Jazz Guitar Harmony Part I

Are you confused and overwhelmed by books giving you “1001 and guitar chords”?  Do you know some “jazz chords” but are sometimes unsure of where and how to use them?  Do you have down the basic “jazz guitar” chord vocabulary but are looking for a way to bring your comping, chord/melody playing, and sense of harmony to the next level?  Are you relatively new to playing jazz guitar and looking for a clear, logical, and thorough system for learning about chords and jazz harmony?  Are you an intermediate or advanced player wanting to incorporate a more modern sound and/or a more pianistic approach into your chord playing?  If your answer to any of the above questions is yes, I believe that this series of classes can help you achieve your goals.

This multi-part series covers the application of jazz harmony to the guitar for comping, solo guitar arranging and improvising, and bringing harmonic ideas to soloing within a group context.  The classes focus on a detailed and systematic step-by-step approach for building a strong foundation for chordal and contrapuntal playing and will cover everything from the essential basics to more advanced and modern concepts.  Numerous musical examples are demonstrated as well as written in traditional notation, tablature, and/or chord grid form, but the material has been designed to be open-ended enough that you will be encouraged to find your own path and work toward developing your unique musical voice.

Jazz Guitar Harmony Part 1 covers:

• basic music theory overview, including intervals and major scale construction
• learning/reinforcing note names up and down the guitar neck
• dual nature of the guitar fingerboard
• all diatonic harmonic (both notes at the same time) intervals up and down neck
• playing intervals on adjacent versus non-adjacent string sets
• compound intervals and interval inversions
• exploration of contrapuntal movement between two voices (melodic lines), including embellishing a melody with a second voice
• exercises and musical examples to build conceptual knowledge as well as improve technique
• laying a firm foundation for understanding and playing more complex harmonies, including triads and four-note chords covered in later classes
• running time: 114 minutes
• includes 5 pages of written examples and exercises