Ohio5665
Verified buyer
07/04/26
Great course for those who are starting to explore jazz guitar. Frank is a fantastic musician and guitarist and teacher and shows you how to get started with jazz guitar.
1-2-3 Jazz Guitar
A theory-free, intuitive approach to jazz guitar for intermediate players
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About this course
If you've been biting at the bit to learn jazz guitar but have found all of the courses you've tried too thick with theory, too many exercises, or too overwhelming with information - you are not alone. For every player that has learned to play jazz guitar using traditional methodology, there are thousands who threw their hands up in frustration and put the material back in their bookcase. That's the bad news.
The good news? At last, in 1-2-3 Jazz, Frank Vignola presents an intuitive approach for learning how to play jazz guitar without a trace of theory, no tedious exercises and no long drawn out hyperbole about modes, altered chords and similar rocket science.
In fact, this approach is also exactly how the original jazz cats learned their jazz guitar trade; with their ears, a few chords, a few rhythms, and a few techniques for jazzing up a tune's melody. Whether you're a late beginner, advanced rocker, master bluesman or singer-songwriter, Frank Vignola's 1-2-3 Jazz will get you up and running faster than you could possibly imagine. Guaranteed.
Vignola's approach is simple and highly effective. First he'll teach you just three movable chords; a major 7th, minor 7th and a dominant 9th. These three chords alone will power you through hundreds of jazz standards and progressions.
Rhythm guitar and comping is next; Frank demonstrates and walks you through just three jazz rhythms: a swing, the Charleston and a Latin rhythm. Again, thousands of jazz tunes are played with these three jazz rhythms.
You'll then learn the rhythm guitar parts for six popular jazz standards; Ja Da, Bill Bailey, April Showers, Georgia On My Mind, Avalon and St. Louis Blues. Play-alongs for each tune assure that you'll nail the timing, rhythms and jazz feel for each part.
Finally, Vignola shows you how to learn a melody and then "jazz it up" using just three embellishments. You'll learn the melodies for all six standards and then learn how to solo over the tunes' progressions by simply jazzing up their respective melodies using Frank's three techniques.
Learn these three chords, three rhythms, three ways to jazz up melodies and you'll be well on your way to playing the rhythm parts, melodies and blowing solos for hundreds of jazz standards.
Frank provides tab and standard notation for everything but urges you to use your ears to get the melodies, rhythms and embellishments in your head. Do that and you're home free.
The good news? At last, in 1-2-3 Jazz, Frank Vignola presents an intuitive approach for learning how to play jazz guitar without a trace of theory, no tedious exercises and no long drawn out hyperbole about modes, altered chords and similar rocket science.
In fact, this approach is also exactly how the original jazz cats learned their jazz guitar trade; with their ears, a few chords, a few rhythms, and a few techniques for jazzing up a tune's melody. Whether you're a late beginner, advanced rocker, master bluesman or singer-songwriter, Frank Vignola's 1-2-3 Jazz will get you up and running faster than you could possibly imagine. Guaranteed.
Vignola's approach is simple and highly effective. First he'll teach you just three movable chords; a major 7th, minor 7th and a dominant 9th. These three chords alone will power you through hundreds of jazz standards and progressions.
Rhythm guitar and comping is next; Frank demonstrates and walks you through just three jazz rhythms: a swing, the Charleston and a Latin rhythm. Again, thousands of jazz tunes are played with these three jazz rhythms.
You'll then learn the rhythm guitar parts for six popular jazz standards; Ja Da, Bill Bailey, April Showers, Georgia On My Mind, Avalon and St. Louis Blues. Play-alongs for each tune assure that you'll nail the timing, rhythms and jazz feel for each part.
Finally, Vignola shows you how to learn a melody and then "jazz it up" using just three embellishments. You'll learn the melodies for all six standards and then learn how to solo over the tunes' progressions by simply jazzing up their respective melodies using Frank's three techniques.
Learn these three chords, three rhythms, three ways to jazz up melodies and you'll be well on your way to playing the rhythm parts, melodies and blowing solos for hundreds of jazz standards.
Frank provides tab and standard notation for everything but urges you to use your ears to get the melodies, rhythms and embellishments in your head. Do that and you're home free.
What you'll learn
- Play Bill Bailey melody
- Learn basic jazz chord voicings
- Interpret a jazz standard melody
- Prepare for playing jazz standards
- Developing ear training skills
Release date: 01/11/2012 • 1h 40m runtime
Sample lessons
The Major 7th Chord
Jazz Chord Shape 1
The Swing Rhythm
Demonstration
Ja-Da Rhythm Guitar
Rhythm Guitar Play-along
Step 1: Learn the Melody
Sing the Melody!
