Essential Chord Knowledge

 

The Basics

If you are new to jazz and unsure where to start, try my 12 basic jazz chords to get you started.

This covers playing the following chord types with roots on E, A and D strings:

  • Major 7

  • Minor 7

  • Dominant 7th

  • Minor7b5

Accompanying video lesson:

 
 
🎵Knowing where to start with jazz guitar can be difficult. There are so many chords and so many songs you could learn, but your first port of call should be...
 

Learn the notes of your chords

Learning and playing the shapes is a start. Knowing the notes and intervals of those chords is a great step to take towards improving both your fretboard and harmonic knowledge. Below is a video to help you get started with learning the notes in chords.

Resources from this lesson are here:

 
 
🎵If you are serious about learning jazz guitar then you should be serious about learning the notes in at least what I would call the big four chords - Major...

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Common Chord Progressions

There are a few really common chord progressions that you want to be aware of. With the most important being:

  • The major 251

  • Minor 251

  • 1625

Below are some videos to help you with learning and committing these to memory. The resources are also below:

 
 
All of my recent 251 backing track videos have been gearing up to putting this video out. A look at 251 for jazz beginners. I've tried to include what I thin...
🎵Minor 251s are such a common chord progression in jazz. It's important to know how to play them, recognise them and understand how they work harmonically. ...
🎵The 1⃣6⃣2⃣5⃣ is a super common chord progression in jazz. It's a circular/turnaround style progression. In this lesson I break down:🔴 What the numbers mea...
🎵Learning the 251 in every key is about as essential as it gets when it comes to what theory you need to know to be a good jazz guitarist. The 251 is such a...
 

Drop Voicings

Drop chord voicings are a great way to expand your chord vocabulary, especially when you start getting into the inversions. The following PDFs are the drop voicings for the key of C.

The colour coding works as follows:

Red= Root position

Black = 1st inversion/3rd in bass

Orange= 2nd inversion/5th in bass

Blue= 3rd inversion/7th in bass

 
 
🎵Drop 2 chord shapes don't have to be difficult to understand. Most explanations start with how a drop 2 chord shape is formed by dropping one or two notes ...