How to Practice Jazz Guitar
Beginner’s Guide
I think you’ll agree that there’s a ton of jazz guitar material on the internet, in books, and in videos for you to check out in your playing.
With so much information available, the biggest problem you face is knowing how to build an effective and efficient jazz practice routine.
To help you get the most out of your practice time, I’ve put together a practice guide to help you organize your jazz guitar studies.
This article focuses on how to organize your routine and you have the freedom to adapt these concepts to fit your practice schedule.
Have fun organizing your practice routine and leveling up your jazz guitar skill set in this lesson.
The Need for a Jazz Guitar Practice Routine
No matter what your experience level, whether you’re a jazz newbie or seasoned vet, we can all benefit from practice room organization.
Often, we spend too much time on one item, such as soloing, and not enough time on another, such as ear training, when practicing.
Or, you sit down to practice and spend all your time figuring out what to play instead of digging into that day’s planned material.
Writing out a practice routine focuses your time, allows you to set and achieve goals, and keeps the guesswork out of your practice routine.
While some players can practice random material and make progress, in my 25 years of teaching jazz guitar I find that to be very rare.
Instead, in my experience, the players who organize their practice routine and stick to it make the biggest and fastest progress.
And…
Since time is short, a practice routine helps you see meaningful progress in as little as 15 mins a day, 3-4 days a week.
This article helps you organize your routine, set goals in your playing, see real progress, and do so on your schedule and at your pace.
The Importance of Practicing Tunes
One of the biggest complaints I hear is that players know a bunch of scales, arpeggios, and chords, but can’t play a single tune on guitar.
This is a common issue that many jazz guitarists face when first learning.
To alleviate this problem, I recommend working on tunes with just about every exercise you play in the woodshed.
When you plan out your routine using the info below, make sure to practice with standards as much as possible.
For example, pick a tune like Autumn Leaves, then when you practice scales, play scales over the chords to Autumn Leaves.
As well, when it comes time to practice comping, play chord shapes and comping phrases over the changes to the same tune.
Standards are a practical and efficient way to develop your skills as a jazz guitarist.
You apply chords, scales, arps, licks, etc. to real-world progression and forms. And…
You get new tunes under your fingers and into your ears at the same time, allowing you to jam with friends if that’s your goal.
If there’s one point you take away from this article, it’s this:
“Practicing standards is the fastest, most effective way to learn jazz guitar and develop your confidence as a jazz guitarist.”
Improvising is a Learned Skill
When I was learning jazz guitar, I was taught that if I learned every possible scale, chord, and arpeggio, I would solo like a pro in no time.
Which turned out not to be so not true, like at all.
The moment when I started to make real progress as a soloist, was when I started practicing improvising as a skill.
Improvisation is a skill that can be learned and needs to be practiced regularly, just like learning to play a scale or arpeggios on guitar.
Because of this, it’s essential to improvise with every jazz concept you learn and study in the practice room.
As soon as you have a new scale under your fingers, solo with it over backing tracks.
Same for arpeggios, chords, licks, patterns, and any musical device.
Memorize the device with a metronome, then internalize the device with improvisation.
If you “randomly noodle” over tracks when soloing, you’re not going to make a lot of progress.
But.
If you have a specific goal in your soloing, such as using a new Wes lick you learned, then you’ll get a ton out of your improv workouts.
Because of this, I encourage every guitarist to develop a sense of “constructive noodling” when practicing.
This means that you learn a new device, get it under your fingers, and immediately apply it to a soloing situation on the fretboard.
Improvisation is a huge part of jazz guitar, so it’s important to to improvise every day in your practice routine.
The 5 Elements of a Balanced Practice Routine
To get the most out of your practice routine, it’s important to cover the 5 main skill areas needed to play jazz guitar with confidence.
These 5 elements provide you with the skills needed to develop strong jazz fundamentals and jam with other musicians.
There are other elements that you will need to address over time.
But.
These 5 elements will get you to the next stage in your development and prevent you from having holes in your playing moving forward.
Melodic Devices
Learning melodic devices for jazz guitar means studying scales, arpeggios, licks, patterns, and other single-note devices.
