Advanced Guitar Study Group
Using The Classic
"Mickey Baker's Complete Course in Jazz Guitar - Book 1"
Presented by
Michael Joyce and the Texas Fingerstyle Guitar Association
Lessons (Note New Revisions)
In 1955 Mickey Baker, an aspiring guitarist and guitar
teacher, published a guitar course called "Mickey Baker's Complete Course in
Jazz Guitar-A Modern Method in How-to-Play Jazz and Hot Guitar." This
critically acclaimed course has become a classic as an introduction to colorful
chords and the rudiments of improvisation. It is 52 lessons written in 64
pages. The course is written for the guitarist that has a basic knowledge
of the common chords, such as C, F, G, D, C7, G7, D7, A min, E min, D min, etc.
As the course was written in the early '50's, Mickey assumed that the guitarist
would be playing as a sideman in an ensemble with horns, saxophones, clarinets, and rhythm,
and he asks the student to transpose everything to the orchestra keys: Ab, Bb,
C, Db, Eb, F, and G.
In the first lesson and many others later on, Mickey tells the student to buy a
music writing book and write everything in it for retaining for future
reference. I've interpreted this to be an invitation from the publisher to
write out lesson plans, notes, and arrangements. I've
done just that, using a music writing editor called TablEdit, creating more than 1500
TablEdit files (TEF's) divided among the lessons. These TEF's not only
give us the standard notation staves and tablature staves for fingering, they
also give us a playback capability using the MIDI capabilities of the computer.
I'm sure that Mickey never envisioned a tool such as TablEdit to write the
lesson assignments and arrangements. It is a wonderful way to go
through this course. Using TE to "loop" an exercise, we instantly have someone
to play along with us, and not laugh at our mistakes.
Mickey wrote the course assuming that the guitarist was a
plectrum or "flat pick" guitarist. I've been a fingerstyle
guitarist all of my life, so it's only natural that I've edited the lessons to include a
fingerstyle guitarist's approach, along with anything that Mickey wrote
concerning using a flat pick. Where we students are asked to create original
material from the exercises in the lessons, I've given my personal work as
student participation, and I invite any and all students to send me theirs to
include with the lessons. I've also included additional notes and
exercises that I've gathered over the years. I've also written review
lessons and added appendices that cover topics that were not included or
emphasized in the original course, such as modern comping and Latin rhythms.
The lessons initially will be released one lesson per week for 52 weeks. My role is as a fellow student and hub for the distribution. You
are
only asked to buy Mickey's course, which is still in print, and retails
for US $8.95. Where you buy it is your personal choice. Another requirement is that you have
TablEdit, in one of
its three forms: at a minimum,
TEFview, which is freeware
and allows the user to read, printout, and listen to a MIDI playback of the
exercise; the shareware version of TablEdit, which will allow you to create a
TablEdit Format (TEF) file up to 16 measures; or the fully functional program.
As "students" you're on your own to put as much into it as you desire. I've done
all the transposing for you. All you have to do is play along. Later in the
course, short original solos are created. Since most are much less than 16 measures,
they can be created using the Shareware version of
TablEdit.
You can take the TEF's of the exercises in the "orchestra keys" versions, and transpose to guitar friendly
keys, which would be D, A, and E (C, G, and F are already done.) In the lessons
where you are asked to create something original, you have the option of sending
your work to me, in any form- TE, Guitar Pro, Power Tab, scanned handwritten
manuscripts, etc. I'll take your work and put it into the "Mickey Baker Stylesheet" and the next week include it as an appendix.
If you decide to share your lesson assignments, you'll be asked if you wish to
be anonymous or receive credit for what you've done, and your
wishes will be respected. By many students sharing their work, we greatly increase our
resources, creating more musical ideas.
Here's a simple and relatively painless way to learn how to use a few new chord
shapes, chord substitution philosophies, and be able to take an improvised solo
during a blues chorus, vamp chorus, or bridge. Along the way, I have no doubt
that your skills with TablEdit, and seldom used keys like Bb and Eb will greatly
improve just from the assimilation. I can be sure of that, because I know how
much I've improved as a musician during this project.
Please contact me at michaeljoyce@hotmail.com with your comments, and shared lesson assignments.
Above all else, let's have fun while learning!
