Wes Montgomery - While We're Young - Guitar Tab

About While We're Young

Few pieces reveal the gap between "knowing the melody" and "playing with jazz phrasing" as quickly as "While We're Young." Wes Montgomery treated ballads like this as a vehicle for his thumb-picking technique, producing a warm, rounded tone that a standard pick simply cannot replicate. Getting close to that sound means muting the attack with the flesh of your thumb and letting notes breathe rather than driving them. In F major on a standard E Standard guitar, you will be navigating flat keys across the neck, so solid knowledge of the F major and its related modes in multiple positions is essential before you try to phrase musically. The tempo sits at 160 BPM, which is brisk for a ballad reading, so internalize the melody at a slower speed first. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop any two-bar phrase slowed down until your left hand stops thinking and your ear takes over. Jazz phrasing lives in the spaces between notes, so resist the urge to fill every beat.

• Montgomery's signature thumb-picking approach is central to this piece, producing a soft attack that demands practice if you normally use a flatpick.
• F major puts several flat-key chord voicings front and center, making closed-position jazz chords and shell voicings worth prioritising before tackling the full arrangement.
• At 160 BPM the harmonic rhythm can move quickly, so use the Practice Toolbar looped and slowed down to lock in chord changes before playing up to speed.