Jazz Chords

[proco5150]

Hey everyone-
I've been playing for about 6 years now and am just getting into jazz guitar. I want to try out for my school jazz band, but my problem is my lack on chordal knowledge. There are 40 bazillion chords out there, and i know that i dont need to know them all to get into this jazz band. I head that there are three basic families of chords: the major, the minor, and the dominant. Is there a way that i can just learn the three families and their inversions and then figure out a way to add the other color tones? Ex-if i had an Am7, and there was an Am7#11, is there an easy way to add the notes onto that chord from the Am7?

[mahayana]

Hey, proco. Glad to finally meet someone here. You picked an odd chord Am7#11, but I made up a couple of forms in a few seconds. Would you like some simple chord theory, you know, what those numbers mean? The theory is easiest to show on a keyboard, easiest to notate on a music staff, but I'll give it to you verbally for now.

The short answer is the fourth note of the Am scale is D. An 11th is the same as a 4th, so you want to add D# to your basic Am7 chord. Since E is a note in your chord, just work out fingerings that lower the Es in the forms of Am7 you play, by one fret.

Would you like me to draw you a chord, explain further?

[eldeni]

there is actually more families, the dminished chord, the augmented 5th chord are essential for jazz. Also the half diminished chord or min7b5.

here's the thing, don't "learn" chords by memory. Try to figure them out yourself with formulas.

the Major7 chord in a tune is the One of a tonality (I don't know how advance you are in this so I won't get into that), but if you see a Major 7 chord followed by a Dominant chord, the probabilities are that that Major7 chord was not a 1 chord. It should be the 4th chord or subdominant chord...

Now, if you build chords in thirds (first learn your key signatures very well) you'll find out that the 4th degree of the scale is a Maj7 chord and so is the first degree.

The difference is that the fourth degree should have a #11 because of the tonality.

Cmaj7 is the first chord of the C major scale. his eleventh is a natural F.....

Cmaj7 could also be the fourth of G major scale. His eleventh is a Sharp F (F#)....

Why is that?, in the key of G we have One accidental which is F#, therefor if you see a tune with Cmaj7#11, there's 80% probability that you are in the key of G, therefor. You could go around chords related to Cmaj7#11, like D9.

[Professor1]

Well, learn the chord voicings called drop 3 chords, the 'A' chord based bar chords will get you alot of the rest. One thing to keep in mind is that if you are in the rhythm section, you don't need to play all of those chord extensions. Play 7th chords of the right flavor. Learn how to omit the fifth. I'll play 5th string root ninth chords, but basically, unless it's a chord solo arrangement, I just play the basic 7th chords. In fact, in a fast chart, it can be really hard just to keep up with those. Remember that the trumpets and tenor saxes and maybe even the piano are all going to be playing those extensions, and you don't need to play every note in every chord.

[Jaml]

I tend to take the five basic triads; -

Major [C-E-G],
minor [C-Eb-G],
augmented [C-E-G#],
Major b5 [C-E-Gb],
diminished [C-Eb-Gb],

And then just build in thirds on top of those.

One way of thinking of extensions is as stacked triads.

So onto C-E-G you add another triad a third above the last note of that first triad. So you have, for example, C-E-G-B-D-F; the added triad [B-D-F] is a diminished triad.
That gives you the 7th, 9th, 11th.
Add another third above this to give you the 13th , so you have;
C-E-G-B-D-F-A. You will see that this is *three* interlocking triads [i.e., the first triad ends on G, which note G begins the next triad; the second triad ends on D which note begins the third triad.

Analysing this, we have:
C-E-G [C Major triad]
G-B-D [G Major triad]
D-F-A [D minor triad]

All together this gives you a C Major 7/9/11/13
Substitute a D Major triad [D-F#-A] for the D minor triad, for example, and you have a #11 in the altered F# [this will clash with the G of the first triad - you may want that - if not, then leave out the G].

So you can experiment stacking all of the triads in this way.

As the professor says, you can leave some notes out if you wish [the guitar fingerboard actually makes it impossible to play everynote of some extended 13th chords].

You can also alter [i.e., sharpen, flatten or naturalise] any note as I did above.

You will notice in some cases that you may arrive at an inversion of another chord as you alter the triads - so use your ear in these experiments.

[Professor1]

Extensions are great, but you don't always have time to use them, or shift your hand. In a difficult chart, jusy looking at your hand can lose you your spot in the music. There might be a good spot to jump back in, there might not.

About an hour ago, I got back from playing with a jazz dance band at a senior center, for the first time. Some tunes didn't have charts, and for the ones that did, I was sight-reading them. There was no rehearsal. No time for fancy jazz harmonic heroics there. Bottom line, I got the gig. (There are 40 people trying to get into this band.)

BTW, anybody got a chart for When The Saints Go Marching In?

[Jaml]

You're right about sight-reading such things; but then you need to know the theory to understand what's best to leave out.

