Genil Castro

Genil Castro breaks down his chord melody approach to the jazz standard Stella by Starlight , showing step by step how he builds rich harmonies around the melody. You'll see how to play melody and…

Genil Castro continues his deep dive into Beyond Melodic Minor with part II: Going Outside with the Melodic Minor #5 . In this advanced jazz guitar lesson, Genil shows how to superimpose dominant…

Genil Castro takes the melodic minor scale a step further, introducing two altered versions — melodic minor #4 (also known as harmonic major) and melodic minor #5 — and showing how their dominant…

Genil Castro continues his Insights and Tips on Harmony series with a class on two foundational ideas: voice leading — the most effective way to move from one chord to the next — and plurality , the…

Genil Castro opens his Insights and Tips on Harmony series with a study of what he calls anchor chord forms — chord shapes you hold in place while melodic movement happens around them. He…

Genil Castro shows how to practice his "life-vest" arpeggio strategy by applying it to a real tune: Henry Mancini's Days of Wine and Roses . The third lesson in his life-vest arpeggio series, this…

Genil Castro maps the standard Stella by Starlight with bebop scales, showing how to practice and integrate them by visualizing a tune's harmony and melody in one area of the guitar. This is the…

Jazz guitarist and educator Genil Castro introduces bebop scales through the lens of his Life Vest Arpeggio concept in this 38-minute masterclass — the third lesson in his improvisation series…

Genil Castro continues his Life Vest Arpeggio approach in this follow-up to his popular The Life Vest Arpeggio for Jazzers masterclass. Picking up where Part I left off, Genil takes the major…

Genil Castro shows you how to play his beautiful solo guitar arrangement of A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square — the tune from one of the first YouTube videos he posted in 2006, which introduced…

Genil Castro shares his personal approach to simplifying jazz improvisation: using one major seventh arpeggio shape as a "life vest" to navigate chord progressions, instead of memorizing a different…

Brazilian guitarist Genil Castro demonstrates comping with artificial harmonics in this half-hour class — the third lesson in his harp-harmonics series — using Miles Davis' composition Blue in Green…

Brazilian jazz guitarist Genil Castro continues his exploration of artificial harmonics , inspired by the playing of Lenny Breau. Where Part I covered the core technique, Part II gets into the finer…

Brazilian jazz guitarist Genil Castro makes his Mike's Master Classes debut with the first of two videos on artificial harmonics — the dreamy, harp-like Lenny Breau technique that influenced…