If there’s one thing we all have in common, it’s that we’re all looking for ways to get better at jazz guitar. It’s natural – everyone wants to find an edge, or that one thing that will take us to the next level.

And sometimes it really is that simple. You luck out. You learn one technique or trick that seems to make your playing better instantly.

And that’s a good day in the practice room or the jam session.

But usually, we just end up with another book, or another course that gathers dust as we move on to the next thing.

I’m as guilty of this as anyone else. My shelves are overflowing with books I’ve worked on the first couple of exercises from, and then moved on to the next thing.

Sometimes I just got impatient. Sometimes I had something else urgent come up that I needed to practice for. But the end result was the same.

I’ve found that what we usually need isn’t more knowledge, but some things we can focus on doing.

Things that improve the skills we already have, but are dragging us down a bit. We all have that chord or scale shape that doesn’t quite come out right under pressure.

So let’s take a look at some things you can start doing right now to improve your jazz guitar playing.

10 Ways to Get Better at Jazz Guitar

Learn the Fundamentals: Chords, Scales, Arpeggios

If you want to get better at jazz guitar, the first step is making sure you’re getting better at guitar in general.

Do you really know your chords, scales, and arpeggio patterns? Like, backwards and forwards? Any key? All over the neck?

These are things we always need to be working on. There’s always something that can be improved, or some way you can level up your skills in these technical areas.

Pay attention to where you feel stuck in your playing, and work to improve those basic techniques.

Check some of our most popular jazz guitar lessons:

• 4 Types of Jazz Guitar Chords
• Major Scales for Guitar
• Major 7 Arpeggios
• Learn the Notes on the Guitar

Listen to Lots of Jazz: 

“You are what you eat,” as they say.

If you want to get better at playing jazz guitar, you need to listen to jazz. A lot.

Find jazz guitar players you like, and build a playlist.

You don’t have to carve out a special time to pay extra attention or anything like that. Just make it a habit to have jazz playing all the time.

Doing dishes? Listen to some jazz.Yardwork? Put in the earbuds and listen to some jazz.

Cooking? Put on some jazz guitar albums.

Driving? Jazz.

The more of these sounds you’re taking in, the more your own ideas will start to sound like jazz when you play.

Learn Jazz Standards: 

For any style of music you want to learn, there are “standard” songs that are important to know. And jazz is no different.

You’ll hear different opinions about how you “should” be learning these songs in jazz though.

Some people say you need to learn everything by ear. Others say you need to be able to play a song in all 12 keys or you don’t really know it.

Or maybe you’ve heard that everything should be memorized before you play it.

Honestly, I don’t care how you learn the tunes.

I just want you to be able to play some songs that you want to play. If you need to read them, who cares?

And if you love the challenge of learning songs by ear, go for it. Just get some songs to play, and play them. 

At the end of the day, playing songs is what it’s all about. However you do it, just play the songs.

Some great sources to pull from are:

• The Real Book (Hal Leonard)
• iRealPro (Backing tracks and chord changes)
• If you want a methodical approach to learning songs, check out learnjazzstandards.com 

Learn Jazz Standards has a lot of great free material and some paid courses as well (though I haven’t tried the courses so I can’t comment on them).

Practice Improvisation: 

For me, improvisation is the fun part of all this.

While “studying improvisation concepts” can be daunting and academic, practicing improvisation doesn’t have to be.

Especially not at first. Try this:

• Pick a scale and create some melodies
• Play some pentatonic scales over a blues using backing tracks
• Just practice making something up using a scale you know

This is the part people get a little scared of, because there is no real right answer. But it really doesn’t have to be that big of a deal. So just play something, and have fun.

Learn Some Music Theory: 

Music theory is important to learn as you go. At some point, you have to know the names of different techniques and concepts if you want to make progress.

Even so, it’s not everything. Too many people get caught up int the theory and forget that the whole point is to play some jazz guitar.

Good starting places for you to study music theory are:

• Chord symbols and construction
• Chord progressions like ii V I
• The notes on the guitar neck

The truth is you can learn a lot of music theory by paying attention as you learn your scales, chords, and arpeggios. That’s why I didn’t put them on this list.

You’ll learn more about scale construction by learning all of your scale shapes than you will by memorizing interval patterns. Especially if you follow the free lessons on this site.

What theory does for you is give a name to the sound. Ideally, that’s a sound you’re already able to make. Always remember – the playing came first… the theory came from other people trying to figure out why it sounded so good.

Be careful not to put music theory on too high of a pedestal in your own practice. While it’s important, make sure your playing is still taking center stage.

Start with learning the notes on the guitar, or finding out more about the CAGED System – those are both good starting points for learning theory.

Take Lessons: 

If it’s possible for you, try to take some lessons with a good teacher.

It will save you tons of time, because they can give you more detailed and personal advice about your playing and what you should be focusing on.

(And no, this isn’t a thinly veiled plug for my own studio… I’m not currently taking any new students)

Online or in person really doesn’t matter. With the technology available today, you can get the same learning experience either way.