As this section of your practice routine can contain many different items, it’s cool to double up when working on melodic material.
For example, you can learn and solo with a new lick you transcribed, then take the scale from that lick and practice it in 12 keys.
This allows you to learn vocabulary, study building blocks such as scales and arpeggios, and make the most out of your single-note practicing.
Harmonic Concepts
Studying jazz harmonic concepts is the most important time you spend in the woodshed.
Because, as much as you enjoy soloing, you spend 90% of your time comping chords when playing gigs and going to jam sessions.
Use this section to learn chords, comping etudes, transcribe chord soloing from the greats, and other harmonic-based exercises.
You can also use this time to work on your picking hand.
These skills include fingerpicking, hybrid picking, and strumming vs. plucking.
Everything you need to develop a strong and confident picking hand can be included in this section.
Rhythm
Rhythm is an essential part of any successful practice routine, yet it’s the one item we often forget when it’s time to play.
Exercises that you can work on in this section include specific rhythms, transcribing rhythms, and soloing/comping with one rhythm.
Learning to play specific and accurate rhythms is an essential part of any jazz guitarist’s soloing and comping repertoire.
So, spend time every day developing your time feel and rhythmic understanding as you progress to the next level in your development.
Ear Training
One of the most frustrating aspects of learning jazz guitar is ear training, specifically learning by ear from recordings.
This section can focus on transcriptions, singing melodies, scales, and arpeggios while playing chords on the guitar, and more.
Ear training is frustrating for many players, causing them to avoid this skill in their practicing.
And, it’s the one skill with the biggest and most immediate payoff in your playing.
Because of this, ear training needs to be included in your routine to reach your jazz guitar goals in the practice room.
Repertoire
In this section of your practice routine, you focus specifically on elements related to performing jazz standards.
As mentioned earlier, a lot of your time in the practice room should involve standards in one form or another.
One mistake you make, which we discussed previously, is that you learn scales, arps, and chords, but never jam tunes in the practice room.
Another common mistake is where you solo and comp over standards in your practicing, but never learn the melody to that tune.
Because of this, if you’re already soloing can comping over tunes each day, add in some time learning melodies and chord melodies on guitar.
Most of use began learning jazz guitar because we wanted to play jazz tunes, with other musicians or on our own.
Setting aside time each day to focus on melodies, chord melodies, form exercises, basslines, and other tune related tunes is essential.
And, it’s a quick way to learn new jazz skills and prepare to jam with other musicians when that time comes.
Now that you know the 5 elements of a well-rounded jazz practice routine, write out a schedule for your next practice session.
Start by dividing your time equally, so if you have 50 mins to practice, each section gets 10 minutes.
If you practice for less than 30 mins at a time, divide these 5 sections into two days.
For example, day one is melody + harmony 15 mins each, then day two is rhythm, ET, and tunes for 10 mins each.
This way you cover all 5 elements and still practice on a schedule that works for you.
How Much Do I Need to Practice?
This is a tough question.
It’s one that has a different answer for different people, and for the same people at different stages in their development.
Because there’s so much variation with this answer, a better question to ask is:
“How much focus can I put into my practice routine?”
for the duration of that time is essential to absorbing and maintaining that information going forward.
So, it’s best to figure out how long you can maintain focus on one topic before your mind starts to wander and you lose concentration.
For me, I can focus for 25 minutes on one exercise if I’ve broken it up into 5 sub-exercises.
For example, when I learn a melody, I spend 5 minutes playing the melody in 4 positions, then 5 minutes moving between those positions.
Then, I take a 5-minute break to refresh my brain and ears before going back to my routine that day.
Maintaining focus is a much better experience than daydreaming through a long, unfocused practice session.
To test this, play an exercise and see how long it takes for your mind wonder as you start to lose focus with that concept.
If it’s 3 minutes, then you know that you can focus for 3 minutes before you need to shift to a different exercise in your routine.
Organizing your practice routine this way is tricky, as you need to write things down and divide your time very carefully.
And it can produce big results compared to spending long, unfocused hours in the practice room.
It’s better to work a little on the 5 elements of a well-rounded practice routine than cram one today and skip over it tomorrow.
