Guitar Corner / Chop Development

Chop Development

Jazz guitar students often have trouble developing fluid and effective technique. Although strictly technical exercises are necessary, these methods are often separated from the musical context. In this section of the Guitar Corner we have included select compositions that will assist the advancing guitar student develop practical technique. You can use any audio processing program (GarageBand, Audacity, etc.) to practice these heads at varying speeds to build up endurance and coordination between the left and right hand.

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Dick Garcia

Dick Garcia first picked up the guitar at age nine, teaching himself the instrument and the jazz language well enough to begin working professionally at nineteen with clarinetist Tony Scott.

John Gray

While lesser known than some of his contemporaries, John Gray was a highly versatile and proficient guitarist who recorded with numerous important figures. Over the course of his twenty-one year recording career, from 1947-1968, Gray participated in sessions with the likes of George Shearing, Teddy Edwards, Louis Armstrong, Jack Wilson, and Philly Joe Jones, and recorded the excellent album "The New Wave" (which also features guitarist Herb Ellis) as a leader in 1962.

Toots Thielemans

While his virtuosic harmonica playing was featured on Sesame Street and Midnight Cowboy and his whistling on Old Spice advertisements, Toots Thielemans considered himself first and foremost a guitarist. Born in Brussels, Belgium in 1922, Thielemans got his start playing accordion as a child in his parents’ cafe.