Chords / Voicings

Slash chords, distinguished by a chord followed by a forward slash and a bass note (e.g., C/G), are a powerful tool for enriching your guitar sound.

This guitar lesson for beginners unravels the mystery behind slash chords, revealing how they redefine familiar shapes and add a touch of sophistication to your chord progressions.

"Blue Bossa" is a jazz standard composed by trumpetist Kenny Dorham and one of the most popular Bossa Nova song.

The tune has since become a popular jazz standard, covered by numerous artists as Joe Henderson, Art Pepper, Dexter Gordon and many more.

This guitar lesson provides an easy chord study with tab / notation and YouTube short video to learn how to comp over it.

You'll find the related PDF transcription in the GUMROAD STORE.

In this short guitar lesson you will learn how to play 6 types of altered and extented dominant chords (7, 7b9, 9, 7b5, 7b5b9, 9b5) to expand your harmonic vocabulary.

Diminished 7 chords bring a distinctive, mysterious sound to music. Widely used in jazz and classical genres, they infuse tension and creativity into your playing.

This guitar lesson explains how they are built and how to use them thanks to four easy examples.

The harmonic minor scale is a captivating and versatile scale used in various musical genres, known for its distinctive sound due to the raised seventh degree compared to the natural minor scale.

By understanding both chords derived from this scale and the modes within it, you can create compelling harmonic progressions and melodic lines.

Here's an introduction on how to combine chords and modes derived from the harmonic minor scale, including a free PDF (or give what you want) with Tab / standard notation. 

This guitar theory lesson about harmonic equivalents provides six examples, that demonstrate how dominant seventh chords (rootless, altered or extended) can also be considered as other types of chords (min6, dim7, 7).

This short guitar lesson is to practice voice leading with 10 different sus4 chord voicings built with notes from the G Mixolydian mode. Transcription with Tab & Short video available at the end of the article.

This brief guitar theory lesson explains what is a dominant 7 chord and its possible extensions (natural and altered) thanks to a printable infographic containing two neck diagrams.

This short guitar lesson provides 14 ways of connecting dominant chord voicings on the same string set (7 and extended) and three easy lines using the Mixo Blues Scale. A free transcription in PDF (or give what you want) is available here on the GUMROAD store.

Arpeggios are a fundamental aspect of music theory and play a pivotal role in creating expressive melodies, harmonies, and improvisations across various musical genres. In this exploration of basic arpeggios, we will learn how to connect Maj7, 7, min7, m7b5, dim7, min6, and 6 arpeggios (by moving only one note at a time) and how to make the link with basic chord shapes.

This guitar lesson implies playing secondary dominant seventh chords of the harmonized major scale. Free PDF available on GUMROAD and four YouTube short videos at the bottom of this page.

In music theory, the terms "dominant," "subdominant," and "secondary dominant" are used to describe different types of chords and their functions within a key or harmonic progression. Here's an explanation of each term with examples for guitar players.

This is a short guitar study that combines various chord voicings and melodic patterns based on the F major scale. This study includes a short video demonstration as well as a free (or give what you want) downloadable PDF guide for reference and practice.

This lesson provides a short guitar exercise that will expand your theoretical notions and fretboard knowledges. The principle being to harmonize the C major scale with 3-note chords also referred to as shell voicings while inserting short lines (from the major scale) between each chord.

This jazz guitar lesson for beginners provides an easy study to practice octave playing and basic jazz chords over a Blues in Bb. It is available as a YouTube Short Video and a free transcription in PDF with chord shapes tab and standard notation.

Here are two easy guitar chord studies to apply over the jazz tune Solar by Miles Davis. The first one implies 3-Note chords while the second implies 4-note chords. Free PDF and YouTube Short video available.

In this short lesson for beginners you will learn how to build basic triad chords on guitar, how to connect, hear and recognize them in an easy way, step by step. Four exercises with tab/standard notation and neck diagrams are proposed here, the aim being to play the six main types of triads on different string sets without displacing the hand.