Because of this, use the 5 elements to break your practice routine into 5–10-minute chunks, filling a focused half or full hour in the woodshed.
Remember, learning occurs best when you maintain focus in the moment.
So, it’s better to spend a little time full of concentration than hours of daydreaming through exercises in the practice room.
5 Jazz Guitar Practice Tunes
To help you get a handle on which tunes you should know as a jazz guitarist, here are 5 jazz standards that every guitarist should know.
Each of these tunes prepares you to play countless other standards as they contain important harmonic and melodic elements.
By working these five tunes in your routine, you build a solid jam session repertoire, and level up your jazz skill set at the same time.
Summertime
Summertime is a solid tune to learn as it’s recognizable by many people, jazz fans or not, and it’s often called at jam sessions and on pick up gigs.
The melody, minus one note, fits into the minor pentatonic scale, and you can use that same scale to solo over the entire tune.
This makes it an effective tune for those starting their jazz journey or making the leap from rock and blues to jazz.
Summertime can be played in several keys, and the two most popular are Am and Dm.
If you’re jamming this tune with a band, make sure to ask what key they play it in, or learn both to ensure that you’re ready for both as needed.
Maiden Voyage
Maiden Voyage focuses on four Dorian keys, A, C, Bb, and Db, and is a solid intro to modal jazz tunes on guitar.
Because of this, Maiden Voyage is a strong vehicle for working on moving chords, scales, and arpeggios around the fretboard.
As well, since the chords are four bars long, you have time to plan and get used to “hearing ahead” in your soloing.
Lastly, make sure to learn the original bassline and chord shapes, along with the melody, so you’re prepared to jam this tune on any gig.
Watermelon Man
Watermelon Man features three 7th chords, F7-Bb7-C7, that allow you to focus on moving between three keys when jamming this tune.
Addressing the I7, IV,7 and V7 chords helps you navigate the changes and gives you a leg up with jazz blues progression as well.
Make sure to learn the piano chord riff as it’s an important aspect of the tune, and one you’ll play in a jam if there isn’t a pianist in the group.
Cantaloupe Island
There is another classic piano riff tune, Cantaloupe Island, that’s a must learn for any developing jazz guitarist.
This tune mixes Lydian dominant chords and minor chords to expose your ears to new sounds and fingers to new shapes on guitar.
The Db7 chord is a chance to explore the 4th mode of melodic minor, also referred to as the Lydian dominant scale.
The 7#11 sound is popular in jazz, from bebop to modern, and is an essential chord color to explore in your practice routine.
Satin Doll
The last tune introduces the most important chord progression in jazz, the ii V I.
The ii-V-I progression is found in 5 different keys in Satin Doll, making it the perfect vehicle to explore these chords in a musical context.
With Satin Doll, arpeggios, or even triads, for each chord is a solid place to start.
From there, explore ii V I outlines with voice leading, scales, and lines as you develop a deep understanding of the chords and tune as a whole.
Leaving Room for Practice Room Inspiration
As much as it’s important to schedule your routine, there’s something to be said for following your inspirations in the woodshed daily.
For this reason, I always leave room in my routine to work on something that caught my eye that day.
This is where you practice something from an article, lift a line from a solo, or to work on a tune that you heard that day.
Whatever you decide to do with this time is up to you and your inspiration.
Make sure to have free time in your routine so you can follow your motivation and keep things interesting in the practice room.
Being Committed to a Jazz Guitar Practice Routine
One of the most important aspects when developing an effective jazz guitar practice routine is consistency.
It’s better to practice something for 5 minutes a day, every day, than for an hour, one day per week.
When you work on something, even for a short period, every day, your ears, and fingers become accustomed to those sounds.
Then, consistent repetition helps drill new concepts into your playing in a solid and meaningful way.
If you play something one day, and then skip it for a few days, you forget it and waste time reviewing and relearning that material.
When working on any new concept, don’t cram or rush anything.
Slow, steady, and consistent practicing is the way to go.
Take any concept, such as arpeggios over a tune, and work it for 10 minutes a day, 6 days a week for a month.
You’ll see big results in your arpeggio and soloing skill set, as well as solidifying that tune, and you do so at your pace and on your schedule.