Ask Brendan is a monthly column where Guitar Educator, Brendan Burns, answers questions about music and the pursuit of Understanding and Mastering the guitar.

Jazz Chords

December 03

Q: I’m an intermediate rock guitar player. I’ve been playing for 3 years. Is there anything you can suggest to get started with playing jazz? I don’t know much about it, but I like the sound and would like to incorporate into my playing.

B: Here are some basic all-purpose Jazz Chords (click here). Their forms relate to our basic barre chords. There are two forms for each chord: one for a 6th string root and one for a 5th string root.

One way to familiarize yourself with these new chords is to play the diatonic chords through major scale in every key. For example, in the key of C: Cmaj7, Dmin7, Emin7, Fmaj7, G7, Amin7, Bmin7b5. Take some time and improvise or write down a chord progression. Having fun and being creative with this can help.

Another way to acclimate yourself to these new chords is to put them into context. Pick up a Real Book or Fake Book and play through some jazz charts. If you know some of the tunes, then start there. If you don’t know any, try starting with songs that have 1 chord per bar almost all of the way through the piece.