Jazz And Classical Training

[Banter Shack]

Hey folks,

Do you have any idea how jazz or classical guitarists train? What kind of routines do they have?

Cheers!

[JonPR]

Aside from basic technical skills - which both genres share, up to a point - the training would involve repertoire in either genre.

Classical players learn to play classical pieces: etudes for particular kinds of technical practice, and fuller compositions for performance. Naturally they are all learned from notation, which is learned on day 1 alongside the absolute technical basics (how to hold the guitar, how to pick the strings...).

Jazz players learn the canon of jazz standards. There is not really the equivalent of "etudes" in jazz: studies, pieces written specifically as exercises. Instead, jazz players learn popular standards and treat those as studies. Tunes like Autumn Leaves, Blue Bossa, All The Things You Are and so on. These will be practised ad nauseam while the underlying patterns are absorbed.

Of course, a big difference is improvisation. That's not part of classical training at all. Expression is definitely important - not just what you play (the notes) but how you play them, with articulation and dynamics, to get the different subtleties of feel. But in jazz, the whole point of learning the music is to then improvise on it: to use the tune as raw material to build solo phrases from.

As such, that means a big part of jazz training is listening to jazz recordings, in order to pick up licks from solos, to get the feel of the rhythm and accents - especially things like swing and blue notes, which can't be learned from ntoation, they have to be heard and copied by ear. Again, this will involve lots of repeated listening and playing, because jazz players tend to work from memory more than from notation. In classical guitar, every note of a piece is notated. In jazz, the melody is notated, but the harmony is in chord symbols, whose shapes are variable.

Of course, classical students will also listen to recordings, but mainly in order to get an idea of the professional standards to aim at.

Another critical difference is that classical guitar is mostly solo performance, while jazz guitar is mostly group performance. So jazz guitarists have to learn ensemble skills: how to fit in with a rhythm section, how to accompany soloists, and so on. I.e., jazz guitarists have two roles: accompanying a singer or soloist (mostly just playing chords) - which is what they will be doing most of the time in the real world - and playing lead melodies and solos (which they will only do when and if lucky). This is why jazz guitar training (like pop, rock or folk guitar) tends to revolve around chords: learning all the various shapes for different chords, and all the ways they can be strummed in rhythm accompaniment. But the more a guitarist wants to be an improviser, the more they need to learn melodies, because thats where the improvisational vocabulary comes from. And that also enables them to become solo "chord-melody" players if they want - in which role they are more like classical players, performing entire pieces on their own, melody and harmony.

Getting back to differences in technique, obviously classical is fingerstyle only, while jazz guitar tends to use a pick - so the right hand training is very different. The way the guitar is held is usually different too: quite strict for classical, less so for jazz. But left-hand (fret hand) training would be very similar: scales and arpeggios at least.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Banter Shack

Hey folks,

Do you have any idea how jazz or classical guitarists train? What kind of routines do they have?

Cheers!

They train a lot.

[Banter Shack]

Originally Posted by JonPR

Aside from basic technical skills - which both genres share, up to a point - the training would involve repertoire in either genre.

Thanks for taking the time to present me with so much detail. I will be coming back to this answer frequently. Are you aware of any guitarists who are competent in both classical and jazz, or do they typically specialise in one or the other? Thanks again!

[Brent Hutto]

I sent you a PM regarding one person I know who is capable of helping you with both classical and jazz idioms, along with more bluegrassy stuff as well.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Banter Shack

Thanks for taking the time to present me with so much detail. I will be coming back to this answer frequently. Are you aware of any guitarists who are competent in both classical and jazz, or do they typically specialise in one or the other? Thanks again!

Charlie Byrd and Ralph Towner were jazz guitarists who mostly played nylon-string, and had studied classical guitar. So they certainly knew (and employed) classical technique, but played - and improvised - on jazz tunes.

John Williams (not the film music composer!) is known as a classical guitarist, but dabbled in jazz-rock in the band Sky. (His daughter Kate is a jazz pianist.)

There's also the Brazilian singer-guitarist Joao Gilberto, who played nylon-string bossa nova, which is kind of borderline jazz - but AFAIK he didn't do a lot of improvising. Bossa nova composer Tom Jobim also played guitar, although piano was his main instrument.

The flamenco player Paco de Lucia collaborated with jazz guitarist John McLaughlin and others, and also with jazz pianist Chick Corea.

[Song]

Originally Posted by Banter Shack

Hey folks,

Do you have any idea how jazz or classical guitarists train? What kind of routines do they have?

Cheers!

irealpro is the musicians best friend.


https://www.irealpro.com/

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by Song

irealpro is the musicians best friend.


https://www.irealpro.com/

Amazing how all those jazz guys learned before computer software came along...

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by JonPR

Amazing how all those jazz guys learned before computer software came along...

I had a few lessons from a jazz pro who taught himself in the depression years of the 1930's while unemployed, he was playing in dance bands in the 40's. His computer was his brain and he knew how to use it, but then he was quite intelligent.

[Banter Shack]

Originally Posted by JonPR

The flamenco player Paco de Lucia collaborated with jazz guitarist John McLaughlin and others, and also with jazz pianist Chick Corea.

Definitely have plenty of listening to keep me going for a while here. Cheers!