Easy Soloing for Jazz Guitar: Fun Lessons for Beginning Improvisers

Dempsey refuses to overcomplicate the entry point to jazz soloing. Rather than burying students in chord theory, this book gives them usable patterns and real examples they can play immediately, building confidence through tangible results. The dual notation approach (standard and TAB) ensures no guitarist feels locked out.

Playful and direct. The writing strips away jazz mystique and replaces it with practical encouragement. Examples build gradually, each one revealing how small melodic choices and rhythmic placements create authentic-sounding solos that feel personal, not formulaic.

Beginning jazz guitarists with solid technical fundamentals who feel stuck between reading lead sheets and creating their own lines. This also serves experienced classical or rock players ready to explore improvisation without overthinking it. The low-stress approach works well for self-taught learners who need scaffolding and encouragement.

• Sing the solo line before playing it. Your voice has no frets and no mechanical habits; it clarifies what your fingers should be doing.
• Record yourself playing the backup progression on one track, then improvise over it repeatedly. Each pass teaches you something new about the changes.
• Play the written examples slowly enough that you can hear each note distinctly. Speed comes naturally once muscle memory takes hold.
• Listen to the included recording while reading the notation. Match your eye to the sound so notation stops feeling abstract.

Slot this into your jazz ensemble curriculum for guitarists who need remedial soloing work without sitting through heavy harmonic analysis. It pairs well with rhythm section sectionals because it gives comping players a concrete sense of what soloists do over the changes they're providing. For student jazz clubs or lesson studios, assign it as supplemental material for any guitarist joining the ensemble mid-year.

• Creating simple, melodic lines over major and minor chord progressions
• Reading and interpreting chord changes in real time
• Recognizing and applying basic jazz vocabulary (approach notes, targeting, simple rhythmic displacement)
• Translating written examples into improvised playing
• Building phrase shapes and musical phrasing across multiple bars
• Matching rhythm section comping by ear