chords

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.

Lesson By Nate Jarrell

This lesson is designed to help you expand your chord and voicing vocabulary through the use of modal chord scales.

Each notes of the Dorian, Mixolydian, and Lydian modes are harmonized to give you seven chord voicings based on each of those scales.

This approach is very useful for trio or solo playing because it gives you a voicing with each note in the scale on the top of the chords which allows you to easily harmonize notes from the melodies you are playing.

These are also very useful in for comping in a variety of situations and styles.

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 guitar lesson provides a 12-bar study (free PDF and short video) for practicing the dominant bebop scale, some rootless chords and also three types of arpeggios (min7, dom7 and half-diminished) over a turnaround variation.

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 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 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).

Lesson by Mike Hayes

In this video Mike explains what is the relative minor chord and how to use it to create your own chord melody parts on guitar. This step by step lesson will help you understand how this major and relative minor tonal relationship can open up a whole new world of sonic possibilities.

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 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 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.