What's included
36 lessons • 12 charts • 12 Jam Tracks
1-2-3 Jazz Guitar
Welcome to 1-2-3 Jazz Guitar. Most students have the misconception that you have to learn thousands of songs, tons of theory and practice for years to learn jazz guitar. Although it does take years to master jazz guitar, I have developed this 3 stepped approach to get you well on your way in a short time. I have taken what I have learned from the masters that I have played and studied with and my decades of teaching and simplified it in this 3 step course. In section 1 I show you how to jazz up your chords. I teach you 3 movable chords that we will use throughout the course: the Major 7th, minor 7th and a dominant 9th. In section 2 I teach you the 3 most important rhythms in jazz: Swing, Charleston and Latin Jazz. In Section 3 I teach you how to jazz up your melodies with embellishment and phrasing. So let's get started!
Jazz Up Your Chords
In this first section I teach you how to jazz up your chords with 3 chord types: Major 7th, minor 7th and a dominant 9th. Though there are many ways to play these chords, I will show you just 1 way for each. With these 3 chord types you will be able to play hundreds of jazz standards.
The Major 7th Chord
In this segment I show you how to play a G Major 7th chord. Start by placing your index finger on the 3rd fret of the 6th string, your 2nd finger on the 3rd fret of the 2nd string, your 3rd finger goes on the 4th fret of the 4th string and your pinky goes under your 3rd finger at the 4th fret of the 3rd string. Be sure your thumb is behind the neck of the guitar. Notice that the strings that are not fretted are naturally dampened. This chord and the next 2 I will show you are movable, which means you can use the same shape to play it all over the fingerboard. The name of the chord is taken from the note that you are playing with your first finger on the 6th string. In this case, the 3rd fret of the 6th string is G, hence the G Major7th chord.
The Minor 7th Chord
In this segment I show you the Minor 7th chord. We will use the A minor 7th chord for our demonstration. Place your 2nd finger on the 5th fret of the 6th string at the root of the chord- A. The 3rd finger creates a "bar" and is used to fret the 4th, 3rd and the 2nd string at the 5th fret. You will note again that we dampen the 5th and the top string naturally with the flesh of our fingers to mute the strings that we are not using for this chord. Be sure to get a nice clean sound from each note when you strum it. This is another movable chord with the root or name of the chord taken from the note played on the 6th string. So, you can move this chord up and down the neck and whatever the note is that you are playing on the 6th string is the name of the cord. In this example it is an A minor 7th.
The Dominant 9th Chord
The 3rd chord is the dominant 9th chord. Place your 2nd finger on the C at the 3rd fret of the 5th string, your 1st finger on the 2nd fret of the 4th string, your 3rd finger is placed on the 3rd fret of the 3rd string and creates a "bar" to fret the top 3 strings. Note that we use the flesh of the second finger to dampen the 6th string since we are not using the low E string. This is another moveable chord, but in this case the root of the chord is found on the 5th string. Therefore this is a C dominant 9th chord because the 3rd fret of the 5th string is a C. You can move this shape up and down the fingerboard and the note your 2nd finger is playing on the 5th string is the name of the chord.
Jazz Up Your Chords
The 3 chords that we learned are all you need to play hundreds of Jazz songs. Although there are many ways to play these chords, this is all you need to start jazzing up your rhythm, which is what we are going to do next.
Jazz Up Your Rhythms
In section 2 I teach you how to jazz up your rhythms by showing you the 3 important rhythms in Jazz: Swing Rhythm, Charleston Rhythm and Latin Rhythm. Although you will encounter other rhythms in Jazz, you will be able to play hundreds of your favorite Jazz standard with just these 3.
+ 29 more lessons
Reviews
33 results
pablo4010
Verified buyer
01/02/25
Instructions are clear and to the point, I love how the video can be looped and you can adjust the speed.
Badcathof
Verified buyer
11/14/22
Great starting point for learning jazz guitar
I've been trying to find a good course for learning the basics of Jazz guitar. The other sources I found in the past get very technical quickly and move along quite fast, which I found difficult to work through. Then I came across this one and decided to try it. It's straightforward, takes things slowly but clearly, and is just a very good starting point for learning Jazz guitar. Highly recommended.
JRL1016
09/08/22
Fun, Great Intro to Jazz Course
Great course! The instruction is at just the right level such that you feel more progress than frustration. Moreover, after finishing this course, I'm now hooked on jazz and and will be moving on to try some other jazz-type courses. If you want to see whether or not jazz is for you, start with this course -- it's a lot of fun!
Ian
Verified buyer
01/24/22
Play actual songs
This is a great course for learning jazz guitar. It isn't about learning some theory or a few techniques. It is really about being able to play some songs. The course starts with learning 3 moveable chords and 3 rhythms which even a relative beginner should be able to manage, then jumps right into apply those to actually playing jazz standards, both the rhythm and melody parts. Well presented and a lot of fun.
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