If your teacher is any good, they don’t need to be in a room with you in order to help you learn. They just have to be more organized on their end to make it work.

So find someone you like, and take some lessons. You’ll thank yourself later.

Study Jazz Guitar Solos:

It’s important to learn everything you can from great solos that you like. Think of this as taking “listen to lots of jazz” to the next level.

There are a number of different ways to approach this:

Transcribe solos, either by writing them down or memorizing them as you go.

Just like with learning songs, there are a lot of opinions on how you “should” be transcribing solos.

And like with learning songs, I don’t care how you do it. 

Just find an approach that works for you and do it. Don’t waste time worrying about if you’re “doing it right” or not. 

Learn specific licks you like.

This is a little more focused on single licks, and a little less about learning entire solos.

When you hear a lick you like in a solo you’re listening to, stop and figure it out.

Just listen for anything that makes you go “now how did they do that?” and figure it out. How does it lay on the guitar? What scale shapes could you use to make it easier? What chord is it being used with?

Then you can practice the lick to use in your own vocabulary, or move on to another lick.

Play “something like” what your favorite player did.

This is the loosest way to work on learning from solos. It’s also one of my favorites, partly because this is how my first jazz guitar teacher taught me.

As you hear something you like, try to play something similar. That could mean following the same trajectory of up or down a scale. It could mean playing the same kind of rhythm.

It’s kind of open ended. The important thing is that you not think too hard, and try to play something kind of like what happened in the solo you were listening to. Try to get the same feel in your own solo.

There probably won’t be any “one answer” that works for you every time, so be flexible. Learning from solos is a great way to improve your vocabulary and skills, so find an approach that you like and get to work!

The key is to keep trying and keep learning as you go.

Play with Others: 

Playing with other people was probably the most important way I got better at jazz guitar.

All through school, I was playing in bands. Middle school, high school, college and grad school. And when I wasn’t in school groups, I was getting together with friends to play for fun.

Or starting my own groups to play gigs in town.

And eventually playing in professional big bands where the stakes were higher and I really had to have everything together.

Time playing with groups is an important part of figuring out what you’re doing. 

And it’s not all about the notes either. 

Stuff like keeping your place in the song, having all the equipment you need, being able to communicate with others as you play… there are endless things you can learn from getting together with other players that you just can’t learn in the practice room.

Ideally you’ll be spending some time playing with people better than you, which is a great way to push yourself to play better. 

Practice Regularly: 

Like anything else worth getting good at, jazz guitar takes time. However, you don’t necessarily need to practice for hours on end to get good at jazz guitar. 

I’ve found it’s more about repetitions of a skill than the actual number of minutes or hours you put in. Do enough reps to make it easy for you, and the time aspect takes care of itself.

Shorter, more frequent practice sessions can be a good way to get your reps in while not getting overwhelmed by trying to find an hour-long block in your day to practice.

In general the longer you tell yourself you are going to practice for, the more you will procrastinate getting to the practice room.

So let’s take a simpler approach.

Try to pick up your guitar more days than you don’t as a starting point. The more you play, the more addictive it gets (and the better you get…) it’s a win-win!

If you want a more spelled out routine, check out my Morning Coffee Practice Routine article where I go into more depth on this.

Record Yourself (And Listen To It!): 

This is maybe the most painful piece of advice I have for you. But it’s also probably going to be the most helpful.

Recording yourself and listening back is a great way to hear what you actually sound like.

As much as we want to think otherwise, this is kind of impossible to do when you’re actually playing. There’s too much going on in your brain.

As you listen back to your recording, you can hear yourself as a friend or teacher would, and find areas you want to improve on. 

Or maybe notice quirks in your playing that you otherwise would have missed.

Try your best to avoid getting down on yourself for mistakes in your playing as you do this. It’s important to find errors and fix them, because that’s how we get better.

But don’t beat yourself up – just be glad you were able to notice it and work towards correcting the errors.

Here are some things to try:

Record yourself playing the melody to a song over and over for 5 minutes. Then, practice comping along with the melody, and try to make it interesting.

Record yourself playing the chords to a song over and over for 5 minutes. Then practice playing the melody, or a solo over the chords you recorded.

Finally, record yourself playing a solo over a song for 5 minutes. Then try to accompany yourself with chords.

You can save some time by using recording software to keep all of these tracks in one spot.

• Record the melody, then the chords
• Mute the melody when you want to play a solo, mute the chords when you want to comp for your melody or solo tracks
• Garageband and soundtrap are good options for this, and I’m sure there are plenty of others out there.

Conclusion

There can be a lot to learn as you work on getting better at jazz guitar.

A lot of it boils down to having a good handle on the fundamentals of playing guitar in general: knowing your scales, chords, and arpeggios.

Listening to lots of jazz, learning your songs, and working on your theory knowledge can also help a lot.

The most important thing is that you keep at it, and keep trying to improve and learn.

Take lessons if you can, and find some friends to play with to make it fun!

What are you trying to improve on right now? Let me know in the comments or email me at [email protected] to let me know.