Learning these ideas will be helpful. I also strongly recommend picking up the Charlie Parker Omnibooks. There are two volumes. Real Books are useful. A recent release was ‘New Standards’ by Terry Lyne Carrington which has more modern takes.
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Also, regarding bebop, the artists of that era are primarily chordal/arpeggio based. Trying to think within scales rather than intervals will just be confusing. You will be much better served thinking intervals/arpeggios/chords.
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Great ressources and recommendations, thank you very much!
“Thinking intervals/ arpeggios/ chords” means taking the notes of a chord and then adding enclosures/ targeting notes/ passing notes, right?
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Exactly right.
I am trying to save you a decade of suffering I went through working all this out. Ha.
One more thing I will add would be learning rhythm and how to swing and keep a primary rhythm is MUCH more important than any substitutions or re harmonizations you will ever hear. If your rhythm is spot on you can do almost ANYTHING. Seriously. Notes are nowhere near as important. Rhythm should be your number one priority. Ironically, very few people put it up there where it belongs; however, it does separate the wheat from the chaff.
Have fun! If you are not having fun your done so have fun. 
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Ram, that’s quite a chart you provided. May I ask where it’s from? LOTS of info there.
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A fellow posted it on the internet and I saved it. It was a bunch of info I had discovered in various resources over the years. I liked that he had put it all on a page. I cannot recall the group or person. I just enjoyed the brevity and always enjoy an organized page.
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Thanks, Ram. It is concise and well organized. I saved it for future reference.
Good stuff in this thread about how to target notes.
When choosing which notes to target, you can focus on “guide tones”, chord tones that outline the changes between chords (especially 3rds & 7ths). Here’s a good article about that: How to Use Guide-Tones to Navigate Chord Changes | Learn Jazz Standards
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Bebop is a much more complicated language than a lot of other styles of improv, especially those that are common on the guitar.
I think that combing through many of the linked resources might get you somewhat in the ballpark of incorporating a few surface level elements of the music into what you might already play. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
But most people who do learn how to improvise even ‘ok’ with this language, it takes a lot of time and dedicated study, and in most cases I think work with a teacher experienced in teaching this music - even if infrequently - is essential. But again that’s for like, ‘being able to play jazz’ which is different than just exposure to some elements.
Some relevant misc:
- I think more or less any ‘rule’ you might come across online will have a lot of exceptions. For example, chord tones on downbeats, or a certain amount of chromaticism, or always accenting upbeats, etc etc. I’ve transcribed and listened to a lot of bebop and have not found any basic truths like that that apply across the board.
- Listening and transcribing, but (most importantly, listening) is primary. Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Sonny Stitt, Dexter Gordon, Dizzy Gillespie
- Bebop is a specific subgenre of jazz, so the way Charlie Parker lines are constructed is different than early Coltrane, which is different from late Coltrane, which is different from Woody Shaw, different from Chick Corea, on and on.
- If I had a gun to my head and somebody said I had to recommend just one thing and only thing, I’d probably say to listen to, play, and sing as much Charlie Parker as possible. Play the lines in different fingerings, keys, octaves, try to sing along as you play. Certain things are just hard to codify or explain in a youtube video - sometimes there’s no better access or connection to the music than just experiencing in yourself - and you may wind up making your own observations.
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I agree with this.
For those who want a rules-based approach, Barry Harris is a great place to start. (He has a lot of rules that he teaches, and they definitely give you a bebop flavor.) There’s a guy----name escapes me at present–with a YouTube channel called Things I Learned from Barry Harris. He’s a guitarist, so he’s demonstrating everything on a guitar. That’s one way to make headway down that road.
I enjoy hearing Charlie Parker play, but bebop is not really my thing. (I listen to Charlie Christian more often than Charlie Parker.) I think Miles Davis had the right idea: there’s more to music (even jazz) than that. 
Pat Martino Linear Expressions, Bird Omnibook that covers alot, there’s also Bird for guitar w tab if u need it. Lots out there, anything by Joe Pass, imo…all depends what style Jazz really but…I keep going back to Bird all these yrs later
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Years ago a teacher put me to work on Martino’s Linear Expressions. Great stuff. Had some problems with a few “activities”. In retrospect, that may have been when I went down the rabbit hole of “changing my picking.” Years later, my main habit with picking is changing it! 
This course from Richie Zellon is specifically about learning to play bebop on guitar. He addresses soloing with arpeggios and enclosures quite a bit. I started it, but didn’t have the time to really commit. It’s not an easy course and he says to expect to spend a year plus on it. Totally worth it, and even though I haven’t worked my way through it, I still learned a bit.
edit: He also has a youtube channel that has a lot of good stuff!
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I already had the gut feeling that Bebop improvisation is a whole other “animal” than let´s say shred guitar, where you basically have your scale fragments that you play up and down.