GET THE FREE PDF (or give what you want) HERE

This cheat sheet provides 30 voicing shapes for playing 30 types of open A chords on guitar :

Am, A, A+, Asus4, Asus2, Amadd9, A5, A6, Am6, A6/9, Am6/9, A7, Adim7, A7sus4, Amaj7, Am7, AmMaj7, Amaj7b5, Am7b5, A7+, A7b5, A7b9, A7#9, A7#5b9, A9, Amaj9, Am9, A11, Am11, A13.

This guitar lesson is about a harmonic concept mapped out and developped by jazz musician Barry harris that can be found in the book "The Barry Harris Harmonic Method For Guitar" by Alan Kingstone.

This blog article details a little bit more in depth about what is the major 6 diminished scale and how to harmonize it with major 6 and diminished 7 chords.

FREE PDF AVAILABLE HERE ON THE GUMROAD STORE

This chord theory lesson focuses on how to transform a dominant 7 chord (drop 2, drop 3 and related inversions) into a rootless ninth chord by replacing the tonic (1) with the ninth (9). 

This technique will help guitarists expand their harmonic knowledge and also explore their neck in more depth. This can be a useful trick when composing or for chord melody arrangements.

This video with tab and diagrams is a chord melody arrangement for jazz guitar of the famous Duke Ellington's jazz tune "In A Sentimental Mood". The aim being to mix the melody and the chords together as a piano player would do.

In this guitar lesson you will learn how to transform a diminished 7 chord into a dominant 7 and also a minor 6 chord either by lowering or raising only one note in order to get a smooth transition. Check the GUMROAD shop to get the free PDF.

This blog article dedicated to guitarists answers the question that many beginner musicians ask themeselves : What is the difference between half-diminished and fully diminished (Diminished 7) ?

This guitar lesson with charts and shapes will help you understanding the differences between major 9, add9 and dominant 9 Chords. How they are built and how to play them on guitar.

This guitar lesson provides 10 easy exercises for understanding the relationship between the Melodic Minor Scale and altered dominant seventh chords. This is a free course (or give what you want) with a printable PDF with tab/standard notation and a YouTube short video. 

This guitar cheat sheet shows the relation between a dominant 7 chord and a minor 7 chord. All the shapes are drop 2 voicings with bass notes on the fifth string. The aim being to move only one note at a time, separated by a half step (one semitone).

In this theory lesson we will see how to add natural and altered extensions to 7th chords. The aim being to bring new colors and so to embellish your chord progressions. This concept is a very important device for composing, chordal accompaniment and chord-melody arrangements.

Here is a free lesson to learn some 2-5-1 jazz chord voicings in the style of Joe Pass. PDF with tab and Youtube short video available for free (or give what you want) here in the GUMROAD ONLINE SHOP.

This guitar theory lesson covers a very important topic that any musician must know : How To Harmonize The Natural Minor Scale? In other words, you will learn how to build triads and seventh chords starting on each note of the natural minor scale.

Here is a new free guitar lesson showing how to play the major scale (C major) in thirds. This two-in-one exercise also includes an easy walking bass line built with drop 3 chords. The full transcription with tab/score is downloadable in a PDF format here in the Online Shop.

This theory lesson for guitarists covers one the most common question asked by beginner musicians : what's the difference between a dominant seventh and a major seventh chord.

This blog post provides a guitar lesson implying a basic jazz line, built with notes from the Ionian mode (major scale), harmonized and transposed in halftone steps. Once again you'll find the free PDF of the lesson transcribed in tab / standard notation in the GUMROAD SHOP and also the related Youtube short video at the bottom.

This page provides a collection of cheat sheets explaining in a simple and effective way how guitar chords are built and how they are connected one to the other. The idea is to understand where are located each chord tone of a specific voicing and how to connect these chords them by moving only one note at a time. Notice that this page is regularly updated with new shapes, don't forget to subscribe the newsletter to stay informed.

This short jazz guitar study with tab, score and chord charts provides some easy jazz lines to apply over three common chord progressions found in jazz. These licks will help you better understand what scales and modes can be used over basic chord changes. You'll find a link to the free PDF at the end of this lesson.

An altered chord is a chord containing one (or several) altered notes that don't belong to the diatonic scale. These notes are the b5 (flat fifth), #5 (sharp fifth), b9 (flat ninth), #9 (sharp ninth). In other words, altered chords are diatonic chords where the fifth and/or the ninth have been lowered or raised by one semitone.

