How to Play Solo Jazz Guitar:from Simple to Complex

Juampy provides a range of tools to help the musician to play solo guitar. Starting with the tune “Autumn Leaves” Juampy offers fundamental performace ideas gradually introducing more approaches.

Some of the fundamentals he begins with include:

1. Memorising the melody
2. Memorising the chords
3. Soloing techniques within solo guitar
4. Employing diatonic harmonies as passing phrases.
5. Guide tones to create phrases and develop melodic lines.
6. Generating ideas from the Melodic Minor scale.

Developing intros and endings to songs are demonstrated as a way of developing a repertoire. Working within or outside of a harmonic center is one of the applications that can be applied to developing intros/ outros. Juampy describes some of the techniques used especially by guitarists as diverse as Lennie Breau, Chet Atkins, Ralph Towner and Jim hall. He gives examples of their signatures sounds, such as Lennie Beau’s use of harmonics within an arrangement. Juampy also provides a wealth of modern harmony ideas, such as:

• clusters in the style of Herbie Hancock and / or Bill Evans.
• quartal harmony
• dimninished and augmented tonalities.

Juampy also spends time exploring a range of voicings, including:

• inversions
• Drop-2 voicings
• rootless voicings and
• three-note voicings.

He shows how to simultaneously play the bass and melody lines. While playing bass / melody lines, he also demonstrates how to provide interesting contrapuntal lines while keeping it swinging. He makes this accessible to anyone willing to do the work. Juampy’s skill is in presenting all of this material in an accessible way that makes you want to try to employ his examples. Within a short time, you will be developing more interesting arrangements which could be the beginning of developing your own repertoire. This class if over an hour long and includes 12 pages of written material in standard notation and TAB.