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today im home sick from school and i figured it be the best time to get some real practice in. ive realized lately that if i want to be considered a good guitarist i need to be able to play stuff other than metal. id like to get into jazz or blues guitar but dont really know where to start or what kind of songs i should learn. any ideas?

for blues, I'd recommend John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton to start.

for jazz:
i think a good place to start is to find a book (or website) that shows you chord fingerings for jazz ... given that you say you are only playing metal, i am going to guess that you dont play much more than power chords .. if this is an accurate guess, you'll need to expand your vocabulary of chords ... i'd also recommend that you find a book of jazz standards (the so-called 'real book') so that you can start playing the chords in the context of jazzy songs

learning this stuff is going to be pretty hard (and maybe even impossible) if you arent listening to it ... so i'd say that you want to look into getting some CDs or MP3s to start hearing this stuff in your head .. i recommend Miles Davis 'Kind of Blue' or John Coltrane 'Giant Steps' as some first steps ...

for soloing over this stuff, a good place to start is to investigate modes of the major scale .. learn to hear which scale modes sound best over which chords ... start by soloing very slowly (try some ballads before you try up-tempo stuff) ... whole notes and half notes are about right ... then graduate to swung eighth notes in nice long fluid lines ... really get inside the note's tonal color and hear how it sounds against the chords ...

i'd really recommend you take some lessons too, a good teacher can really cut the learning time down and get you going much easier ...

good luck
t4d

ps - be sure that your heart is into it ... you say you want to be 'considered a good guitarist' .. i would ask you quot;by whom?quot; ... i would recommend that you strive to make the answer quot;myselfquot; ... if YOU think that YOU want to explore jazz and / or blues, then do it for yourself ... you wont be successful in the long term unless you are doing it because your own spirit is guiding you in that direction ...


Originally Posted by Curlyfor blues, I'd recommend John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton to start.

That's a good one. SRV's Texas Flood is pretty fabulous too!

BB King: Live At the Regal and Albert King: Born Under A Bad Sign are two albums I learned alot from when I was a beginner.

Lew

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Wow, those guys nailed the classic blues records. I can listen to those all day. Get those 4 records and play along with them. Learn the licks the guys are playing, they'll serve you for life.

T4d gave you some solid advice on several aspect of learning jazz. Jazz can be incredibly demanding music to study if you want to play it really well. The most important thing, and this goes for any style, is to do A LOT of listening. The feel and phrasing are the most important things. As a teacher of mine once said when referring to my CD collection, quot;Everything you need to know is already in your living room.quot;

Giant Steps might be a lot for a beginner to take in, but Kind of Blue is a classic record to start with. Listen to Miles and try to play some of his phrases. I'd recommend getting a Grant Green record. His stuff is pretty accesible to someone new to the style and his lines are pretty easy to pick up. His stuff is all just straight ahead, classic Jazz guitar. He ain't the hippest cat in the world, but he swings his ass off and his approach is a good place to start.

Getting a few lessons from a good jazz educator(they can be hard to find) would really help. There is a lot of nomenclature in jazz that can be tough to deal with and it is good to have someone who really knows thier stuff explain it to you.

Mike

1 on texas flood Lew!!
Also quot;Couldn't stand the weatherquot; is a great album by SRV. Or buy a best of or the quot;Essentialsquot; cds.Originally Posted by tone4daysfor jazz:
learning this stuff is going to be pretty hard (and maybe even impossible) if you arent listening to it ... so i'd say that you want to look into getting some CDs or MP3s to start hearing this stuff in your head .. i recommend Miles Davis 'Kind of Blue' or John Coltrane 'Giant Steps' as some first steps ...

I'll have to disagree with you here. First of all Giant Steps is RIDICULOUSLY hard! He shouldn't listen to trumpet or sax when starting out. Listen to GUITAR man. Get any Kenny Burrell or Wes Montgomery album. I recommend Kenny's quot;Tin Tin Deoquot;. Also check out guitarists: Joe Pass and Pat Martino.

Most importantly pick up the Jody Fisher complete jazz guitar method (4 books with cds). The best possible resource IMHO.


Originally Posted by Frantic_Rock 1 on texas flood Lew!!
Also quot;Couldn't stand the weatherquot; is a great album by SRV. Or buy a best of or the quot;Essentialsquot; cds.
I'll have to disagree with you here. First of all Giant Steps is RIDICULOUSLY hard! He shouldn't listen to trumpet or sax when starting out. Listen to GUITAR man. Get any Kenny Burrell or Wes Montgomery album. I recommend Kenny's quot;Tin Tin Deoquot;. Also check out guitarists: Joe Pass and Pat Martino.

Most importantly pick up the Jody Fisher complete jazz guitar method (4 books with cds). The best possible resource IMHO.