In this guitar lesson we will see that they can be grouped into three disctinct families that are (major, minor and dominant) and also how to play them on guitar.

You'll find here an infographic related to the lesson about upper structure triads on guitar. 

This guitar lesson discusses a very useful way to come out new colors to your soloing or comping ideas called "Upper-structure Triads. This technique consists of superimposing triads to highlight extended notes of minor, major and dominant chords.

This lesson provides a chord melody arrangement for guitar of the famous song "Days of Wine and Roses" written by Henry Mancini (music) and Johnny Mercer (lyrics) for the movie film of the same name. 

Altered chords are a very important part of jazz language, they are built by altering with a flat or a sharp one or more notes of a diatonic chord. They are very useful to bring a little bit of tension to any jazz chord progression.

This lesson focusses on dominant seventh flat fifth chords (7b5), that are dominant seventh chords with a lowered fifth, given the formula : root (R), third (3), flat fifth (b5) and minor seventh (b7).

Here is 12-bar jazz-blues study in Bb with guitar tab and standard notation mixing basic jazz chords and minor blues scale fragments. You'll find it for free (or Pay What You Want) on jazz-guitar-licks Gumroad store.

This free guitar chord chart available as a PDF file contains the most important altered and extended dominant guitar chord shapes that any guitar player should know. It is totally free (or Pay What You Want) in return, don't hesitate to support this website.

Here is a cheat sheet containing three easy exercises for connecting basic guitar chord shapes as min7, maj7, dim7, m7b5, 7sus, 9th, 7#9, 7b9, min6, 6. It is available for free (or Pay What You Want) in Jazz Guitar Licks Gumroad Shop.

This music theory cheat sheet file explains effectively how drop 3 chords are built. You can download the printable PDF file (better quality) for free (or make a donation to support this website) following this link.

Drop 2 chords are built by dropping the second highest note of a close chord down an octave, thus giving four supplementary ways of playing a seventh chord (min7, maj7, dom7, m7b5, dim7, aug7, augMaj7).

This free music theory cheat sheet will help you understand how these drop 2 voicings are built. You can easily get it for free (or name a fair price) in PDF format on GUMROAD.

This lesson provides a chord study with tab of the Latin jazz tune Armando's rumba by Chick Corea based on the Latin Real Book version in C minor. Here below you'll find guitar tabs corresponding to the four main parts of the tune (A-B-C-D).

The chords used in this arrangement are mostly seventh chords as min7, maj7, dim7 and dom7 (drop 2, drop 3 and rootless voicings) including basic triads (min, aug) and altered dominant chords (7#9, 7b13).

A new tutorial has been published on Jazz Guitar Licks YouTube channel. It is shows how to play the main triads on guitar using neck diagram shapes. The triad discussed are : minor, major, diminished, augmented and suspended 2 & 4, don't hesitate to like, comment and share this video.

For those who'd like to get the printable PDF version and get more triad voicing shapes (open and close), there is a new method available since a few days, just click on the picture below to get it.

Suspended chords are chords derived from triads and tetrads, the third is replaced with a fourth (most of the time) or a second, making them chords that are neither major nor minor. This lesson with charts, tabs, and diagrams, teaches how these chords are constructed and how to play them on the guitar.

Satin Doll by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, witten in 1953, is one of the most famous jazz tune. It has been recorded by many jazz musicians as Wes Montgomery, Ella Fitzgerald, Mc Coy Tyner, Oscar Peterson and of course Duke Ellington himself. It has become a classic jazz standard, a must-hear, very popular at jam sessions.

This guitar lesson with chord shapes and scale charts explains how to play easy jazz chords and what basic scales to choose for improvising over Satin Doll.

Check out the latest video from the YouTube channel. This is a chord melody arrangement for guitar of Duke Ellington's jazz standard "Satin Doll".

This free lesson with tabs is intended for intermediate players who want to practice some drop 2, drop 3 voicings, walking bass lines, chords inversions and substitutions over one of the most popular jazz tune.

