Theory & Exercises

Here you find 8 exercises which help you to learn rhythm, rhythm notation and to work it out into practical use. You can use these exercises along with your personal playing level. If you want to take an exam once you finished and practiced all attached exercises please book a private skype lesson. You master an exercise if you can play each through without any interruptions and with mistakes.
If you are new to the topic please first study basic rhythm notation :
These exercises are part of this tutorial :
For an exam please book a private skype lesson :
 

Here you can learn all you need to know about basic rhythm notation. The guitar is a rhythm instrument, so I strongly recommend that you learn the basics of rhythm notation since rhythm is 50% of the music.
If you are finished with with basic notations please start with the rhythm exercises :
If you need any help please book a private skype lesson :
 

Here you can read and learn all you need to know about intervals. This goes along with the this tutorial here :
 

Here you find all patterns in minor and major pentatonics. The positions are marked with numbers which represent the intervals which are played. As a beginner only focus on learning the position of the 1 which represents the root note. In this case it's the A since the patterns are either in A minor or A major. It is also strongly recommended to learn the pentatonic only on one string. There please also use the 1 as an orientation point.
When you compare the minor with the major pentatonic patterns you might notice that they are the same only the root note has changed. The good news is that once you can play the minor pentatonic patterns you can switch to the major pentatonic patterns just by replacing the root note.

To understand jazz guitar theory it is essential that you understand the diatonic chord progressions, the steps, the chordprogressions which come out of the diatonic chord progressions and where the " options " come from. This is a short but very comprehensive theory file which puts all knowledge together on 7 pages. You might not understand everything immediatly but this shall be your almanach to really go into real jazz theory which is in fact needed to understand jazz. Take your time on it and keep the file for any future reference which will come up for you when you study jazz guitar.