rusdyfu81
Verified buyer
09/24/26
Great foundation
Best lesson
Bebop Dojo: Essentials
An accelerated, intuitive approach for jazz bebop guitar
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Sheryl Bailey
Educator
Genres
About this course
Once upon a time in Kyoto, zen master Dgen Zenji sat in his Dojo and wrote, "To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe."
While Dgen was referring to meditation and enlightenment, he could have just as well been talking about jazz improvisation. Players spend thousands of hours studying, practicing and internalizing the vocabulary and harmony of jazz -- only to "cast off body and mind" when improvising on the bandstand. If you likewise desire to be enlightened by all things in the jazz universe, then leave your shoes at the door, bow politely and enter Sheryl Bailey's Bebop Dojo.
Hundreds of jazz masters will tell you, "If you want to learn how to improvise, whatever your preferred musical style happens to be, learn Bebop." Blues, rock, funk, swing, world and of course jazz improvisation all root back to bebop in one way or another.
Bebop is the native language of improvisation and this Essentials edition Sheryl Bailey's Bebop Dojo is the "place of the way" and an accelerated, intuitive learning experience designed to impart essential Bebop skills, techniques, insight and improvisational methods.
"In this Essentials edition of my Bebop Dojo, we'll explore the techniques, tools and concepts that comprise the foundation of Bebop; we'll work on comping, crafting melodic lines through shell voicings, 4-to-the-bar rhythm patterns, arpeggios, voice-leading, developing a strong swing feel, syncopation, building riffs from common tones and improvisation."
Sheryl will show you how to develop a strong eighth-note feel, and demonstrate how to create melodic ideas using common tones within the arpeggios to form Charlie-Christian-like solo templates. You'll learn how to employ syncopation to make your lines come alive with that exciting rhythmic push of Bebop.
Sheryl also passes on a vocabulary of versatile Bebop licks for both major and minor 2-5's, which you'll apply immediately over the improvisational playalongs, trading 4's and 8's with Sheryl. All of the playalong tracks are provided in several different tempos, and everything is notated, tabbed and charted out for you as well.
All in all, everything you need to build your Bebop foundation is placed at your fingertips in full living color. Immerse yourself in the Bebop Dojo and emerge an enlightened improvisor.
"Sometimes true learning surprises you when it emerges." - Chungliang Al Huang
While Dgen was referring to meditation and enlightenment, he could have just as well been talking about jazz improvisation. Players spend thousands of hours studying, practicing and internalizing the vocabulary and harmony of jazz -- only to "cast off body and mind" when improvising on the bandstand. If you likewise desire to be enlightened by all things in the jazz universe, then leave your shoes at the door, bow politely and enter Sheryl Bailey's Bebop Dojo.
Hundreds of jazz masters will tell you, "If you want to learn how to improvise, whatever your preferred musical style happens to be, learn Bebop." Blues, rock, funk, swing, world and of course jazz improvisation all root back to bebop in one way or another.
Bebop is the native language of improvisation and this Essentials edition Sheryl Bailey's Bebop Dojo is the "place of the way" and an accelerated, intuitive learning experience designed to impart essential Bebop skills, techniques, insight and improvisational methods.
"In this Essentials edition of my Bebop Dojo, we'll explore the techniques, tools and concepts that comprise the foundation of Bebop; we'll work on comping, crafting melodic lines through shell voicings, 4-to-the-bar rhythm patterns, arpeggios, voice-leading, developing a strong swing feel, syncopation, building riffs from common tones and improvisation."
Sheryl will show you how to develop a strong eighth-note feel, and demonstrate how to create melodic ideas using common tones within the arpeggios to form Charlie-Christian-like solo templates. You'll learn how to employ syncopation to make your lines come alive with that exciting rhythmic push of Bebop.
Sheryl also passes on a vocabulary of versatile Bebop licks for both major and minor 2-5's, which you'll apply immediately over the improvisational playalongs, trading 4's and 8's with Sheryl. All of the playalong tracks are provided in several different tempos, and everything is notated, tabbed and charted out for you as well.