Half-diminished chords (aka m7b5) have an especially important place in jazz music. They are generally found in minor 2 5 1 progressions as the ii chord or can be used as substitutions for dominant 7 chords. This blog post provides 28 different shapes based on drop 2, drop 3 and drop 2-4 voicings for playing m7b5 chords on guitar.

Here is a transcription (tabs, and standard notation) of the guitar comping played by Howard Roberts in the jazz standard Blue Moon with Julie London. You will find in the following:

• The original version.
• The YouTube video with the transcription and the tabs / notation overlayed.
• Four free png files.

This blog post provides 28 positions with intervals to play major seventh chords (maj7) on guitar. Three types of voicings are used : drop 2, drop 3, drop 2-4 and their inversions.

The diagrams are organized this way:

Dominant 7 chords are surely the most important to know when you want to try your hand at jazz guitar. These chords are very present in jazz and blues tunes, that's why it is crucial to know them at your fingertips.This quick lesson show 28 dominant 7 guitar shapes based on drop 2, drop 3 and drop 2-4 voicings. 

This guitar lesson with tabs and theory is about cluster chord voicings. These are chords in which at least two notes are grouped together in order to create a sort of dissonance.

Cluster chords are sometimes quite difficult to play on guitar but they have a very interesting sound widely used in comtemporary jazz and neo-soul music.

This blog article provides 28 guitar chord shapes to play minor seventh chord on guitar. These positions are built using three different types of voicings as Drop 2, drop 3 and drop 2-4.

Turnarounds are a section of two or four bars at the end of a tune. Their role is to create a harmonic transition going back to the beginning. They are present in many jazz tunes and are an important part of "rhythm changes" progressions. They are also used to create effective jazz intros and endings.

This lesson with guitar tabs contains 17 exercises to gain a better understanding of the I VI II V variations.

Here is a serie of guitar walking bass lines and chords cheat sheets for jazz comping.

After You've Gone is a pop song composed in 1918 by Turner Layton. This blog post provides an easy walking bass lines and chords arrangement with tabs for guitar.

Shell voicings are better known as 3-note chords (or guide tone chords), they are made up of the most essential notes (root, third and seventh) that define a chord (the fifth is omitted). They are very useful for beginner guitarists who want to explore basic guitar comping rhythms. This lesson provides the essential chord shapes and exercises for practicing them on guitar.

This concept highly prized by solo guitar players consists in mixing chords and bass lines. It can be very useful for guitarists who want to accompany a singer or a soloist in a duo situation.

Guitar walking bass lines involve playing one note on each beat in order to make the link between the chords of a progression as a bass player would do. 

They are usually played fingerstyle, basses are played with the thumb whereas the other chord tones are played with the fingers.

This free lesson with tabs and guitar shapes provides some easy examples.

A new video is available on the YouTube channel. This is a chord melody arrangement with synced shapes for jazz guitar of the standard All of Me by Simons & Marks.

This lesson provides 15 basic jazz guitar chord positions that every beginning jazz guitar player should know. These chords are grouped into five families : 

• Major seventh chords (Maj7)
• Minor seventh (m7)
• Dominant 7th (7)
• Half diminished / minor seventh flat fifth (m7b5)
• Diminished 7th (dim7)

Learning jazz guitar chords is a real challenge for beginners. In this lesson, you will understand how they are built and how to play them on guitar.

A new video has been published on the YouTube channel. It contains 10 exercises with chord shapes and numeral analysis about different types of variations of the jazz blues progression for jazz guitar rhythm. 

The triad pair system is a technique used by many jazz improviser to build modern improvised lines. It consists of playing two adjacent triads from a scale. The most used are from the major diatonic system, however it is possible to use triad pairs from other scales as melodic minor, harmonic minor and harmonic major. This guitar lesson with tabs, shapes and theory is focused on triad pairs from the major scale only.

This lesson explains how jazz guitar chords are built and how to play them using common positions. This will help you understand, identify, build and play one of the most important types of chords.

All the shapes proposed in this tutorial are movable and playable anywhere on the fretboard. So, try to play them in all twelve keys.

To simplify learning, the voicings used in this course ensure that the root is always the lowest note, either on the sixth, fifth or fourth string. In other words, there are no chords with third, fifth, seventh or any other note in the bass.

