Skip to content
Home » #practice » Page 2

#practice

In the first lesson in the Jazz Guitar Lessons, you will learn jazz chords, rhythms, single-line melodies, and a couple of songs. As you move through the class you will learn more jazz chords and classic jazz progressions such as Killer Joe. One of the songs you will learn to play is “When The Saints Go Marching In.”

Jazz Guitar Lesson - What You Will Learn and How It Works

The following information is also contained in your Jazz Course:

  • 3 Essential Jazz Rhythms
  • Versatile Jazz Chords
  • Lead Fundamentals
  • Walking Bass Line
  • How to play a ii V I Progression
  • Pentatonic scale
  • Beginning Improvisation

As with the other lessons, the instructors will demonstrate all of the key examples on practice jam tracks. You will also get tablature and notations for the examples, plus references and study purposes. Included in the jazz course you will get the Guitar Pro Files which enable you to slow the jam tape down or loop any section as you work through the lesson.

TrueFire encourages you to take as much time as needed to get through each lesson before moving on to the next. They also have lots of supplemental material if you want to dig deeper into any topic covered in the course. You will find more examples, techniques, and insights for each course in the Learning Path Section.

A Taste of Jazz

You many think that Improvisation is only for the Jazz Guitar, but it’s actually found in many types of playing. You could be playing lead in a rock band, a jazz guitarist or a songwriter who uses improvisation in your music. Improvising on a song helps create new melodies and arrangements. Learning to improvise in your guitar lessons should be an important focus.

An important technique in learning to improvise is playing the pentatonic scale. In your lessons with TrueFire you will learn scales and how to use them in improvisation. 

You will also learn how to read and use tabs which will help you with improvisation.

Jazz Samples From TrueFire

Tips For Playing Jazz Guitar

One of the best ways to enter the jazz world is through the blues. The classic swing and bebop tunes are nothing more than twelve-bar blues with a swing rhythm and fancy chord changes. Most people start with the minor pentatonic scale when they are learning how to play jazz and improv. Charlie Parker is a great example of using swing blues.

The next step is often learning the play the jazz standards. These require some memorizing key changes and how to play through them. If you focus on playing well on jazz standards (tunes), you will be quickly on your way to playing jazz guitar.

Focusing on jazz standards means playing the melody with some accompanying chords, improve with some single-note solos, and add a touch of chord melody from time to time.

If you are new to playing jazz the above statement may go right over your head, but don’t worry. As you follow your lessons and practice with the practice jam tracks, your TrueFire teachers will have you playing the jazz standards, and everything else mentioned above before you know it. It’s a step-by-step process. You Can Do It!!!!

Student's Rave Review

“At 50 I finally decided to learn to play guitar. With my hectic schedule, I needed something that was ready and available when I had time. Learning Guitar 1 was a fantastic introduction to guitar basics. I love that it started with elementary, straightforward concepts and chords that I could grasp and learn. It even talks about HOW to practice. Then the course built on those simple things by adding other simple chords, strumming, and then working up to simple songs. I’m on my way!” – Daniel Rode, TrueFire Student

Supplementary Jazz Courses & Jazz Instructors

TrueFire Jazz Supplementary Courses
TrueFire's Jazz Supplementary Courses
TrueFire Jazz Instructors
Jazz Learning Path is presented by 3 top TrueFire Educators

Video Lessons with SoundSlice

TrueFire’s website is easy to navigate with high definition photos and videos. The lessons feature multiple angles providing close-up views of the guitarist’s hands as he/she plays. They also use SoundSlice which is a music learning platform with interactive music notation. As the teacher plays through a lesson, in a different camera angle, Soundslice follows the music notation or chord chart as the music is being played. TrueFire has teamed up with SoundSlice to provide the best way to learn any song. You will find SoundSlice used in all the lessons, plus the Jam Tracks.

TrueFire’s In The Jam delivers an unparalleled jamming experience for the beginner or advanced musician. The Jam Track is the next best thing to jamming in real life. To make it even better you get to jam with well-known artists.

Each Jam Track includes 10 multi-track videos arranged in separate video and audio tracks for each of the instruments on the video. The video gives you the ability to mute, solo, or adjust the volume of any track. You will also get lead sheet charts which enables you to follow the chord change and jam structure.

