Jam Band Toolkit

Genre and Style Guitar Course from Michael Palmisano

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The Jam Band genre has turned into the center of extended improv and creativity when it comes to guitar playing. From bands like the Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers Band, and Phish, we have heard some of the most interesting and amazing long form solos over the course of the last 50 years. You may ask yourself - how do I get my playing to that place? Knowing a bunch of scales and arpeggio exercises doesn't always cut it in this genre. The key to keeping your long solos interesting is learning how to create melodies. Michael Palmisano brings his vast guitar knowledge to the table to teach you subtle yet effective techniques for creating melodies to build your solos around.

30 Lessons

Complete course with step-by-step lessons and practice examples.

Multi-Camera

Course filmed with 6 cameras for the perfect angles.

91% Appoval

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Tabs & Info

Download tabs, helpers, JamTracks and docs included with lessons.

Included

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Full Course Breakdown

This course is designed to focus on chord tones to create melodies. Michael starts by reviewing some basics of music theory and chord theory, allowing you to easily visualize chord tones. These chord tones become the building blocks to your melodic ideas and will help you tell your story, in your way.

Begin the Course
1

Series Introduction

Get ready to jam! In this introduction, Michael takes you through some of the key concepts in this series.

5:25 Runtime

0.0 Difficulty

2

Major Scale Formula

First, let's review some basics. The foundation of everything we'll learn in this course is the major scale. After you memorize this simple formula, you'll be able to play the scale from anywhere on the guitar.

12:33 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

3

Chords in the Major Scale

Every note, or degree of the major scale has a chord associated with it. In this lesson, Michael shows us another formula for learning these chords, which will be the building blocks for future chord progressions.

10:07 Runtime

2.0 Difficulty

4

Essential Major Triads

Now it's time to start distilling our full chord shapes down to smaller chord shapes or triads, which are more manageable, both audibly and physically.

14:06 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

5

Essential Minor Triads

We focused on the major triads in the previous lesson, now it's time to look at the minor shaped triads.

10:06 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

6

Your First Jam with Connecting Triads

In this lesson, Michael looks at connecting some of the triads we've learned in the previous lessons. You'll see how the root, 1st inversion and 2nd inversion triads are all within easy connection range of each other. All of this takes place over your first jam track in this course!

21:31 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

7

Middle String Set Triads

Now let's move these triads off of the high set of strings (E, B and G) and move them to the middle set of strings (B, G and D). Although the shapes will vary a bit from the high set, you'll see the connection points stay the same. Combine these with the high set, and these will make up most of the chord shapes you'll need to know to play this music!

11:46 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

8

Middle String Triad Jam

Let's connect the middle set triads in this lesson. Michael leads us over a jam track in which we'll see how to connect the root, 1st and 2nd inversion chord shapes up the neck.

17:56 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

9

High String Dyads

Distilling down our chord shapes even more now, we go from triads to dyads. This allows us to outline the chords with just the notes that define the function of the chord, in this case, the root and the third. First we'll take a look at inversions on the high string set.

11:51 Runtime

0.0 Difficulty

10

Middle Set Dyads

In lesson 10 Michael continues his study on dyads. This time you're looking at them from the middle string set.

12:06 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

11

5 and 3 String Set Dyads

We can even use the dyads on lower strings. This can give a rich bassy sound when you want it, and the dyad principle is still the same as in the other lessons!

13:18 Runtime

2.0 Difficulty

12

Your First Major Melody

This lesson will harken back to our major scale we learned in the first lesson. Believe it or not, you can make memorable melodies using only 5 notes in the major scale. Michael demonstrates how in this lesson.

13:23 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

13

Your First Minor Melody

Let's move to our first minor melody. If you know your relative minors from the chord scale we learned earlier (the minor 6 chord), this will be a piece of cake to understand. You will be able to use the same melody and fingering used in the major melody lesson with the proper adjustment.

12:39 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

14

Connecting Roots in a Progression

In this lesson, Michael gets you playing over a progression. The concept is simple: look for the root notes around the neck on each chord in the progression. Then, you can start to build other notes off of those root notes. Before you know it, you've got a melody going!

11:29 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

15

Connecting Thirds and Roots

Now we're going to move on to the next note that makes up a chord - the third. Michael shows us how to identify all the thirds in a string set, so that we can access them whenever we want to. Then, we'll see how we can easily connect them to our roots!

11:04 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

16

Connecting Fifths, Thirds and Roots

While it doesn't define the function of the chord, the fifth is nonetheless a very integral part of how the chord sounds. Now we'll identify those fifths around the neck, and learn to connect them to our roots and our thirds.

14:38 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

17

Adding the Missing Note

As you start to see the notes of our chord tones come together on the fretboard, it begs the question, what about the other notes in the major scale? Michael does some detective work in this lesson to learn the identity of our missing note!

