This is from the Jamzone where we are looking at using the fundamental Jazz 2-5-1 progression.

Here we do a simple Jazz solo sticking to the basic C major scale. This will always work over our C major 2-5-1 chords:

Dm7 | G7 | Cmaj7 | Cmaj7

That's because all those chords come from the underlying C major scale anyway.

In jazz the melodic phrasing tends to be quite different to that of other styles of music. For starters, the 7th note of the scale tends to be emphasised more (B in this case).

Also playing techniques are different. Jazz guitarists tend towards slides, muting, hammers, pull offs rather than bends. We will get more into that in later examples, for now, we'll keep it very basic so beginners can get stuck straight in.

We recommend at least practicing the basic C major scale before getting stuck in. Not only will this familiarise your fingers with the right notes, it will also help your musical ear develop. We've bent the rules a bit in this solo and gone into the next octave a little, but the scale notes are all still C major.

When improvising, stick to this scale for your melodies and you can't go wrong! If you want to have a go at improvising your own melodies, load up the Jazz 2-5-1 Backing ActionTab and let rip! With that C major scale as the basis for your melody you can't go wrong.

You may also find this ActionTab useful (the CAGED system enables you to solo all across the fretboard by just learning 5 scale patterns).

Next we'll look at using other Jazz scale formulas and start jazzing up the technique side of things too.