Jam Tracks with SoundSlice video is the best way to develop your improvisation skills so you are ready to jam with a band on stage with a solid rhythm section and other musicians.

With the Jam Tracks, you will have a bandstand right in your practice room! room!

TrueFire Lesson Video Views
Music & Tabs

TrueFire is currently focused on teaching techniques instead of learning numerous songs so that the guitarists are able to apply their skills in any situation. This could be a negative for a guitarist who just wants to learn songs, but it is a plus for someone who has the dream of playing professionally.


TrueFire Private Lessons

They also offer private lessons with an instructor of your choices for an extra cost. There is a wide variety of programs and costs for private lessons. In the private lesson, you get 1 topic-specific lesson with the instructor of your choice. The lesson includes a skill assessment, video messaging, file attachments, and a discussion thread for a one-time fee. The cost of the private lesson, considering the video and written assessment, the cost is very reasonable. There are several plans to choose from.

In comparison, I priced lessons in our local city. The prices ranged anywhere from $30 to $276 per hour.

I took music lessons for years. Online video lessons with an occasional private lesson, in my opinion, would be much more productive. With a video lesson, you have something to listen to and compare to your playing, whereas, with face-to-face lessons, you often miss something the teacher is saying causing your practice to be less effective and your learning slower.

TrueFire’s private lessons give you the benefit of learning from an experienced guitarist and teacher while learning from home with the video lessons and practice tracks. This is one area where TrueFire provides more opportunities than other online guitar lessons.


TrueFire Logo

TrueFire has been teaching guitar lessons since 1991. Currently, they have amassed over 40,000 video guitar lessons and 700 full courses. Over the years they have collaborated with over 600 world-renown guitarists and teachers. They currently have a million members that use the site regularly. They specialize in advanced and intermediate guitar lessons.

 

World-Renowned Guitarists and Educators

One of the most important reasons for TrueFire’s success is the level of their educators. Among them you will find Steve Vai, Robben Ford, and Tommy Emmanuel, each of whom is a guitar icon on the music world stage. These are just three of the current 200 incredible guitarists currently teaching TrueFire’s intermediate and advanced courses. As you go through the different posts on this site you will see different instructors and snippets of their courses available on TrueFire.

Advanced and Intermediate Guitar Course Samples

As mentioned above, TrueFire really excels in their advanced and intermediate guitar lessons. They are known among the online guitar lessons and others as having exceptional material and educators in their more advanced courses. In the intermediate and advanced courses, you will discover a wide variety of courses and supplemental material in all guitar styles. These courses are designed to equip guitarists to be able to step into the professional arena. It is important for working guitarists to excel in rhythm guitar as they will spend on an average of 90% of their time playing behind vocalists and other musicians. Therefore, TrueFire focuses on a wide variety of chords, rhythm styles, and picking techniques that will prepare the guitarist to be proficient in any musical setting.

Many more courses are available in the Advanced and Intermediate courses offered. 

Creative Blues by Tim Pierce

My Guitar Heroes

Technique Builders

Help With Practice

Southern Roots

Corey Congilio

50 Blues Rhytms

Corey Congilio’s “50 Blues Rhythms You MUST Know

“You’ll learn a truckload of new voicings, new rhythmic patterns, new fills and even new right-hand techniques, all of which can be combined, transcribed and crafted into countless blues applications,” Susan Palmer.

Jason Loughlin

Jason Loughlins Take 5

Jason Loughlin’s “Take 5: Blues Chord Melody

“You’ll start the course with a quick primer where Jason will introduce you to dominant seventh inversions, using substitutions, harmonizing the blues scale, contrary motion and altered chords — all in an effort to add more harmonic depth to your blues solos,” Susan Palmer.

Mimi Fox

Jazz Trio Comping Mimi Fox

Mimi Fox’s “Jazz Trio Comping”

“Chord selection, locking in with the rhythm section, playing in different meters, establishing the harmonic texture and character of the tune — these are all crucial responsibilities,” Susan Palmer.