Don't hesitate to create your own chord positions. In the meantime, take a look at the following essential chord shapes proposed below, classified into four distinct categories :

• TRIADS
  • (major, minor, augmented, diminished, sus4 and sus2). 
• SEVENTH CHORDS (aka tetrads)
  •  (maj7, min7, dom7, m7b5, dim7, minMaj7, maj7#5, 7b5, 7#5).
• SIXTH CHORDS
  • (maj6, min6).
• EXTENDED CHORDS
  •   (min9, maj9, 9, 6/9, 7#9, 7b9, m11, maj11, 11, m13, maj13, 13, 7b13)

The minor II-V-I sequence is equivalent to the major II-V-I sequence, but played in minor harmonic key. It is a must know for any guitarist who wants to learn to solo over tunes in minor keys.

You will find minor II V I progressions in many jazz tunes as Autumn leaves, Blue Bossa, Black Orpheus, Stella by Starlight, The nearness of you, I love you, Speak low, Soul eyes, Valse Hot, Along came Betty, Stablemates, Are you real, I'll remember April, I hear a rhapsody, Tangerine, In your own sweet way, Nuages and many more.

This guitar lesson for beginners explains what is the minor 2 5 1 progression, what scales and what chords can be used for improvising over it.

Whether simple or compound intervals are a very important part of  music theory. Knowing them allow understand how scales, arpeggios and chords are built.

Intervals are useful tools to visualize the notes and understand their relationships on the guitar fretboard. This lesson with downloadable pdf, guitar shapes and theory will help you better figure them out and play them on guitar.

This lesson dedicated to the harmonic minor scale explains how to build drop 2 and drop 3 seventh chords from it. This action which consists in stacking notes in interval of thirds starting on each tone of a scale is commonly called "harmonization".

This chart show the main shapes for playing diminished triads on guitar. Get more triad positions in the related PDF "126 Triad Chord Shapes".

Blues progressions are fairly present in jazz, there are many variations on the basic structure. In this lesson you will learn the different possibilities and how to incorporate major, minor II V I sequences and turnarounds in order to make them evolve.

In music, a dyad refers to a two-note chord or interval. Unlike traditional chords, which consist of three or more notes played simultaneously, dyads are comprised of only two notes. This guitar lesson explores the concept of diatonic dyads.

How to Play a Jazz Intros and Endings on Guitar?

There are mutliple ways of taking an intro or ending a jazz tune, the truth is that you can play whatever you want.

You can start from the V of the key, simply play the last 4 or 8 bars of the tune, try to incorporate a turnaroud and its several variations, the list is long....

You''ll find in this lesson 10 jazz guitar progressions with tabs, standard notation and audio files that work both as intros and endings for any jazz standards in C major.

Altough all these exercises are in the key of C major, it is possible and very important to transpose them in any key. 

Dominant 7 chords are one of the most important chords to know, they can be found in many styles of music as blues, funk, pop and of course in jazz music. In this lesson we will see how dominant 7 chords are built and how to play them on guitar using 36 different voicing shapes.

This guitar infographic provides 15 easy jazz chords for beginners.

In this lesson we will see how to harmonize the melodic minor scale in thirds with seventh chords. In other words we will see how to build seventh chords by stacking thirds from each degree of the melodic minor scale.

This music theory lesson provides some easy examples for a better understanding of what are inverted chords.

When learning how to play jazz guitar, one of the most important device to master is to play each tone of a chord in order to outline a specific progression.

This is what we call arpeggios. They are great melodic tools when you want to highlight the chords you are soloing over.

This lesson is focused on diatonic seventh arpeggios and their extensions. In a first time, before applying these extensions, it is recommended to have a very strong knowledge of the triads, both the chords and the arpeggios.

Triads are one of the first harmonic tools to study. They are very useful for comping and chordal enrichment. Learning close and open triad voicings increase your harmonic knowledge and at the same time help you discover your fretboard.

In this lesson you will see the main triad chord shapes including root positions and inversions. You will also find some ideas on how to use triads over a II V I sequence, in order to create interesting melodic movement in your comping.

Dominant seventh chords are the most important features in music, you can find them in many styles of music, especially in blues and, of course, in jazz. In this lesson, you will see how to construct drop 2, drop 3 and drop 2 & 4 dominant seventh chords, what is their harmonic function and how to play them on guitar.