I agree that in general playing with horn players can be tough for a guitarist, but Miles playing, particularly on KoB, is a gold mine of phrasing information. He plays VERY simple lines, but the placement and articulation is perfect. As a guitarist these lines can be very accessible and beginning with phrasing as a foundation will really pay off in the long run. Giant Steps is definitely NOT for beginners!

Mike

I too am a metal head gone blues and jazz. I got sucked in first by listening to jazz and blues that had an energy similar to metal. If you're like me, you'll be drawn in, and eventually you'll be doodling around with similar licks just by ear. I find it incredibly boring to sit down with a lesson book anymore. I suggest listening to: Return to Forever's quot;Romantic Warriorquot; and quot;Hymn of the Seventh Galaxyquot;; Mahavishnu Orchestra's quot;Inner Mounting Flamequot;; Al DiMeola's first couple of records; Yes's quot;Close to the Edgequot;; any SRV; and Eric Sardinas's quot;Black Pearls.quot; After that, you'll turn down the overdrive and unleash the beast within, without the crutch of palm muting on E all day. Soon, you'll say quot;Texas Floodquot; is heavier than Slayer's quot;Reign in Blood.quot; And you'll mean it.

fair enough, and points well taken ... i should have been more specific .. i was certainly not suggesting that he try to play the lines from Giant Steps ... i meant that he should listen to the music (not play it) in order to get the jazz vibe going in his head and in his heart ... and agreed, Kind of Blue does have a lot of copy-worthy phrases that are quite doable ...

my point in suggesting horn and trumpet music was also to have the music be less intimidating ... hearing some of those jazz cats fly over the fretboad at first glance can be overwhelming .... i had to laugh at the idea that Giant Steps wasnt a good suggestion, but pat martino was .. i mean have you LISTENED to Martino? ... his stuff is AMAZINGLY advanced for a beginner ... both technically and harmonically ...

have fun on your jazz journey

t4d

for blues, looking back to guys like robert johnson, taj mahal, muddy waters, t-bone walker, its a great way to pick up some tricks. these guys and others are the inovators of rock and roll today. (hendrix's playing behind his back came from t-bone walker who could play behind his back while doing the splits!)

Check out these cds for blues.

Robert Johnson- Complete Recordings
Albert King- Born Under a Bad Sign
Howlin Wolf- London Sessions
Muddy Waters- Greatest Hits
SRV- Texas Flood
Jimi Hendrix- Blues

Some of my favortie Blues cds!


Originally Posted by ArmotronCheck out these cds for blues.

Robert Johnson- Complete Recordings
Albert King- Born Under a Bad Sign
Howlin Wolf- London Sessions
Muddy Waters- Greatest Hits
SRV- Texas Flood
Jimi Hendrix- Blues

Some of my favortie Blues cds!

I've gotta check those out! I only have Texas Flood, and if the others are as good as that one....look out.

wow thanks for all the imput guys, im going to start with blues since i already own texas flood and progressively move into jazz after ive learned some theory and jazz chords, and find some artists that i like.

I'm surprised that nobody mentioned buddy guy for blues . . . and if you want to try to figure out jazz, you could start with some of Louis Armstrongs trumpet/coronet playing for some really great phrasing . . .

I pretty much agree with the things everyone else has said. If you do get the Bluesbreakers album with Clapton and like it I would also suggest the album he did with Derek and the Dominoes. There are some great blues cuts on there. My favorites are quot;Bell Bottom Bluesquot;, quot;Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Outquot;, and quot;Have You Ever Loved a Woman.quot; Also I would recommend quot;Since I've Been Loving Youquot; by Led Zeppelin. Though I don't guess many of their songs could be considered straight blues this one is and it's awesome. Also another great guitarist I don't see mentioned very much is Michael Bloomfield. He has a clean blues tone and I enjoy his music very much. Most importantly have fun with these new styles of music.


Originally Posted by GuitarStvI'm surprised that nobody mentioned buddy guy for blues . . . and if you want to try to figure out jazz, you could start with some of Louis Armstrongs trumpet/coronet playing for some really great phrasing . . .

Totally. Louis is the man.

If you're new to blues and want a good album to get you into what it's all about I recommend Joe Bonamassa's quot;Blues Deluxequot;. Killer covers of a wide variety of blues greats and Joe's guitar playing and singing is insane. It's a bit more of an quot;accessiblequot; album to musicians new to the genre. I can listen to Guitar Shorty's stuff, but I would never have liked it without listening to Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Joe Bonamassa or Johnny Lang.


Originally Posted by GuitarStvI'm surprised that nobody mentioned buddy guy for blues . . .

I think buddy guy's great, i just didnt want to overload the dude with 500 cds to go get.