All in all, everything you need to build your Bebop foundation is placed at your fingertips in full living color. Immerse yourself in the Bebop Dojo and emerge an enlightened improvisor.
"Sometimes true learning surprises you when it emerges." - Chungliang Al Huang
What you'll learn
- Create jazz-style melodic lines
- Learn arpeggio fingerings in 5th position
- Understand how to construct jazz lines using chord tones
- Develop fretboard navigation skills
- Understand true swing rhythm
Release date: 04/19/2013 • 3h 11m runtime
Sample lessons
Bebop Comping
Push on Two and Four
Arpeggios (7ths)
Playalong #4
Voice Leading
Overview
Bebop Lick #2
2-5-1 Major
What's included
56 lessons • 23 charts • 28 Jam Tracks
Welcome to the Bebop Dojo Essentials. This is your starting point for gathering the essential tools needed to immerse yourself into jazz harmony, lines and rhythm. We'll explore the fundamental concepts that are the foundation of comping and melodic lines through shell voicings, 4 to the bar comping, arpeggios, voice-leading, developing a strong swing feel, syncopation and building riffs from common tones.
In this section I present some very easily learned and fundamental starting points for jazz comping and chord voicings and introduce our chord template, or chord progression that we will be exploring harmonically, melodically and rhythmically.
I've chosen the chord progression to the standard "Autumn Leaves" as a template to explore concepts of harmony, melodic improv, and rhythmic improv. I chose this because it has a wealth of fundamental chord movements that are common to many other tunes in the jazz repertoire. It contains two very vital harmonic patterns: II V I in major and II V I in minor. It is also an important tune to learn and memorize for your repertoire of tunes for jam sessions. Everyone around the world knows this gem.
Here I play through our chord template, which are the changes to the standard tune "Autumn Leaves". I chose this because it has a wealth of fundamental chord movements that are common to many other tunes in the jazz repertoire. It contains two very vital harmonic patterns: II V I in major and II V I in minor. I will demonstrate the use of shell voicings and a "4 to the bar" quarter note strum. This skill will develop a strong feel for the heartbeat of jazz.
By learning how to play rhythm guitar with shell voicings you'll be able to create your own jam tracks, develop your rhythm guitar playing, and be able to accompany other musicians with these tasteful and fundamental chord sounds. They will also help you organize your fretboard and later down the road, open up your melodic playing by teaching you where the 3rds and 7ths of the chords are at all times.
Shell voicings consist of the root, 3rd and 7th of the chord. They provide the most important chord sounds and have an open texture that makes them perfect for duo and trio playing.
All the great jazz guitarists use these shell voicings and this four to the bar type of comping. With these shapes you can work on your rhythm guitar chops on any standard tune and you can start to get into real playing situations. Also it will help your single note playing because you will have a strong sense of the pulse. This revolves around working with the metronome on beats 2 and 4 to give those beats a push, or bounce. The feeling of that bounce is the foundation of a strong swing feel.
+ 49 more lessons
Reviews
38 results
MarioGiamp
08/02/26
Best foundational jazz course I found so far
Are you searching for an online training to build a solid foundation for jazz guitar? Cool, if you arrived here your search is over, congrats! :) It's definitely a challenging journey, in particular the section on arpeggios, but it's all worth digging properly. All concepts are clearly explained and put in the context of music you want to play (assuming people want to play songs and not isolated concepts on their own). Sheryl Bailey is a badass musician and teacher and I'll definitely check more of her courses on this platform.
Frank H.
12/04/23
Great arpeggio bootcamp
As a jazz noob I have been searching for an organized approach to play the changes with arpeggios. This whole course is based around that. It contains full arpeggio practice sessions for all the arpeggios you need, for each starting note. This right there saves you a semester tuition at Berklee. And when searching for :"arpeggio" in Truefire this course doesn't even come up!
Abner45
Verified buyer
12/13/22
I Love Sheryl !!!!
Her material is great. As a rock guitarist, I didn't even really know what Bebop was. But her courses are so enjoyable that I have come to Love bebop jazz. I find myself trying to find some of the artists that she mentions in her courses. I highly recommend any of her courses.
magnajeremie
Verified buyer
12/01/22
amazing wow
amazing
…
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