In 2024, Chase’s Guitar Academy featured Rodney Jones, Barry Greene, Chico Pinheiro, and Dan Wilson in Jazz Master Classes that covered specific topics. This format was interesing becuse you get to study with each master in a deeper way.
For Rodney Jones, the first one was on “Practice Essentials” which talked about his approach to practice jazz guitar.
This video begins with Rodney Jones sharing a story of him asking George Benson how to play the way he does. Although he did not get a direct answer from George, Rodney uncovered George’s approach after studying closely the master’s playing over many years.
Taking it from there, Rodney talks about two things: the art of jazz and the craft of the guitar.
He also talks about how to get more practice time from your day. 1% improvement every week is enough to get you to improve a lot over it. This is just one of many philosophical things that he shared in the session.
Moving on Rodney shared his approach to practicing chromatic scales. This was an interesting section as he shows how he approaches the exercises and how fingering choice is an important part of the learning process. This isn’t your typical chromatic scale exercise lesson!
After an exploration of the chromatic scales, Rodney goes into pentatonic sand Gminor pentatonic.
He said so many quote-worthy things during the session. One of it was this quote:
You have to be willing to be bad at something before you’re good at something. Being bad at something is normal.
Another one that resonated with me was this:
“Failing at something is part of it. You have to fail forward. You have to fail and learn, and fail and learn, and fail and learn till you do it. All the failing becomes experience and infrastructure that you build to support your success. You know what not to do really well why? Because you’ve done it wrong a lot. It’s really important to be willing to fail forward, you know, to be willing to be bad at something before you get good at it.”
Continuing from there, he related how you can use various pentatonics within a parent scale – both in Dorian context and for other chords as well. I particularly loved the pentatonics he choose toe get different sound on the John Coltrane classic, Giant Steps.
Related to this, Rodney explained the importance of actually practicing music, and not just exercises. According to Rodney:
“You’re like a tube of toothpaste. When you get squeezed, what’s in you will come out.”
After that, he shared the way he looks at different tunes, specifically explaining the categories of tunes you will encounter as a jazz musician. He also 4 different rhythm guitar playing styles and how they sound like.
Rodney also shares how the “Freeze Pedal” from EHD is one required purchase for his students. The pedal is useful since it allows you to hear lines sound against a chord, which is really important for learning to improvise over chord changes.
All in all, this is a good masterclass to learn about core ways to start improvise and comp. Now that I’ve watched this masterclass, I plan to watch the other two masterclasses from Rodney – How To Learn Tunes & Comping Fundamentals so that I have an even clearer idea of how Rodney appproaches this muic.
Pros: A good introduction to how jazz guitar virtuoso & educator Rodney Jones views studying jazz guitar.
Cons: No accompanying PDFs or notes might be an issue for some students. However, if you’re like me and write down notes, you should be alright.
TLDR: If you like how Rodney Jones plays & want to understand how he approaches jazz guitar & how you can practice more effectively, this masterclass is worth watching and studying.
This video is part of the materials at Chase’s Guitar Academy. You can sign up for a 7-day free trial to watch this video and much more at Chase’s Guitar Academy here (affiliate link).
Thanks to Chase Maddox for inviting me to experience Chase’s Guitar Academy. Although I received complimentary access to the community, my reviews reflects my personal honest experience of the material.
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