Online learning is one of the easiest, cheapest and most accessible ways to master the guitar. In this article, we’ll introduce you to some of the best websites for online jazz guitar lessons.
The number of websites for learning jazz guitar online is seemingly endless, but which ones are the best? We’re going to narrow it down for you with eight top recommendations, all of which offer a wide variety of lessons and tutorial videos to improve your guitar skills.
Whether you’re looking to master a jazz standard or a particularly tricky chord progression, improve your improvisation skills or generally give your jazz guitar playing a boost, the websites in this list are a great place to start.
True Fire
This website contains an abundance of courses, tutorial videos, guitar licks, tabs, and chord progressions needed to start playing your guitar.
It features professional musicians with many lessons suitable for each level. The videos encompass every musical genre you can think of, so you can easily find jazz-specific videos teaching basic techniques, riffs, and chords.
The website has an advanced search feature where you can filter the options to choose lessons you want to learn according to your skill level.
You will find several tutors demonstrating different techniques utilizing multi-angle video lessons with video tab sync and fretboard view so that you can easily follow along as they play.
ArtistWorks.com
This website is an excellent place to find high quality online jazz guitar lessons.
It offers a wide variety of lessons for a wide range of different instruments, including an extensive jazz guitar course that takes you from the very beginning to the most advanced levels.
The course includes hundreds of video lessons with backing tracks to practice your solos. You’ll also find a detailed curriculum covering music theory, jazz chords, basic jazz phrasing, jazz improvisation ideas, essential scales, and the best ways to practice effectively.
The tutor conducting the course is Dave Stryker, who focuses on warm-up exercises, jazz comping, jazz vocabulary as well as breakdowns of popular standards.
After you finish the course, you can send a video of yourself playing to your tutor, who will review your video and give you tips on how to improve your playing style.
Udemy
We can’t list the best guitar lessons online without mentioning this all-encompassing website. You can find many courses and teachers of jazz guitar using different approaches.
Choose a foundation course to learn about music theory, guitar scales, arpeggios, etudes and jazz guitar basics.
You can then opt for a gypsy jazz guitar lesson, which is a bestseller on Udemy.
Guitar Tricks
This website has a simple layout and categorises its online guitar lessons based on instructors. If you type ‘jazz’ into the search bar you’ll find several tutorials, intro videos, jazz licks, chord progressions and more to help you on your way.
Use these tutorials to practice your jazz skills or explore acoustic guitar lessons to learn the general basics.
These courses are great for beginners or those picking up the guitar after a hiatus!
Jam Play
This platform offers courses across various music genres, but it’s a great place to seek out online jazz guitar lessons with fourteen courses dedicated to the genre.
Featuring 10 different instructors, the website offers dozens of lessons on different aspects of jazz, including core skills, creative chords, smooth jazz and walking bass lines, among others.
Each instructor introduces you to jazz guitar and its history before explaining harmonies, melodies, and solos. The courses are labelled with the difficulty level and runtime to give you an idea of how long it will take to master the skills in each lesson.
You can send your feedback to the website to tell them how you would like to proceed with your courses, and the tutors will respond back with adequate practice techniques as they track your progress through each level.
LessonFace
This website has a different approach that appeals to many music students. Instead of learning from pre-recorded videos, you get to learn face-to-face from an experienced guitar teacher.
The instructors believe the best way to improve your skills is through interactive communication. It saves time from asking questions back and forth and tracking progress virtually.
There are numerous jazz instructors on the website that you can choose from. Simply click on a certain tutor and look up their profile to find out about their qualifications.
You can review their course content and their teaching methods to decide on the most suitable teacher for you. You’ll also find the duration of each lesson and the instructor’s base fee on their profile.
For complex subjects like jazz improvisation and advanced harmony, working with an experienced jazz guitarist in real-time is invaluable.
Justin Guitar
This site was created by Justin Sandercoe, an experienced guitarist who has numerous videos about playing different genres with the guitar.
These online guitar lessons are not all jazz-specific but it’s a great place to learn the fundamentals of jazz guitar. Since it’s managed by one person, you’ll find it simpler and more organised than other websites with various instructors.
When you enter the website, you’ll find a checklist of the instruments, their difficulty level, and genres, so tick the boxes that fit your skills, and then type ‘jazz’ in the search box to find the relevant videos.
Justin divides the courses into 10 to 30-minute videos. You will also find a detailed description of training techniques with various tips and strategies to make the best use of your time.
Acoustic Guitar Plus
This platform is an excellent place to practice your guitar chords. If you don’t like long videos and want to focus on practicing each chord separately, this is the website for you.
You will learn about the most important major and minor chords in easy-to-follow videos. The website includes short videos of sound textures, rhythms, patterns, and fingering styles.
It features professional instructors focusing on all aspects related to acoustic and jazz guitar. The videos are suitable for beginners and intermediate levels and allow you to practice at a steady pace.
With various options for jazz guitar lessons online, it all comes down to the training method you’re most comfortable with.
Whether you like to practice with a live instructor, follow detailed written instructions, or practice with short videos, you can easily find what you’re looking for on the websites mentioned in this article.
Don’t forget to check out more of our articles on jazz guitar. Get inspired by our top ten list of the best jazz guitarists of all time or get clued up on the different parts of the guitar.