Online Jazz Guitar Lessons

[Marianne Preston]

There are many websites offering online jazz guitar lessons, but
before choosing it is important that you are ready to play jazz
guitar. Many budding jazz guitarists specialize too early and find
themselves lacking in technique when they come to the more complex
aspects of playing jazz.
If you have not had proper formal training in guitar before, it is
important that you register for a course that first takes you through
the basics, even if you believe yourself to be a good guitarist. You
must be well versed in the basic chords, keys, scales and perhaps even
be able to play harmonics - both natural an artificial. What you need
to know will be determined by the scope of the jazz guitar course.
It is probably better for you if your online jazz guitar lessons were
part of a fundamentally more extensive course in playing guitar, that
takes you from the basics of your instrument right through the
progression of strumming, chords, scales, fingerstyle and so on in way
that trains you in a holistic manner to be able to play any genre you
choose, and so that jazz is simply an extension of your course.
By learning guitar that way each technique will be mastered before you
progress, and no assumptions are made. The problem with a one-off jazz
guitar course is that it will not be suitable for all skill levels.
Some will lack basic techniques needed to follow the course, while
others will already have inbuilt bad habits. Yet others might find a
particular course too elementary, so it is important that you are able
to adjust the course to suit your personal needs.
As a very minimum a jazz guitarist should understand chords, keys and
their relationship with each other. A knowledge of tempo and time
signatures is essential, as is knowing how to play harmonics that are
widely used in playing jazz. Once you are accomplished in these
techniques you will be ready to learn jazz, with its many voicings and
jazz rhythms. You will learn about the circle of fifths which
geometrically represents the relationship between the twelve pitch
classes of the chromatic scale in pitch class space: if this is
gobbledygook to you then you need a good jazz guitar course that takes
you from the basics through the intermediate stages to real jazz
guitar theory and practice.
There's no good learning how to play if you don't understand the
theory, since only then will you be able to be innovative. Even
players that learned by ear eventually had to learn some theory, and
scales and pitch are extremely important components of practically all
music, let along jazz guitar. So what is the best way to learn jazz
guitar, and where do you find the best courses?
Online is best, and you have a choice between one-off courses supplied
on DVD or a membership site where you pay monthly for ongoing lessons.
What are the benefits of each? Without a doubt, the DVD is the cheaper
option because you only have one payment to make. In the same way, a
single football ticket is cheaper than a season ticket, but which is
best value? A DVD gives you one course of lessons and that is it,
whereas a good membership provides you with a series of lessons, not
only in your chosen genre, but any style of play you want to try.
A good membership site will offer you a choice of guitar teachers, and
will update their course from time to time. They can also offer pages
of chord diagrams, scales, songs to play to and backing tracks to play
along with. You don't usually get this with a DVD. Not only that, but
if you feel like trying some of the classical techniques while
learning jazz, you are not just restricted to online jazz guitar
lessons, but can try out some of the other lessons as well.
You can try some of the classical guitar techniques, have a look at
what heavy metal are teaching and might want to introduce some blues
into your jazz. You can do all that with a good membership site, but
not with a DVD. It's a no-brainer really, and you can start at the
very beginning, get rid of your bad habits, and progress through the
stages until you are an accomplished jazz guitarist. Many people
choose to do that - to start all over again with the right techniques.
So if you are looking for online jazz guitar lessons be honest with
yourself regarding your current ability, and if you need a few
beginner or intermediate guitar lessons first, then an online
membership site will likely be your best option.