from widely varying backgrounds.
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I do not take it as attacking at all. Just trying to be more or less rational. Originally Posted by supersoul
In my opinion classical guitar techniques has been much more standardized and for quite a long time (if speak about the right hand) it was 'Segovian' school, during past few decades (partly also under influence of lute revival) the approach has changed and there is now more variety but still it is much more standardized than in jazz. And the reason is clear, in classical there is much more focus on control over nuances, traditional jazz sound aesthetics is more kitchy.
And jazz is almost absolutely open, first you can play it on any type of guitar (from traditional jazz boxes to nylon string classical), second there is no convention on sound or requirements.
Of course, there is some general notion about archtops as 'jazz-type' guitars but today it is already irrelevant, people play just on everything and with any technique.
If you take Ralph Towner (traditional classical technique by the way, but is it jazz then?), Luc Sylvain, Julian Lage, Scofield, Wes etc. It is all different types of instruments and technique (and very different result in sound, texture etc. too), so for me it is difficult to unify it.
And techniques of course has impact on phrasing, articulation etc. But it is still a question if the result is jazz or not? And what makes it jazz?
At the end we probably will come to a very general question: what is jazz nowadays?
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This would sort of be my point. Originally Posted by Jonah
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Classical guitar right hand technique can be used to play jazz. See people like Matteo Mancuso and Francesco Buzzurro.
There is a bewildering amount of variety of right-hand techniques in guitar playing in general. But fingerstyle is versatile and is as good a place to start with as any...
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Honestly it’s the left hand I didn’t find super useful. Originally Posted by James W
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I'd say that, unlike the right hand, there is less variation with the left hand across styles and genres, though. The left hand skills for classical are transferable for jazz and vice versa. A strong and dextrous left is a strong and dextrous left hand. That's not to say they don't have particular skills for each style or genre, they very much do, but not in a way that differs greatly in the way that using a plectrum and fingerstyle differ. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
Or at least such is my experience.
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I mean. The question here was whether it’s a good entry point for jazz, though, right? Originally Posted by James W
We’re arguing about how applicable classical guitar is to jazz guitar playing, but it’s never going to be quite as applicable as playing jazz guitar.
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Sure, I just thought I'd chip in because there is no standardised jazz guitar right hand technique*... and many jazz players have come to prefer fingerstyle. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
*edit - I guess you could say that there is a standardised RH for gypsy jazz players...
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