Mimi Fox's "Flying Solo"

Mimi Fox Flying Solo

Mimi Fox’s “Flying Solo”

“Mimi covers it all in Flying Solo; you will learn how to play solo jazz guitar utilizing integrated walking bass lines within both blues and standard jazz styles; playing Latin grooves; the effective use of odd meters; advanced melodic and harmonic concepts; the use of voice leading within solos; chord soloing; integrated soloing in blues, standard and bossa styles; chordal development; the importance of developing strong intros and endings; the effective integration of texture and dynamics; major, minor and dominant substitutions; rubato playing; utilizing harmonics and open strings; improvisation; and a special two-part section on arranging pieces utilizing a composer’s mindset,” Susan Palmer.

Sheryl Bailey

Trading Solos

Sheryl Bailey’s “Trading Solos: Bebop”

“For each of the five bebop progression jam tracks, Sheryl will show you a handful of licks and comping approaches that you can use. Then, you’ll take turns applying those ideas, trading solos and comping for each other,” Susan Palmer.

Fareed Haque

FareedHaque's Jazz Comping

Fareed Haque’s “Jazz Comping Survival Guide

“Fareed Haque’s Jazz Comping Survival Guide is based on a very simple, yet far-reaching concept; building chords from the inside out. Your tutelage begins with basic guide tones and an intuitive system for building your chord vocabulary with extensions until you’ve rapidly acquired and have command of ALL of the chords and colors used by jazz guitarists,” Susan Palmer.

Frank Vignola

Frank Vignola’s “30 Jazz Turnarounds”

“Jazz guitar players need a wide and diverse vocabulary of turnarounds to spice up their comping for the vocalists and soloists in the band. In this collection of 30 Jazz Turnarounds, Frank Vignola stocks your inventory with a wide variety of diverse turnarounds that will take your comping skills to the next level on the gig or at the jam,” Susan Palmer.

Matthieu Brandt

Guitar Lab

Matthieu Brandt’s “Guitar Lab: Triads and Hendrixian Double Stops

“The first part of this course will give you the theoretical backbone of the triadic system. It’s a fresh look at the fret board, which will be used in about 20 different songs in the second part of the course. In the last part we’ll dig deep into Hendrix’ challenging style of accompaniment / solo,” Susan Palmer.

Andrew Ford

50 R&B Bass Groves

Andrew Ford’s “50 R&B Bass Grooves You MUST Know

“Andrew presents the material and connects the dots in such a way that you’ll be able to apply the underlying techniques, rhythms and bass grooves in whatever style of music you play today. Consider these 50 bass lessons as your personal rite of passage to the land of groove,” Susan Palmer.

In Summary

TrueFire offers a 30 day free trial which gives you the opportunity to access all of the courses and videos.

After the 30 days you can continue your membership for $19 per month or $199 per year. This is a great value when compared to face-to-face private lessons, as mentioned above.

The quality of the videos and the instructors make TrueFire’s lesson well worth the cost.

Find out How To Practice Guitar in TrueFire’s Sure-Fire way to learn guitar.

Your first step along any of the Learning Paths is FREE!!

Learning Path TrueFire

Are you beginning to lose motivation because it is so hard? Did you know that everyone faces the same challenge? When we are learning something new it takes time, it’s often frustrating. When we get frustrated it often takes longer to become the guitar player that you’ve been dreaming about.

Why?? You might ask. There are several reasons why this happens. As you learn more about the reasons, you will also learn how to overcome the obstacles and practicing will become easier. You will also get better faster.

One of the most common reasons you struggle with practicing is because you aren’t sure what to practice or how long to practice each lesson, or what things to practice to be the best guitarist you can be.

Not knowing what to practice or how much to practice makes it very difficult to stay motivated. Some people get information from a variety of sources, which may introduce different strategies or methods of practice. They often introduce different lessons and riffs making your practice confusing. You then end up with too much “stuff” to practice, creating even more problems.

I have learned from personal experience that too much “stuff” can actually keep you from reaching your goals. You need to limit your scope to practice material that will be the most valuable and build your skill the fastest. Remember, every teacher, every musician has differences in the way they teach or approach different ways of playing. Don’t jump around.

The Learning Path will give you some of the most valuable information to become the guitarist you’ve always dreamed of being. The Learning Path will help you determine what it is that you need to make your guitar practice the most fun part of your day and be valuable to become the best possible guitarist as quickly as possible.

