chords

A new printable PDF eBook is available. It's about 11 blues progressions for jazz guitar with tabs, analysis (with roman numerals), explanations and audio files, divided into four chapters :

1- Blues progressions and variations
2- Chord studies
3- Guitar walking-bass studies
4 -Rhythm patterns

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Welcome to this lesson on one of the most iconic and modern-sounding chord voicings in jazz — the "So What" chord. Made famous by pianist Bill Evans on Miles Davis’s legendary tune "So What".

In this lesson, we’ll break down how to play the "So What" chord on the guitar, explore its structure, and learn how to move it around the neck.

Whether you're new to quartal harmony or looking to expand your chord vocabulary, this voicing will open up a fresh, sophisticated palette for your playing.

"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 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.

Quartal harmony is a modern jazz harmony technique based on stacking notes in fourths instead of the traditional thirds. On guitar, quartal chords create open, ambiguous and sophisticated voicings that are especially useful for jazz comping, modal jazz and chordal improvisation.

In this lesson, you'll learn how to build quartal chords, play chords in fourths across the guitar neck, harmonize the major scale with quartal voicings, use inversions and four-note shapes, and apply the famous "So What" chord to jazz guitar comping.

Quartal harmony became an important part of modern jazz during the second half of the 20th century, with players such as McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Bill Evans and Mike Stern exploring the sound in different ways.

The examples below include guitar diagrams, chord shapes and practical applications so you can take these fourth-based voicings directly into your jazz guitar playing.

Scale harmonization is the process of creating chords from each note of a given musical scale. This is one of the fundamental theoretical elements to understand music.

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.

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

Even if 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.