That means that it only utilizes the I, IV, and V chords of jazz musicians: in this case, a C minor, F7, and G7. You can also solo over this tune using only the blues scale - listen to how Burrell does it in the video above! If you want to learn more about how to play through the blues scale music, make sure to check out our article here explaining how to practice and improvise in the blues scale.Īs we mentioned above, “Chitlins con Carne” is a simple 12-bar blues in C minor. The head of the song stays entirely in the C blues scale, which makes it simple for beginners to pick up without needing to learn any difficult fingering or scale forms. It’s a basic 12-bar blues in C minor, with just three chords and an easy, repeating format. This classic jazz musician standard, first recorded by Kenny Burrell for his 1963 album Midnight Blue, is a great choice for beginners to learn as their first jazz standard. As you practice and get more comfortable improvising over slow songs, you can build up the tempo and begin to work on faster improvisational tunes. The increased speed can make them more difficult to play over, but the underlying principles to solo over these progressions are simple. To help you get an even better feel for beginner jazz standards, we’ve included a couple of tunes on this list that you can play even if you’ve never played jazz before! These don’t feature as many chord changes, but they’re still classic songs and will sound great at jam sessions and gigs.Īfter you’ve gotten a few songs under your belt, feel free to progress to some of the tunes listed towards the end of the beginner section - these have more changes between chords, and some of them move at faster tempos. These changes make it much easier for new and inexperienced players to improvise consistently as well as play the rhythm. They don’t feature as many chord changes as the intermediate and advanced standards on our list, and when they do change chords they tend to follow predictable progressions (like the classic ii-V-I sequence). These standards, however, are easy enough for most players with a bit of practice to get a hold of. If you’ve never played jazz songs on guitar before, these are some great tunes to start with! The term “beginner jazz standard” sounds like an oxymoron to many players, because jazz has developed a reputation as esoteric and extremely complex. The standards we’ve included here range from easy enough for jazz beginners to play, all the way up to some complex bebop standards that might require years of practice for new jazz guitarists to play! This guide will teach you some of the most popular jazz standards you should know if you want to learn how to play jazz guitar. The more standards you know, the more comfortable you’ll be when practicing on your own or playing gigs and jam sessions with others - and the techniques you can learn by playing jazz standards will serve you well in all genres of jazz, like learning how to play gypsy jazz guitar, as well as other styles of music altogether. Learning how to play the “heads” of jazz standards and solo over the chord changes is a rite of passage for jazz guitarists everywhere. Jazz standards are also the tunes called most often at jazz jam sessions - if you’re planning to play at some jam sessions soon, make sure to check out our comprehensive guide on how to play at jam sessions as well!īeyond their use in jam sessions, though, jazz standards are simply some of the most popular songs in the history of jazz. They’re often old tunes, composed from the 1930s through the 1970s, and they’re set up to allow plenty of room for players to improvise over the changes. Jazz standards are classic songs which are known well by a jazz musician. If you want to play jazz on guitar, it’s absolutely essential that you learn how to improvise over standard jazz chord progressions like ii-V-I sequences, that a jazz musician plays often.īut beyond the improvisation, one of the other things that turns many players off from jazz is the library of standards. Jazz is one of the most daunting genres for many guitarists to play, and for good reason - jazz often incorporates rapid chord changes and shifts between different keys, along with a heavy focus on improvisation.
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