What Are Drop 2-4 Chords?

Drop 2 and 4 chords are created by dropping down an octave the second and fourth note of a seventh chord in close position. They can be very important tools for composition and arrangement. This lesson with diagrams provides useful explanations on how to build and play drop 2 & 4 chords on guitar.

What's a Tetrad ?

A basic chord is built with three notes this is what we call "triad chords" or "triads". Tetrad chords aka "four note-chords" or "seventh chords" are simply chords containing four notes, “tetra“ is a Greek root meaning four. Tetrads can be seen as triads with an additional note which can be a major seventh (7) or a minor seventh (b7). 

Arpeggios are essential musical tools that allow you to build pure and beautiful lines while highlighting the harmony. When playing over chord changes, using arpeggios is the most efficient way to connect these chords together.

This lesson provides four exercises with tabs, standard notation and diagrams that will help improve your guitar skills and your theoretical knowledge.

Dominant 7 Chord Altered Extensions - Guitar Infographic

This infographic with guitar freatboard diagrams show how to play all five types of drop 2 chords on the first set of strings (E, B, G and D strings). 

What is Voice Leading in Music?

"Voice leading" is a term that refers to the smooth progression of each voice of a chord. This technique consist to move individually one or several voices up or down by a step from one chord to the next.

Voice leading is very used by composers and improvisers in order to connect chords instead of bouncing them around.

The aim of this lesson is to connect or voice-lead basic four-note chords of the same types by moving only one voice. This technique is very fun and should help you learn some of the most important chords used in jazz guitar. 

Focusing on jazz standards is surely the best way to accelerate the learning process of jazz guitar, making sure to choose easy songs with a few numbers of chords and melodies that can be easy to hear, play and memorize. When learning jazz guitar, it's very important to spend time learning famous jazz songs, it is an essential part of being a jazz musician. Many guitar students are able to play a ton of chords, arpeggios and scales but they can't play a jazz tune mixing both the melody and the chords.

Here are 5 easy chord-melody arrangements of popular jazz songs for beginning jazz guitarists. Each lesson is available for free as a YouTube video with guitar chord diagrams overlayed in real time. 

​​

• Beautiful love (Wayne King, Victor Young and Egbert Van Alstyne)
• Misty (Errol Garner)
• Moon river (Henry Mancini)
• Stella by startlight (Victor Young)
• Autumn Leaves (Joseph Kosma)

What Are Drop Voicings?

Drop voicings are chords which span more than an octave. They are very useful tools in music composition and arrangement and are greatly appreciated by guitarists for comping and soloing.

There are several types of drop voicings as drop 2, drop 3, drop 3-4, drop 2 and 4 voicings and drop 2-3-4 voicings. This lesson focuses on drop 3 voicings only. You will see how they are built and how to play them on guitar by using the chord shapes and tablatures provided on this page.

Autumn leaves is one of the most popular non-American jazz standards on pick-up gigs and records. It is a must-know tune for any jazz guitarist and a great choice when you want to play both chords and melody on guitar. This guitar lesson provides an easy chord melody arrangement to play this famous jazz tune.

Autumn leaves is a 1945 song composed by French musician Joseph Kosma. The original lyrics are in French, written by Kosma but in 1947 Johnny Mercer wrote the English ones. Since that time it has become a very popular song and surely one of the most played jazz standards.

This song is in a AABC form (32 bars), very much appreciated by beginners because the harmonic progression is pretty simple to play and easy to understand. It covers a very important chord sequence found in jazz, the ii-V-I both in minor and major.

What's An Altered Dominant Chord?

Altered dominant chords are used to bring tension and an outside flavor to jazz chord progressions. They generally resolved to an inside chord as the I or a substitute as iii or vi.

Altered chords have one or more notes lowered or raised by a half-step, in other words they contain one or more alterations. These alterations can be b9,#9, b5 (#11) and b13 (#5).

They are generally used by jazz musicians, composers and arrangers as substitutions for diatonic chords for adding dissonance and spicing up the harmony.

Drop 2 chords are very important tools in jazz music. They are very useful for comping, chord soloing, harmonizing and building chord melodies.