11:22 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

18

Adding Chromatics

Now we begin to add new notes that are not found in our chord tones. These are called chromatic notes. They are in essence, the notes in between our chord tones, and can be used to connect them. You can hear great examples of this all the time in Jerry Garcia's playing.

11:33 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

19

Combining Melodies and Licks

We've taken a look at what will be the building blocks of our solos, chord tones and their functions. We've added chromatics, and have a nice tool kit to draw from. Michael now leads us to one of his favorite techniques, combining melodies we create from the tools in our tool kit, and licks that we already know.

18:54 Runtime

3.5 Difficulty

20

Pro Tip: Your Six is Your Four

Consider this sort of a guitar hack. The sixth note of the scale you're in implies the 4 chord. How does that work you ask? Michael breaks it all down in this lesson!

6:52 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

21

Pro Tip: The Five Chord

The five chord is a chord that demands resolution. That's because it contains a leading tone that wants to go back to the root. In this lesson, Michael analyzes that tension, what the leading tone is, and how it relates to all that we've learned so far.

5:33 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

22

Adding Melodies to the Bass

As a rhythm player, mimicking the melody on the bass strings of your guitar can be a very effective technique in the Jam Band genre. Michael gives us some examples of how this concept is executed.

4:25 Runtime

3.5 Difficulty

View this Lesson
23

Adding Melodies to Triads

We've added melodies on the low end of the guitar, now let's look at adding them around the triads that we play on the higher end of the guitar. Michael uses our now familiar chord shapes and explores putting melodies in the spaces around them.

4:45 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

24

Adding Melodies to Dyads

Now we are going to add melodies to our dyads. These melodies, when connected to dyads, bring more of a lead guitar sound to your playing. Michael shows us some simple ways to integrate this cool technique into our playing.

4:16 Runtime

3.0 Difficulty

25

Essential Progressions Part 1

It's time to put the tools in our tool kit to work on some progressions. Michael will play ideas over the track, then you will have a chance to use some of his ideas to create your own solos and rhythms. The first progression is a track in the style of Althea.

6:57 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

26

Essential Progressions Part 2

This track contains the classic progression of I-b7-IV. Connecting chord tones and using dyads are just a couple of techniques Michael uses in this lesson.

5:10 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

27

Essential Progressions Part 3

Now we move to the Am-D7 progression. Start with big chords, then distill them down to our triads and dyads, then we'll begin to create melodies from our chord tone knowledge.

3:50 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

28

Essential Progressions Part 4

Now we look at the classic sounding track that we have used a few times in the course already. The chord progression is simply a B major chord to an A major chord. Be sure to use all the techniques we've covered: full chords, triads, dyads then create melodies.

2:03 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

29

Essential Progressions Part 5

This progression is reminiscent of Franklin's Tower. Again, use your full chords then incrementally break them down into triads, dyads, then play melodies that will connect the chord tones. Good luck!

4:53 Runtime

2.5 Difficulty

30

A Final Challenge

This last progression will present the challenge of throwing in a diminished chord. Michael uses all the techniques we've learned so far, but also specifically shows us how and what to play over the diminished chord when it comes around.

4:00 Runtime

3.5 Difficulty

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Michael Palmisano

153

What's Next

  • Baltimore, MD
  • Playing since 1988
  • 127 lessons at JamPlay
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Award Winning GIT Grad, Founder of PRS Sponsored Guitargate.com, 70k+ students worldwide, and Lead Guitarist in What's Next - Voted 5x "Best Band" in Baltimore, MD. I have been playing guitar since I was 5, and gigging and teaching professionally for the last 15+ years. I genuinely love to teach, and my goal is to help people learn the "why" behind the notes, bridge the gap between rhythm and lead guitar, and ultimately use these tools to improvise and get the stuff in your head out! On a side note, it's truly incredible that the internet has allowed us to connect from all over the world. I believe in online education, and I strive to be as helpful as possible. If I can help you in any way, please don't hesitate to email me with a question or a video for feedback - I respond to each and every message. We're in this together!
Reviews & Feedback 91/100 with 160 ratings
RCOTARIII

All the above . Thank you!

TPellegr

Michael's teaching style is very clear and easy to understand. He also clearly put a lot of thought into this curriculum and made sure to refresh the basics at the start. Great course and lesson.

J.Rod

Michael Palmisano is an amazing instructor who makes everything so easy to understand. Never disappoints! Please keep bringing him back for more!!

michael.minetto

MP is one of the two best YouTube teachers. Love this dude.

Gee.Dubb

Good pace and progression/repetition of the skills/techniques.

robingrant1

Great teacher, well presented, easy to understand and just what I need. ????

hansg

very well explained, how this is being set out. One of the best courses so far!!!

yeetorson

the teacher was easy to understand with the teaching part

AugustFreire

This is a very good lesson.

Caf_gob14

This lesson is definitely an eye opener. Amazing.

case42

Wasn't easy but let's face it nothing is ever easy, only people who practiced so much they can make it look easy.