 

 

 

Motivation To Practice - Photo by Roy Reyna from PexelsKey Point: 

Do you seem to be losing motivation to practice your guitar? In your guitar practice, if you are trying to practice too many things, each item gets less and less of your attention. Then, it’s not long before you have no motivation to practice the guitar or any other instrument.

As we all know, you can find anything you’re looking for on the internet. Actually, you’ll find numerous sources for the same info. Which in some cases is good, but when you collect practice material from several different sources you will also get different teaching strategies, which could be very confusing. You could also get material that is beyond your skillset, which could make you very discouraged and less motivated. By trying to practice everything,  you will not get the practice time needed on the skills your progress will be slow. When progress is slower you will have less motivation to practice.

How To Find Motivation To Practice: 

Find a teacher, in person, or online, that specializes in the type of music you want to play. For example, if you want to play heavy metal, find a heavy metal guitar teacher. You can learn the basics from any guitar teacher, but you will make faster progress with the right teacher. With the right teacher and a personalized guitar practice schedule, you will have more motivation and make faster progress.

What To Expect From Your Teacher: 

Your teacher should tell you what to practice. If you pick up some practice material from a different source, ask your teacher about it. Don’t waste valuable practice time on something that is not going to get you where you want to go. Make sure you stay focused on the practice material given to you by your teacher. Ignore everything else.  If you do what your teacher tells you to do you will make faster progress and have more fun doing it. This is also the way to reach your musical goal faster.

Reason For No Progress:

Often, when we try to reach specific musical goals without effective practice schedules, we have very slow progress. Many beginning musicians think they will become the next overnight wonder. They have a guitar and an amp. But, they soon learn that the skill is learned over time. It doesn’t just happen. In order to reach your dream goal, it’s best to slow down, take your time, learn the fundamentals, and move on only when you are ready.

It’s very important to get a practice plan from your instructor and stick to it. Follow the plan that is given to you. The plan will tell you exactly what to practice, how long to practice, and how to practice your lessons. When you follow your practice schedule you will get a sense of improvement that will keep you motivated to practice.

FREE Resources to help you be a better guitarist:

229 Easy Guitar Songs You Can Play With 4 Chords
Unlock Your Tonal Potential with These 5 Free Robbie Calvo Guitar Lessons
9 Free Beginner Bluegrass Banjo Lessons
How To Turn Practice Into Performance – Motivation & Practice: Episode 6 – Rob Garland
TrueFire Now Available on Roku!

 

 

 

The Next Level Guitar Lessons is designed to get you playing quickly. You will learn more chords to expand your chord vocabulary. Chords you must know as a guitarist. You will also learn more strumming techniques and a single-note picking technique and songs. One of the most important elements in this Hands-On Method for Beginners is your first scale. 

You already know several chords and strumming techniques, right? Maybe you need the Guitar Quick Start Lesson. Check it out and see.

How Long Does It Take To learn To Play Guitar

You have finished the first course in Beginning Guitar. Are you wondering how long this journey is going to take? Did you think you could get to the skill level of your musical idol in just a few short weeks?

Let’s do a little recap on Hendrix. He started playing at age 15. It took 5 years for him to begin playing small gigs in Clarksville, TN., after a year in the military. He continued playing and gradually worked into playing with the Isley Brothers’ backing band and later with Little Richard and another year before getting noticed, hiring a manager and moving to the big time. It took him a total of 10 years to get noticed. Hendrix did it. You can do it with the right commitment – the commitment to play guitar forever.

Ready For The Next Level Guitar Lessons

You are now ready for the Next Level Guitar Lessons. The toughest part, developing the calluses on your fingertips, is behind you. Do you still have some pain? Don’t give up. Hang in there. It will be worth it!!

No, your dream is not going to happen overnight, but it also depends on just how serious you are. Are you willing to start out practicing for a ½ hour a day and gradually growing it to an hour a day as the calluses form on your fingertips? If you are willing to make that commitment you could be playing well enough to play for others in about 6 months.

If you are willing to make a commitment to play forever you will do what it takes to learn how to play well and the 6 months will go by quickly. Later it will seem like such a small amount of time.

