Chords

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.

Triads are one of the first harmonic tools to study. They are very useful for comping and chordal enrichment.

Learning close and open (aka spread) triads 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.

The dominant chord 7 is one of the most essential sounds in music. It appears in many styles, especially blues and jazz, where it plays a central role in harmony and progression.

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to build and play drop 2, drop 3, and drop 2 & 4 dominant 7 chord voicings on guitar, while understanding their harmonic function and musical application.

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). 

"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.

This 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 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. 

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• 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)

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. 

In this lesson you will learn how drop 3 voicings are built and how to play them on guitar.

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.