One of the biggest hurdles many jazz guitarists face early in their development is being able to connect chords, scales and arpeggios in their playing without having to jump all over the fretboard between shapes.
One of the biggest hurdles many jazz guitarists face early in their development is being able to connect chords, scales and arpeggios in their playing without having to jump all over the fretboard between shapes.
When I was first learning how to play jazz, one of the best lessons I ever learned came from a comment I read from Joe Pass.
To paraphrase Joe, he said, “Always know the possible soloing notes around any chord you’re playing so that you can quickly move between chords and single notes in your playing.”
After reading Joe talk about this concept, I began working on always having a scale and arpeggio under any chord shape I knew on the guitar, which greatly opened up my fretboard knowledge and helped me always have a harmonic and melodic device close by when playing over jazz tunes.
In this lesson, you will dig into this concept of applying scales and arpeggios to chord shapes, as well as learn how to practice this concept, explore sample shapes and learn a sample blues solo based on this Joe Pass fretboard concept.
Chord Scale Arpeggio Fingerings
The Joe Pass system of always having a scale and arpeggio under your fingers for every chord shape you use is a great way to learn the fretboard, providing you with soloing material at the same time. To help you get started with this system, here are a few examples of how to learn chords, scales, and arpeggios in one position on the guitar.
From here, you can apply this