If you push too hard you will have a lot of pain in your fingers. You may get frustrated, but don’t quit. Take it a little slower and work through the pain, don’t just practice once a week. By practicing just once a week you will not make good progress. You will get frustrated and quit.

TrueFire's Sample Beginners Lesson

Tip #1. Everybody’s timeline is different. Some can commit to more time than others. But make a commitment to a certain amount of time every day. A key to keeping your time commitment is to make practice fun so you will look forward to practicing. Yes, everyone is going to have exceptions to the rule, but make the exceptions rare.

Tip #2. Make it a practice to pick-up your guitar for at least 5 minutes every day, in addition to your practice time. Become familiar with your guitar. Become accustomed to the feel of your guitar.

Tip #3. Learn how to hold your guitar correctly. Watch the instructor in your videos. Good posture will make your playing easier and more pleasant. As a beginner play sitting. As you become more comfortable, you can add standing and performance appearance. Sit in a chair with both feet on the floor. Make sure you keep your back straight.  The waist of the guitar goes on your right leg if you are right-handed and the back of the guitar against your stomach and chest.  Don’t use your left hand to support the neck of the guitar. Instead, rest your upper right arm on the upper part of the guitar body. Get into a position that feels comfortable.

Tip #4. The thumb of your left hand should rest behind the neck of the guitar between your first two fingers, with knuckles bent. Use only the tips of your fingers to press the strings. Check out the string pressure by picking a string and changing the pressure each time. It takes very little pressure on the strings to get a good sound.

Tip #5. As you practice with the videos learn to allow your guitar to speak with emotions. Notice how your playing affects others

How Long Does It Take - Answer

The initial question was, “How long will it take to learn to play the guitar?” Actually, if you make a commitment to play forever you will always be learning. From the day you first pick up your guitar and start learning until you feel you have learned enough, which will probably be never. You can learn a few simple chords and one or two songs just to show others that you can play.  On the other hand, there will always be something more to learn or improve on. It also depends on your passion for music and your desire to master the guitar and the music you produce. Always play for enjoyment and pleasure, not some external goal. It must be the love of music that will keep you playing and improving.

Learn How To Play Guitar for Free with this Sure-Fire 10-Step Method for Beginners

This series of sessions is designed to get you up and running on your first guitar! “Jeff Scheetz, Director of Education here at TrueFire will show you some cool tips and tricks to help you get started, and guide you through a bunch of great video lessons that will have you playing your guitar in no time!” 

The first lesson in each style is FREE for the beginner.

TrueFire’s beginning lessons may be a little harder than some other lesson, but upon completing the lessons you can be confident that you will know the guitar basics and ready to progress to the next level.

In the First Steps To Learning Guitar you will learn:

  • Guitar chord shapes.
  • How To keep a steady rhythm.
  • How to change chords smoothly.

TrueFire

Founded in 1991, TrueFire has collaborated with 600+ top educators to produce what Guitar Player Magazine calls “the planet’s largest and most comprehensive selection of online guitar lessons. 2 million+ guitar players, from virtually every country in the world, learn, practice, and play” with TrueFire’s interactive video courses and patented learning systems for personalized and private online instruction. TrueFire’s success has been attributed to the high-quality guitarists and instructors they have collaborated with over the years. Many of their instructors are GRAMMY award winners, top studio artists, and world-renowned educators. TrueFire’s courses are powered by some of the best in the music industry.

The Guitarfella.com states, “TrueFire really excels with its tuition for intermediate and advanced players, with a huge range of courses, lessons, and styles available. You have the freedom to choose your own learning path, which can help keep you interested and focused, even if it involves a little less hand-holding.”

TrueFire's Course Library

Their course library, one of the largest in the world, features 40,000+ interactive video guitar lessons covering all styles, techniques, and levels and all courses are available anytime, anywhere, and is available for any device. TrueFire’s proprietary technologies and patented methods of lesson presentation allows the instructors to specialize one-on-one private lessons or design a lesson for a group anywhere in the world.

TrueFire's Guitarists and Educators

TrueFire’s educators are passionate about music and the lessons they present. Technically, they are all experts in their field of music and music education. Their focus is mainly on teaching the students technique, not just how to play songs, which sets TrueFire apart from the other online guitar instructors. Because of the educators and their technology, TrueFire has earned over 70 international creative, marketing, video, and technology awards.