On the tip of listening a lot: my problem is that my ears can´t catch up with fast Bebop playing. I dare say I have a relatively good sense of hearing when it comes to Rock and Pop music. It all goes to shreds when I try to listen to e.g. John Coltrane. Especially when it´s only lead instrument, bass and drums (meaning without any harmony instrument like a piano that accompanies). Do you have any advice as to how to learn to hear fast lines?
As I write this, one idea that comes to my mind is this: instead of hearing things “relatively”, I might have to practice hearing licks “absolutely”, not “on the background” of a certain chord.
By the way, great suggestions!
Think of it this way:
“Transcribing” is for sitting down and trying to dicipher exact notes and rhythms by ear.
“Listening” means lying down on the couch and absorbing the “big picture”: the groove, the timbre, the way the musicians are interacting, what changes as the song progresses from start to middle to end.
There are too many things about bebop, and jazz as a whole, that are complicated or heady when you try to turn them into a set of rules or directions, but can become more ingrained and natural through repeated listening. For example: where phrases start and end relative to the bar line. One could write up a list of dos and don’ts on this topic but it’s be hard for the student to assess if they’re on the right track without having the reference in their memory of what the music generally sounds like.
Point is that the “listening” I recommend is different than trying to pick out very tangible specifics. It’s a bit like how a kid learns how to sing back their first song/nursery rhyme …they don’t get it quite right for a while, but it’s just repeated listening, as they can’t like, read the sheet music when they’re 2.
The other thing, transcribing, also essential. That’s where you sit down and try to get the specifics of a small piece of material. If things are too fast, pick something slower. Slow down software is useful but good to not get overly dependent. Working with a program like soundslice, transcribe, or any software where you can view the waveform is a huge time saver because you can isolate the part you are trying to figure out and listen in small sections rather than constantly rewinding an audio track.
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Thank you for the suggestions.
I guess my approach to these things is “wrong” in the sense that it´s not about “getting” every note. I do tend to have a “heady” approach to things, just like you described here.
Though I am curious whether Jazz virtuosos can actually grasp licks by ear and by hearing them once of only a couple of times.
Is there a software that is called “transcribe”?
Yes, there is music software called transcribe.
Music software Transcribe – Transcribe
As for jazz soloing, one approach is to follow the early greats: play the head, play around with the head (-a lot of classic solos came about this way) and move out a bit from there.
Charlie Christian’s “Rose Room” solo (recorded in1939) still sounds fantastic. (It starts around 1:10)
Charlie Christian, “Rose Room”
Much bebop soloing is more about chord changes than the melody. It’s hard to START there. Work up to it. (And if that’s not where you want to wind up, you don’t have to.)
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@Dairwolf Apologies if I was unclear, you may have misunderstood.
I was trying to explain that “listening” and “transcribing” are two different processes, but both important.
“getting every note” is part of “transcribing”
My post was only saying that it’s easier to apply detailed analysis to the transcription part of the process rather than the listening. The analysis is definitely important - there are many cerebral components that are important to learn about, analyze, do exercises with, etc.
I was only saying that “listening” is a separate activity.
All of these things are important, imo, each activity just serves a different function
Though I am curious whether Jazz virtuosos can actually grasp licks by ear and by hearing them once of only a couple of times.
The simple answer might be “yes” but it depends on the length, speed, complexity of the lick, and which musician.
For example, figuring out a 7 note phrase of 8th notes at 180 bpm from someone like Oscar Peterson is easier to grab from one or two listens than a phrase of 8th notes that’s 3 measures long at 300 bpm from someone like Michael Brecker or Chick Corea.
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Ok, I think I get what you mean. A couple of weeks ago I sat down and started analyzing the licks of “Giant Steps”. I wrote down the intervall structure of the licks in relation to the chords and that already gave me some insights. When I actually listen to the recording, I can´t wrap my head around the licks at all. It just eludes my inner ear(s). Long way to go!
This is another push on the utility of a teacher to help with pacing; Giant Steps is a very different kind of tune and arguably a lot more complex (than say, Satin Doll or Autumn Leaves) so even if you make good progress w an analysis of Coltrane’s playing there, it might not be very useful as an introduction to jazz vocabulary.
Also in this thread I think we should be careful about the term bebop vs jazz, bebop as a subgenre with more specific components. Coltrane’s language from the Giant Steps period has a heavy bebop influence but is not bebop. I’m of the school that believes learning at least a little bit of bebop is helpful for understanding the other styles that came after, but some disagree and that can work out fine.
Of all the sub genres of jazz I think of bebop as being the most formulaic (but maybe it’s just the most studied/analyzed/taught) so in a sense that makes it a more tangible starting point for study.
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