Jazz Guitar 101

Welcome to the wonderful world of jazz. These days, most guitar players do not start out playing jazz. It is usually a migration or expansion of playing rock, blues, or other popular styles. Jazz is the arena where you can take harmony, melody, and improvisation to it's extreme. The ideas that you learn in jazz will help you become a better player in what ever other styles that you play.

Expanding your jazz chord vocabulary

The first step in your jazz journey, will be to learn some new chord voicings. In jazz, the most common chord forms are seventh chords (ex Cmaj7, Fm7) as opposed to basic major and minor chords (ex. C, Fm). There are 5 basic types of seventh chords that you will need to know to start with.

Major 7

Think of this as the basic major type chord used in jazz. There are two forms of this chord to learn, one with the root on the 6th string, and on with the root on the 5th string. Understanding basic major and minor barre chords is a prerequisite to this lesson.

Page 2, Dominant 7 and Minor 7 Chords