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Understanding Jazz Chords on Guitar
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Understanding Jazz Chords on Guitar
Kindle
Chapters – See all the chapters here.
Essential Sevenths – The book begins with scales and chords, leading to the four essential sevenths chords, and chord scales. Diagrams show how all the possible shapes for an essential seventh chord in a voice are related to all the others, and knowing one, lets you know them all. Here’s the diagram illustrating the idea for the 1-5-7-3 voice family, followed by a video showing how they relate to chord scales.
Shape Library – This book ends with a large library of possible shapes (fingerings) for each of 41 different jazz chords. The classics are all included as well as chords such as an X13(b9) and XMaj7#11. Here’s a sample from that library for the basic 7th chord. Each diagram has a display of the notes on the fretboard, which can be used for single note soloing, and chord shapes for how the four voices for a chord, as played on the treble strings, can be shifted to the middle and bass strings.
Progressions and Songs – In between, common chord progressions and jazz classics are used to show these chords in use. The classics include Fly Me to the Moon, The Girl from Ipanema, I’ve Got Rhythm, Summertime, Stormy Monday and Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered. Take Five, in the key of Eb minor, illustrates the power of moveable chords. It’s just the basic shapes anchored off the sixth fret. Here are the shapes from the book: Take Five.
