How to Play Blues-Style Jazz Guitar
Playing blues-style jazz guitar will require you to have some skills as it is not easy. You need to know the perfect chord progression so that you can create the perfect sound from your jazz guitar.
Most jazz guitarists will put their gain to the lowest setting, so that the sound isn’t too loud. Moreover, the distortion should remain under control, so the guitarist can give the perfect bends to the progression he/she is trying to play.
A blues-style jazz guitar is easy to purchase, but a tad bit difficult to handle when it comes to doing justice to it.
Instructions
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1
Learning to make substitutions is the first thing that you will need. Substitutions are those jazz chords which you use rather than playing the usual straight chords. These chords can either be from the same root or from different roots. The perfect example of the same root chord progression can be taken from the shift between the C chord and the A7 chord. Rather than playing these two, you can directly switch between a Cmaj7 and an A7b9. On the other hand, for different roots, instead of playing a C and an A7, you can opt for a C6/9 and an Eb7 since they have two of the three similar roots.
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2
Another important point that you need to learn is to start faking the three chords. There are a number of guitarists who will spend days, weeks, months and sometimes years to learn several different chord progressions. However, a good jazz guitarist will find out an easier way. Learn to twist musical theory in your favour. Try to fake a melody solo with three chords. It seems difficult, but once you grasp it, things become much easier. Find the chords which have ambiguous sounds such as m7 and 6/9’s. They will really help you grasp this knowledge about jazz guitars.
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3
Lastly, the quick changing of chords is extremely important. You need to learn how to add bars to your overall progression of the song. Switching between different bar chords becomes easy once you start practicing and you know how to go about musical theory. There are several chords such a Bb7, which can be switched in an easy manner. Therefore, try to practice them so that you know how to switch between chords and different chord progressions.
