Aspiring jazz guitarist...where should I start?

[2bornot2bop]

Originally Posted by FatJeff

Have to resort to straw man argument? Just sayin'.

Actually I'd previously responded to a previous comment that was a dig to "deride" bebop with a so called quote of Pops. Who knew what Pops truly thought of bebop. One can't be taken seriously as a so called "jazz artist" without having included a thorough study of 'bop in their arsenal, IMHO.

[randalljazz]

Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop

http://www.russletson.com/

That your idea of a website?....just sayin'

post-modern irony dances with understatement...

[russ6100]

Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop

http://www.russletson.com/

That your idea of a website?....just sayin'

So what's motivating you to take the cheap shot at my nothing website?

Because I don't agree that ownership of the venerable arch-top isn't a prerequisite for playing real jazz?

Nice. Stay classy!

[russ6100]

Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop

Actually I'd previously responded to a previous comment that was a dig to "deride" bebop with a so called quote of Pops. Who knew what Pops truly thought of bebop. One can't be taken seriously as a so called "jazz artist" without having included a thorough study of 'bop in their arsenal, IMHO.

Huh? No way man.

That quote was just presented to illustrate that there are many perspectives - nothing is black & white. Just showing that there were some (many!) who thought that bebop was the anti-christ. There are multiple sources that claim that Pops didn't like bebop at all.

And me? I love bebop. You'll never catch me pouring any derision on it.

[Jim Soloway]

Originally Posted by sgcim

One thing I've noticed is that it's a lot harder to transition from solid body to archtop than it is the other way around.
I've seen tapes of even guys like Ed Bickert, Lenny Breau and Ted Greene, and there's just not that facility that they had when they were playing solid bodies.
Especially Bickert and Greene on their chord work.
If I do some gigs on solid body, I find I need some practice to get my archtop chops back.

Reaching over the top of a big body is a lot harder physically and I know that when I venture into archtopland, there are a bunch of things that no longer work because they depend on sustain and it's just not there.

[comealongway]

anyone who can actually play will be able to play any kind of guitar with equal facility. maybe a short time of familiarization, maybe an hour or so and it should be as easy as any other.

[guitarjazz]

Originally Posted by comealongway

anyone who can actually play will be able to play any kind of guitar with equal facility. maybe a short time of familiarization, maybe an hour or so and it should be as easy as any other.

I wish it were that simple and easy.

[stratman79]

You can play Jazz on anything... one of the best Jazz players here in the UK plays a slimline Tele and would some anyone here and most the people out there.

Regards to learning Jazz... if you're serious get some lessons from someone who really knows what they are doing and be prepared to practise an awful lot.

If not the lesson route then practise even more join a few big bands, quartets and yeah did I say... practise more....

[DaveinLondon]

Jimmy Bruno's online school is very affordable and had produced a great improvement in my playing.
www.jbguitarworkshop.com

[KRosser]

Originally Posted by GovernorSilver

Our own Ken Rosser is yet another great jazz player... and the Tele is one of his favorite axes.

Though I would never claim to be an authority on the subject, I agree with half of that statement - with the sidebar that Rosser's favorite "Tele" for many years now has been a G&L ASAT, its application to jazz being one of the reasons. He's mostly been playing a PRS McCarty for everything lately, though

Or so I hear on the internet...

[Jim Soloway]

Originally Posted by comealongway

anyone who can actually play will be able to play any kind of guitar with equal facility. maybe a short time of familiarization, maybe an hour or so and it should be as easy as any other.

I don't believe this is necessarily true. I can really only speak for me, but my technique doesn't translate to a traditional acoustic very well at all. I don't play hard enough to rive the top so my tone is very thin and I a lot of large complex chords that I find physically too challenging with the higher tension of an acoustic.

[Jim Soloway]

Originally Posted by 2bornot2bop

Superbly put. I came to jazz guitar from jazz piano. In '04 digital keyboards began making advances so after years of acoustic piano playing I acquired my first digital keyboard. As convenient as it is to have your piano in tune always weeks later it became obvious the digital was but an artificial acoustic shell of the real thing. What was painfully obvious were the lush harmonic overtones, naturally a part of any acoustic instrument, simply weren't there. And still today the finest digital keyboards lack that natural acoustic aspect of a living breathing acoustic piano.

For a piano player that's not a small thing, for one becomes accustomed to bathing in the pianistic harmonic glow produced from a string and a spruce sound board.

So, I must confess when I came to guitar I had my own preference for the reasons I'd become accustomed to. Psychologically there's something to be said for what transpires between a living breathing acoustic instrument and a breathing being.

Well, that's my back story, but I'm not so closed minded to be opposed to sampling a hard top if I discovered one that didn't project a synthetic (electric) tonality.

Is there a hard top guitar design that attempts to closely duplicate the tonal qualities of an archtop, and if so what brand/models would anyone suggest sampling?

I had about five hours of driving into central Washington yesterday without a lot to do and I found myself thinking about this post. It occurred to me that you and I see guitar very differently and your reference to the digital keyboard may be the reason why.

I don't see the electric guitar and the electronic keyboard as being at all analogous. With the keyboard, the key is a switching device which activates circuitry which then creates the sound. With the electric guitar, it is still very much an acoustic instrument. The player creates the sound by striking the string which causes both the string and the guitar to vibrate. The pickups are essentially microphones, both coloring the sound and making it louder, but it is the player and the instrument that actually make the sound. That is true whether the body is fully hollow, partially hollow, or predominantly solid. Those construction methods will cause the instrument to vibrate in different ways, producing different tonal properties, but when I sit down and play an electric guitar, it is still about the interaction between the player and an acoustic instrument, regardless of what the construction method is.

[cpike]

Originally Posted by DaveinLondon

Jimmy Bruno's online school is very affordable and had produced a great improvement in my playing.
www.jbguitarworkshop.com

As a jazz novice, I've found the JBGW to be very helpful.

Originally Posted by Jim Soloway

Reaching over the top of a big body is a lot harder physically and I know that when I venture into archtopland, there are a bunch of things that no longer work because they depend on sustain and it's just not there.

I like solidbodies, but they always feel like a cat that doesn't want to be petted -- always trying to get away. Maybe it's because of my long arms, but I like archtops because they're easy to hang on to, comfortable, and I find them to easier to play than solidbodies, as a rule...

[GovernorSilver]

Originally Posted by Jim Soloway

I don't see the electric guitar and the electronic keyboard as being at all analogous. With the keyboard, the key is a switching device which activates circuitry which then creates the sound. With the electric guitar, it is still very much an acoustic instrument. The player creates the sound by striking the string which causes both the string and the guitar to vibrate. The pickups are essentially microphones, both coloring the sound and making it louder, but it is the player and the instrument that actually make the sound. That is true whether the body is fully hollow, partially hollow, or predominantly solid. Those construction methods will cause the instrument to vibrate in different ways, producing different tonal properties, but when I sit down and play an electric guitar, it is still about the interaction between the player and an acoustic instrument, regardless of what the construction method is.

My first music lessons were on an acoustic piano. Guitar came along later in life. I now have acoustic and electric guitars, and several keyboards (digital piano and synths). From my perspective, I heartily agree with all of the above.

[GovernorSilver]

Originally Posted by comealongway

anyone who can actually play will be able to play any kind of guitar with equal facility. maybe a short time of familiarization, maybe an hour or so and it should be as easy as any other.

This is similar to the school of thought that anything one can play on a steel string acoustic guitar, one could play equally well on solid-body electric, or a nylon string acoustic.

It doesn't seem to work that way in real life though, and it's interesting to see players with far more skill than myself saying the same thing.