TrueFire Sample Beginning Lessons

Student Referral

“At 50 I finally decided to learn to play guitar. With my hectic schedule, I needed something that was ready and available when I had time. Learning Guitar 1 was a fantastic introduction to guitar basics. I love that it started with elementary, straightforward concepts and chords that I could grasp and learn. It even talks about HOW to practice. Then the course built on those simple things by adding other simple chords, strumming, and then working up to simple songs. I’m on my way!” – Daniel Rode, TrueFire Student

Ready to finally learn how to play guitar? Grab your guitar and let’s dig in!

Is your dream to be a great guitar player?
Then you’re in the right place.

First Steps For Beginners

Next Steps For Beginners

You have finished the courses First Steps For Beginners and “Next Steps For Beginners” or you already know some chords, strumming techniques, and can play single-note lines, plus several songs. Either way, you are ready to go to the next level after choosing your style of guitar playing. For example, this link is for the Acoustic Guitar: Guitar Quick Start. Each style will have its own Quick-Start Course.

Guitar Quick Start

The Learning Path System in TrueFire has “First Steps For Beginners,” “Next Steps For Beginners,” and “Quick-Start” for each style of music. This enables you to learn the unique chords and strumming patterns for the Learning Path you choose. 

In the Quick-Start For Beginners guitar courses, the guitarists must already know the basic skills: several chords and strumming patterns plus are able to play several songs and single-note lines. 

As mentioned above, each Learning Path Style teaches techniques that are unique to each particular style. For example, in the Acoustic Guitar Style, you’ll start by learning a classic rhythm pattern, a chord progression, and a Fingerstyle pattern used in many songs.

Acoustic guitars are used in different styles of music, so the techniques taught in the course will vary in style, somewhat. Included in the Acoustic course is the 12 bar progressions used in acoustic blues.

Watch this video by Brooks Robertson to see what the lessons are like.

Practice With Jam Tracks

Trust assured the instructors will demonstrate key examples on the practice jam tracks when necessary. This will show you how the techniques are used in real-world settings. You will also get the feeling of playing in a real-world context. All the pertinent information will be tabbed and noted in your jam track, reference, and study materials.

Playing with TrueFire’s jam tracks has definitely made a change in how you practice. You have control of the jam tapes to slow them down, repeat areas needed. You can also slow down the tab and notations for easy learning.

If you are concerned about having to learn to read music and learn music theory, don’t be. You will play your way through all of the guitar courses until you are ready or find the need to learn how to read music.

What You'll Learn and How It Works

  • You’ll get in the groove with a classic rhythm pattern.
  • Learn a chord progression that many songs use.
  • Versatile Fingerstyle technique for use in any song.
  • Acoustic guitar techniques.
  • Acoustic blues.
  • 12 Bar progression.
  • New chords.
  • New essential rhythm patterns.

.

You will see demonstrations of all the key examples played over jam tracks (if applicable). This will give you an idea of how to play them in the real world. and how to apply them in a musical, performance context.
You will also see key examples of tabbed and notated charts for your practice. Everything you need for practice, reference, and studies are included in the lesson.
Also included are the Guitar Pro files which enable you to play, loop, or slow down the tab and notation as you practice the lessons. You can repeat any section as needed so you can really learn the material. It is all under your control.
The great thing is that all the jam tracks are yours to use as you work on your own.
Take the course at your own speed. Go at the speed that is comfortable for you. It gives you the opportunity to really learn the lesson before moving on to the next lesson.

Are you ready to get started?

The Next Step Towards Being The Guitarist you want to be will be in one of the Learning Path Styles, such as the Jazz Guitar Lessons.

 

Supplementary Material

Supplementary material is available if you want to dig deeper or wider into any part of the material covered in the core course. The Supplementary materials contain more examples, techniques, and insight from the top TrueFire teachers.

More Resources:
10 Lessons My Dad Taught Me About Learning How To Play Guitar
7 New Year’s Resolutions Guaranteed To Make You A Better Guitar Player
Join TrueFire  to get all access to 30,000+ video guitar lessons with tab, notation, and jam tracks!