The first chapter of this lesson provides all the drop 2 voicing shapes, major seventh (M7), minor seventh (m7), dominant seventh (7), half-diminished (m7b5) and diminished seventh (dim7) to play on the guitar neck.

The second explains how to connect them with notes of the major scale.

In jazz, there are many types of turnarounds and progressions that eventually we all must encounter. A key part of how you practice should be in preparing yourself for these progressions and turnarounds.

Whether that is by learning a shed-full of Parker’s II V I licks, by practicing exercises over progressions or even by learning a new standard.

The end result is that you are better equipped to deal with what is in front of you in the moment on the bandstand.
To this end, I’m going to talk to you today about a progression known as the backdoor progression.

In this lesson you will learn to recognize 14 important jazz chord progressions as minor and major II-V-I, turnarounds and their variations, how to use diminished passing chords...etc.

You will also find charts with roman numerals to easily transpose these harmonic progressions in different keys and some examples of comping with audio files, tabs and standard notation.

A new video has been uploaded on the YouTube channel. It is a Barry Galbraith comping study named "Like someone". This is the last study from the Barry Galbraith book "Jazz guitar comping series, vol #3" published by Jamey Aebersold. 

Most of the accompaniments studies (comps) in this book are designed to accompany a melody or an improvised solo with bass lines like a pianist would do. It is a very great book to practice jazz guitar comping.

You will find in this page 5 exercises to learn to play different jazz guitar chord voicings over the most used chord progression in jazz, the famous II-V-I sequence.

Generally, when a beginner start to learn to play guitar, he tackles open chords (up the guitar neck), those found in many popular songs.

Then, come the bar chords (major, minor, dominant 7) a little hard to master. But all these chords do not have a very interesting sound and are not mostly used in jazz music.

That's why in this lesson for jazz beginners we will take the main basic guitar bar chords to transform and enrich them so that their sonority is richer, exciting and better suited to jazz concept.

The tritone substitution sometimes referred to as dominant chord substitution is one of the most popular harmonic technique found in jazz and other styles of music.

It involves replacing a dominant seventh chord with another dominant seventh chord located a tritone (or augmented fourth) away from the original chord's root.

A new video is online on the youtube channel. It is a quick jazz guitar chord melody arrangement with chord diagrams of the famous jazz standard "Stella by Starlight" (Victor Young). 

This guitar lesson explains what is m7b5 chord, how to play it on guitar and how to apply it in common harmonic contexts as major and minor II-V-I progressions.

What is an Interval ?

An interval is the distance between two notes, each one is represented by a number (1,2,3,4,5,6,7...) and a prefix related to its quality ("M" for major, m for minor, "P" for perfect, "d" for diminished and "A" for augmented). There are five different qualities.

An interval can be melodic, when the tones are successive (played one after the other) and harmonic, if the notes are stacked (played simultaneously). Knowing the name of each interval on guitar and on any other instrument is very important.

Intervals are essential elements of music theory. Intervals are very useful to understand how chords and scales are built. This article shows you how to make the difference between them.

Seventh chords (aka four-note chords) represent the backbone of jazz harmony. It is common to extend them with extra tones. These other notes form the upper structure of a chord which includes the 9th, 11th and 13th.

Adding extensions to chords help to get off the beaten tracks and provides some new harmonic colors to your playing (chord soloing, comping, and arrangement).

This lesson provides useful extended major 7th chord shapes to apply to your playing.

What Is Chord Substitution?

Chord substitution is to replace a chord by another one to add more harmonic interest to a piece, a song or a chord progression. In jazz music, this technique is widely used by composers and improvisers. It can be useful to reharmonize a chord sequence or a jazz standard.

This lesson will help you better understand what is the diatonic chord substitution.

This lesson is about a 12-bar blues in the key of Bb included two guitar transcriptions with tabs : a guitar walking bass line for the accompaniment and a guitar improvisation to solo over.

Note that this study is based on a common blues jazz progression? but with a descending chromatic progression in bars 7 & 8 using three dominant 7th chords (Bb7, A7, Ab7) to approach G7 at the end of the bar 8.

