chords

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.

This blog post contains free cheat sheets (infographics) for guitar players about the Dorian mode. You will find useful information on how to play chords, arpeggios and minor licks directly related to this minor scale.

Lesson by David Kennedy

This facebook post provides a YouTube video that details how to perform and compose on guitar with any polyrhythm. You will find a link to free resources, including the guitar score and tab in the video description.

Why exploring polyrhythm?

• It can deepen your understanding of rhythm and time signature.
• It’s a very useful tool for generating new rhythm ideas.
• It sounds really cool.

Don't hesitate go watch David's YouTube channel.

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.

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:

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.

Shell voicings are better known as 3-note 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.

They also help understanding harmony, how chords are built, what are the intervals that compose them. You will understand that shell voicings are a good introduction to more complex chords.

This lesson with tabs and audio provides the essential chord shapes and exercises for practicing guide tone chords (aka 3-note chords) 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 for example.

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.

Here are 15 basic jazz guitar chord positions that every beginning jazz guitar student must know. They 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)

This lesson explains how jazz chords are built and how to play them on guitar 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)

These guitar cheat sheets show the relation between common modes and chord shapes.

Two new educational guitar posters are now availbale at Teespring.com. The first one contains 18 essential scale shapes used by guitarists. The second poster provides 63 common jazz guitar chord diagrams. They are both available in giant size,  24 x 60 inches 90 x 60 cm.