How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?

Subject: How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?
From: The Shambles
Date: 17 Oct 98 - 06:55 AM

It seems it's too hard for me to write THE country song. I have been advised to try and learn jazz guitar. Any tips?

Subject: RE: How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?
From: Barbara
Date: 17 Oct 98 - 11:02 AM

Good grief, Shambles, you didn't take Art Thieme seriously, did you?
I've got a jazz guitar tip for you:
Do it once, and people will think it's a mistake; do it twice and they'll think it's jazz.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Oct 98 - 11:27 AM

Mr. Shambles,

When I was young and trying to learn to fingerpick, I, like many others, began with Elizabeth Cotten's "Freight Train". I'd sit for hours in my room just alternating the bass with my thum. I knew that was the first step. Get a solid beat set up---alternate the bass strings---back and forth--back and forth--back and forth... I did that for, at least 2 solid weeks---possibly two months. The parental units were banging on the door of my room pleading with me to come out and eat something---probably chicken soup as that was supposed to cure anything. (They would've tried chicken soup before they tried Viagra.)

Then, one day I tried a melody note on the treble strings. (I hesitated to do that 'cause I thought it'd be more treble than it was worth.) But it was beautiful. In another week I was playing "Freight Train" and even "Wilson's Rag" over and over and over and over and...

Then, on the greatest day of my life, I mistakenly grabbed the guitar neck at the SECOND FRET instead of at the first fret which was the proper way to play "Freight Train". Folks, I'm here to tell you right now that you haven't heard ANYTHING until you've heard "Freight Train" played ONE FRET HIGH up the neck. I did that over and over too.
Yes, you guessed it, I'd discovered jazz guitar!!!

Art

Subject: RE: How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?
From: The Shambles
Date: 17 Oct 98 - 11:37 AM

I was just thinking that you have to have the right name before you can play jazz guitar. It has to contain three letters only, something like Tal, Wes, Diz or Zoot. I think I need some tips on how to count as well. Don't you have to have a large instrument too?

Subject: RE: How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?
From: Peter T.
Date: 17 Oct 98 - 02:06 PM

Paul Desmond was once asked by someone if they should become a jazz musician. He said, "The trouble is, all the beautiful chicks will date you for awhile, just to go out with someone scruffy, but they end up marrying some rich guy from Manhatten. This is the way the world ends, not with a whim, but a banker."

Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Oct 98 - 04:40 PM

Peter T,

That's beautiful!!!

Is your last name Thieme too??

Art

Subject: RE: How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Oct 98 - 04:43 PM

A+r+t = 3 letters.

Subject: RE: How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?
From: Roger in Baltimore
Date: 17 Oct 98 - 04:46 PM

Quietly.

Subject: RE: How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?
From: The Shambles
Date: 17 Oct 98 - 07:54 PM

Nice one Roger. You've got too mant letters in your name too.

Now Art is a good name for jazz guitar.

Subject: RE: How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?
From: The Shambles
Date: 17 Oct 98 - 07:56 PM

Nice one Roger. You've got too mant letters in your name too.

Now Art is a good name for jazz guitar.

Subject: RE: How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?
From:
Date: 17 Oct 98 - 08:03 PM

Art's post (about his early experiences) is interesting. I have noticed that jazz guitarists are always talking about "moveable chords". I suppose that is what Art discovered in microcosm.

By the way. My theory about chicken soup is that the damn birds are fed every known medication while they are grown. You get a bit of it all in the soup so, of course, it cures everything! When viagra gets cheap enough, they will probably get that too. It might cancel out some of the female hormones in the chicken soup ;-}

Murray

Subject: RE: How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?
From: The Shambles
Date: 17 Oct 98 - 08:18 PM

The chicken might taste a little hard-boiled though.

Subject: RE: How to play jazz guitar-- TIPS PLEASE?
From: Peter T.
Date: 18 Oct 98 - 12:38 PM

A reverend had a secret desire to be a jazz guitarist, and one Sunday after church, he decided that he had to give in to this temptation, and he changed his clothes and disguised himself and snuck off to a jazz club. At the same moment in heaven, God was training a new young angel in the ways of the Lord. He said to the angel, Watch and learn. The disguised reverend sat in a back corner, savouring the music. During a break, a member of the band wandered by and stopped, and said, “You look pretty cool. You don’t by any chance play guitar, do you? Our guitarist came up sick, and we need some help.” The reverend said quite honestly that he had only picked up the guitar a few weeks earlier, and that he didn’t know much, but he would give it a try. After the break, they gave him a guitar, and he sat down. Suddenly, where there had been simple G chords, there were now augmented 11ths and diminished 13ths; pentatonics, Mixolydian modes; his fingers naturally found progressions where there had previously been no progressions. The lines rolled out. The rest of the band started murmuring, “Charlie Christian? Wes Montgomery? Joe Pass? Who is this guy?” And so it went all night. Riff followed riff, and the audience howled with excitement until the dawn. Finally in heaven, the young angel turned indignantly to God and said, “What are you doing, how could you have so rewarded this terrible sinner!!” And God looked at him and replied: “Rewarded? Who is he going to be able to tell about this?”