Going back to 13th chords, I forgot to mention that when you spell out a 13th chord, such as;
C-E-G-B-D-F-A ,
Then you have the whole ionian scale in arpeggio form.

In other words, you can play the scale;
C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C,
Or the 13th chord arpeggio;
C-E-G-B-D-F-A

Same notes different order.

So it is good to practice the scale and 13th chord arpeggios of the same scale.

Incidentally, the numeration of 11ths, 13ths etc., is based on the intervals of the basic diatonic scale in two octaves;

C=1
D=2
E=3
F=4
G=5
A=6
B=7
C=8
D=9
E=10
F=11
G=12
A=13
B=14
C=15

For practical purposes, only the 6th, 7th, 9th, 11th and 13th intervals are distinguished in chords.

[jazzalta]

Hi Jaml, I imagine you're savvy enough to know that what you've spelled out there is a maj13. Usually when you see a 13th chord (say C13) it implies the flat 7. Rarely have I seen it spelled Cdom13.

[Jaml]

jazzalta said:

Hi Jaml, I imagine you're savvy enough to know that what you've spelled out there is a maj13. Usually when you see a 13th chord (say C13) it implies the flat 7. Rarely have I seen it spelled Cdom13.

Yeah, thanks for clarifying that; I was basing all my examples on the Major scale for convenience, so the 7th chord [CEGB] would of course be a Major 7th.

As you say, the extensions I described [all within the purview of the Major (also known as the Ionian) scale] would be described as a Major 13th to indicate that the 7th was a B natural (i.e., the Major 7th interval, which is a Major third above the G of the CEG triad).

Sometimes - particularly on charts - such Major 7th chords are indicated by a small triangle or just a capital 'M', rather than the word "Major"; dominant 7ths are just called 7ths, as you say; and minor sevenths are indicated by a small 'm' (or sometimes by a minus sign, thus; '-').

I chose the Major, or Ionian scale, for simplicity, but then this leads us on to Modes.

If we take the same scale [CDEFGABC] and start from the 5th note of that scale [G], and play an octave [i.e., GABCDEFG] we are now in another mode; not the Ionian, but the Mixolydian mode.

It will be noticed that this mode gives us the dominant seventh chord; GBDF.
This is a G Major triad [GBD] with a *minor* third [F] added above the D, making it a flat 7th [called so because the Major 7th is seen as the 'natural' 7th].

So whereas with the CEGB Major 7th chord there was only a semitone from the B to the root C [the natural leading-tone]; with the GBDF 'plain' 7th chord, there is a whole tone between F and G.

Such a chord as the latter is described, as you say, just as a G7th, and when the extensions are added, it is just called after the extension [e.g., 11th/13th etc.,] to indicate that it is based on this flat seventh.
So we assume that we are basing our extensions on a dominant seventh chord.

So GBDFACE = G13.
This is also the same notes as the complete Mixolydian mode.

Notice that we can analyse it as three interlocking triads, again, which are a
Major triad [GBD], a
minor triad [DFA], and another
minor triad [ACE].

Whereas our Major 13th chord [CMajor 13] was;
Major triad [CEG], another
Major triad [GBD], and a
minor triad [DFA].

This allows us to compare the two forms on both an intervallic and a modal basis.

We therefore have a theory for chord-scale parity: when there's a CMajor13 play a C Ionian scale for example; and for a G13 play a G Mixolydian scale [all self-derivatives].

Of course we need to look at *all* the modes of the Ionian scale, and all the triads and extensions which can be built on them.

We don't stop there - we go on Melodic minor ascending and all the other scales. We can treat every scale in this way, and see that chords are really just certain scale tones played together.

[jazzalta]

It really gets nuts. I know, I've been there and done a lot of reharmonization and played around with stacking triads etc. etc. Larry Carlton really got me turned on to the stacked triads tho. And that turned me back to Charlie Parker, and on it goes. I love theory, but when I improvise, I throw most of it out the window.

[oldtimer3739]

For a really great chord book, find a copy of Ted Greene's "Chord Chemistry". This is a very thorough approach to learning chords on the guitar.

[ubiguitar]

For a complete approach to jazz chords I suggest this book:

Guitar Chord Encyclopedia for Jazz Standards Pt1 here www.ubiguitar.com/joomla/books/37-thejazzguitarworkshopseries/70-guitar-chord-encyclopedia-for-jazz-standards-pt1

It is really interesting because it presents different chord positions and their usage in most used jazz progressions to develop comping, voice leading and chord melody technique.
This book is really useful to create a personal harmonic vocabulary.

Regards

Ale

[rachard1583]

So why not five different ways? Because it brings your practice workload to an unreasonable and inefficient place. That 4th different way to play a simple minor 7 chord is nowhere near as important as learning to play your first minor-7-flat-5 chord.


Havana Jazz Festival

[travisgrimes]

Here is an ebook filled with so many awesome jazz chords. A must see.

jazzadvocator.blogspot.com/