Simple Jazz Chord Voicings

It is commonly heard that guitar players are lousy at voicing chords. I defensively reply that 'it is far harder to see voicing on guitar than on, say, piano'. We have a tendency to jump up and down the neck for familiar inversions and ignore the ones underneath our fingertips.

When it comes time to try to play jazz, we are stunned at how difficult it is to keep up when the chords (and keys), change so quickly. It is almost manditory to learn how to voice chords in position, or we are jumping around and...well, getting lost.

I dug up some chord notes from school recently, and tried to voice some easy positions for I iii vi ii V I progressions. This progression will become so familiar when playing jazz, that knowing it in position will be a huge advantage.

The first example shows this progression on the highest string set, DGBE. Notice that all the roots are on the 2nd or 4th fret. Roots/5th can be doubled on the A or E strings.



I hope this is useful!
Cheers,
Sarinaj
http://www3.telus.net/public/wsalter/guitar/

I'm snowed in, so here is my morning's effort.

Another couple of positions in Eb Major. The first one stays in position while the second one moves down a position.



Cheers,
Sarinaj

When I started music school, I didn't know the difference between a Major 7 chord and a Dominant 7 chord; I could just read the chord pictures. So I thought I would add this note.

If you lower the 7th in your Major 7 chord, you have a Dominant 7 chord. If you lower the 3rd of your Dominant 7 chord, you have a minor 7 chord. If you lower the 5th of your minor 7 chord, you have a min7b5 chord. If you lower the 7th of your min7b5 chord, you have a diminished 7th.

Here are a couple of examples:



Cheers,
SarinaJ
http://www3.telus.net/public/wsalter/guitar/

some good, solid, and simple ideas.

i think the best advice for a beginning jazz guitarist is to know your relative chords on each note of the major and minor scales. that basic knowledge allows you to tool around with different ideas such as b5's, 9ths 11ths, and 13ths.

Diatonic substitution chords: Major Key Harmony

The iii min7 and vi min7 chords substitute for our I Major 7 chord.


Our V7 chords is G7, GBDF.
Our vii m7b5 chord is Bm7b5, BDFA. (Or we drop the root of our V chord and replace it with a 9.)

My free notes for the day.
Cheers,
SarinaJ

A friend asked me to post some simple bar chords so here they are:

Major 7


Cheers,
SarinaJ