Bb7 | Eb7 | Bb7 | % | 

Eb7 | Edim7 | Bb7 A7 | Ab7 G7 |

C-7 | G7 | Bb7 G7 | C-7 F7 | 

Major 6 and minor 6 chords are often used in place of major 7 and minor 7 chords when comping over jazz standards. That's why it is very important to be able to play them on the guitar neck.

There are two main types of chords that contains a sixth, M6 and m6. These chords are made up of 4 notes and built with the interval patterns :

• R - 3 - 5 - 6 for major 6 chords.
• R - b3 - 5 - 6 for minor 6 chords.

This lesson provides 24 guitar diagrams and voicing charts to play these major 6 and minor 6 chords on guitar.

The origin of the "so what chord" name would be due to its use by the jazz pianist Bill Evans in the modal tune "So what" by Miles Davis.

This is a cool and modern sounding chord voicing often used as an alternative to quartal voicings. It is built with a fourth chord on the bottom (3 perfect fourths stacked) and a major third added on the top. 

This particular chord was originally played on a piano, but it is quite interesting to play it on the guitar to support rhythmically and harmonically a soloist over a modal tune.

This jazz guitar rhythm lesson with tabs and diagrams provides you some interesting ideas of comping inspired by McCoy Tyner's playing on "impressions" by John Coltrane. 

"There Will Never Be Another You" is a popular song by Harry Warren (music) and Mack Gordon (lyrics). It is one of the most known jazz standards and an indispensable study for any jazz guitarist.

This jazz guitar comping lesson provides you different chord voicings (drop 2, inverted, rootless and extended chords) on the top four strings of the guitar to comp over this jazz tune. By the way, it will also give you some new ideas to support harmonically a soloist. 

What is Quartal Harmony?

To enrich and modernize the harmonization of a piece it is common to use fourth chords. They can replace some original chords to bring more melodic freedom into improvisation and more tension in harmony.

Since the late 1950s, harmony in fourths has played a very important role in the development of modern jazz. Musicians and composers have used a lot the quartal harmony.

Among them, the great American pianist McCoy Tyner, who, is a master in the art of playing quartal chords. Mike Stern, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Bill Evans and Kurt Rosewinkel have also used this technique. 

In this lesson with tabs and shapes, we will see how to build chords in fourths, how to harmonize the major scale with and how to use them in comping. 

The major II-V-I sequence is the most common chord progression used in jazz music but also in a whole number of styles of music as pop, rock, blues, country. This theoretical element is a must know for any guitarist who wants to learn the jazz language. 

The 2-5-1 progression is present in many jazz standards (Summertime, Autumn leaves, Blue bossa, All the things you are and many more), this is why it is very important to master it.

One of the fundamental theoretical elements to understand music is the harmonization of the major scale. Harmonizing scale is building chords with notes. This lesson explains how to create triads and seventh chords from each note of the major scale.

Drop 2 chords are very used and appreciated by guitarists of all styles, they are formed by dropping the second highest note of a four-note chord in close position down an octave.

This guitar theory lesson with diagrams and charts explains how drop 2 chords are built and how to play them.

Misty is a jazz standard written by Erroll Garner following a 32-bar progression in the key of Eb including some common chord sequences as II-V-I, I-VI-II-V. A very popular ballad that has crossed over genres of music for the past 50 years (1959). This lesson provides a guitar chord melody arrangement with a Youtube video and a brief analysis.

Mastering triads is necessary for any guitarist who wants to expand his fretboard and theory knowledge.

These chords are not really considered as jazz chords because of their basic sound, but they can be efficient tools for comping and chord soloing. Indeed, the strong point of these chords is the simplicity of learning and playing.

You will find in this guitar lesson 84 ways of playing triads (major, minor, diminished and augmented) using root and inverted voicings in close and open positions.

How Chords Are Built?

Chord formulas show all the notes which constitute a chord. They reveal their structure and provide a link between scales and arpeggios.

Why Learning Chord Formulas

Knowing the structure of chords will help you find any chord position on the guitar when you only have the name. This will help you better understand the difference between many types of chords.

Learning chord formulas is necessary for anyone who wants to expand their musical knowledge and increase their guitar playing skills.

The formula chart below show how the main types of chords are built.