For a few years now, JamPlay Guitarist Toolkits have been released every December as a gift to our annual members. Each year, we create hundreds of hours of incredible learning material in the form of these Toolkits — and every December we retire the previous batch to bring in the new. Well, we decided that it’s time to open the vault and make these available in the Members Area for streaming access!

For PRO Members

We will be making all 9 of the most recent Guitarist Toolkits stream-able in the Members Area for JamPlay PRO members* before January 1st. These Toolkits and their supporting materials (JamTracks, Tabs, Stems, etc) will still also be available for download.

From now until the end of the year, we will announce one Toolkit each week for streaming access. Stay tuned for updates!

Week 1 – Unlocking Rhythm Guitar

Week 2 – Blues Essentials

Week 3 – Rock Essentials

Week 4 – ??

For All Members

Throughout the coming year, we will be adding the FULL ARCHIVE* of Guitarist Toolkits to the Members Area for streaming access. Right now, the Unlocking Rhythm Guitar Toolkit is available for STREAMING in the Members Area and unlocked for all members to get a taste!

*The Unlocking Rhythm Guitarist Toolkit is now available to all JamPlay members for streaming. The Blues Essentials Toolkit (for streaming or download) is available to PRO members as well as members who have purchased access to this toolkit. The full archive of Guitarist Toolkits from previous years (2020 and earlier) will be added in 2022 and will be available to all members for streaming and download.

In this new JamPlay course with Mark Kroos, we are spicing up the way that you solo over the 12-bar blues form. The 12-bar blues makes an appearance in almost every music genre — from Country and Rock, to Funk and obviously, Blues. This course is all about soloing over the 12-bar blues form, how to improve this skill, and getting more comfortable with guitar improvisation.

This is not necessarily a Blues course. We’re going to take ideas from different music genres and implement them into your playing over the 12-bar blues.

Learning to improvise over the 12-bar Blues is the perfect vehicle to work toward soloing over chord changes.

If you’re getting bored with the 12-bar blues form, you might find yourself reverting to minor pentatonic scale shapes. And that’s ok — the minor pentatonic scale can be used over the entire 12-bar blues. But if you’re looking for something new and fun, this course is designed to spice up your playing and spruce up your improvisation, by exploring a wide variety of concepts:

• Switching between major pentatonic and minor pentatonic scales for improvisation, based on our chord changes.
• Dorian mode and Mixolydian mode / Mixolydian Blues scale
• Arpeggios
• Target tones, guide tones, and moving between chord tones
• Using arpeggios to create some really cool lines
• Harmonized lines
• Double stops
• Running sixths up and down the neck of the guitar
• Using harmonized bends to illustrate our chord changes
• Whole tone scale
• Diminished scale
• Diminished arpeggios and how we can use those over the dominant seventh chords in our 12-bar blues

We’ll be borrowing a lot from Jazz in the latter part of this guitar course but we’ll be able to connect it to other music genres like Rock, Funk and Country.

Before you get started…

It will be helpful if you already have some knowledge and skill in the following areas:

• At least one pentatonic scale (major or minor)
• Major scales
• Basic guitar chords
• Dominant seventh chords
• Very basic hammer-on and pull-offs
• How to bend a string

By the end of this course, you’re going to have a lot of options and a lot of tools in your toolbox for working your way around a 12-bar blues solo. It’s also going to give you a very advanced understanding of what you can do when you approach dominant seventh chords — whether that’s in a 12-bar Blues or another piece of music. This course is geared towards intermediate players although advanced guitar players can definitely have fun with it as well!

Spice Up the Blues contains 25 lessons along with a handful of solos sprinkled in to help you master the shapes and skills you’ve been learning. To access the full course, you must become a JamPlay member.

In this lesson from Marcelo Berestovoy’s JamPlay course, Jazz Chording & Comping (Core Skills), you will explore Jazz guitar chords / chord shells — a quick and easy way to maneuver through jazz chord progressions without actually fleshing out the full chord.

Chord shells are very useful and you definitely want to learn them with the roots on sixth and fifth strings. Marcelo will walk you through these variations while providing tips for finding an implementation for each chord progression that is comfortable for you.

By the way, if you don’t know how to play the 12-bar Blues, stop whatever you’re doing and learn that.

This lesson ends with a few simple exercises to help you practice the chord shells you just learned. Play along with Marcelo’s 12-bar Jazzy Blues progression.

Jazz Chording & Comping: Core Skills contains 24 lessons along with backing tracks that let you play along. To access the full course, you must become a JamPlay member.