Hi guys! My guitar practice post number 8 is here. It will be a little more lesson-like.

So far, I have just been generating some sort of unrelated practice ideas in these posts. Like notes and ideas from my practice routine as well as some ideas from my lessons taught.

But what do I actually recommend when learning a jazz tune?

Recommendations would be, of course, different depending on the level of the student, but here are some general outlines.

1: Listen to multiple versions of the tune. A lot.

2: Learn the melody and sing it. Internalise it.

3: Learn melody in multiple places on the neck. Single notes first. Later chord-melody. Depending on the level. ( This step is only after you know the melody in one position very well.) Arrange your chord melody version – if you know the rules and steps to do so.

4: How should I approach chord changes and improvisation? – to me, it’s all about chord tones/arpeggios and pathways/the chromatic lines around them while using chord tones as a frame work, so learning the changes very well is essential. Listen to the bass carefully and learn as many voicing options as possible. (Major scale modes and their use are the basics you need to know before knowing arpeggios. But using only modes won’t showcase the harmony. )

5: Learn all the arpeggios for the basic 7th chord shapes around the neck, or at least in two places on the neck for the specific tune you’re learning. Try improvising only using chord tones with a backing track or a click. You can start by only playing quarter notes (crotchets in British English). If this is hard, compose an etude only using the chord tones of the tune and play that for a while.

6: Don’t forget to also keep melody in mind while soloing/improvising.

7: Try soloing with a backing track and without ( metronome on 2 and 4 if its swing..)

8: Study one version of the tune more deeply; transcribe one or more solos.

9: Learn the tune in multiple keys.

10: For more advanced players: If you already know the tune for many years but want to test yourself and dig in a little deeper into knowing the tune and test your knowledge, ears and ability… Try playing it in all keys, changing positions on the guitar every few bars for the melody. Don’t cheat! You can use the iReal Pro app, but don’t look at it! There is an option in the app called practice. There is a button that looks like college graduation hat. You can pick the transpose option! Let’s pick the 3 half steps in a Coltranes’s way 😉 (Coltrane changes harmony moves in minor thirds.). You can change this setting once you get too comfortable with it!

All this stuff, of course, takes a lifetime to master.

One should know most of chord shapes and all the arpeggios around the neck before approaching this. But of course, the best way to learn music is to implement it in actual tunes while learning all the basics and theory stuff in the same time.

In this post, I’m only going to show examples of one aspect of learning tunes: learning them in multiple places of the neck.

So as an example of practice ideas, here are the 4 ways to play the melody of a famous jazz standard around the neck. First 8 bars of one of the most popular jazz tunes out there: Autumn Leaves.

This is probably the most “lesson-like” post I have posted so far.

Here are 4 examples in 4 places of the neck for the first 8 bars of “Autumn Leaves,” adding multiple choices for chord voicings too according to position. (Disclaimer: The majority of chord voicing choices in this post are more basic ones.)

(In these 4 versions of arrangements of the first 8 bars of Autumn Leaves, I sometimes added b9 to dominant 7 chords.)

Here is a full real book music chart for Autumn Leaves. Chords in brackets are the replacement chords. Look at the main chords to learn the tune at first.

I may take a request or 2 of what should I go into more deeply in my future posts.

Here are some Amazon links of the strings I currently use. – USA , UK .

And if you’d like to request online zoom lesson ( or in person if you’re based in London), fill out the form on this link – Online guitar lessons .

As usual, thanks a lot for checking this out!

See you around,

Nora