To speak the language of jazz and perform jazz with other musicians, you’ll need to understand how 7th chords work, how you can play them (or over them), and how to comprehend them on a chord chart. We’ll first go over 7th chord fundamentals and then move on to more complex 7th ...
Welcome to this 5 minute masterclass on hearing and resolving altered tensions. Altered tensions add colour and texture to our chord voicings and this has become one of the staple sounds of jazz piano. In this lesson we will work through each altered tension over dominant chords. There are ...
Don’t stick to open chords alone—try barre chords or different voicings up the neck. Changing how you play the same chord can introduce fresh textures and dynamics. 3. Choose the Right Key Finding the right key can completely transform your song. Try different keys to see how they affect...
ii-V-I: Popular in jazz standards, this progression utilizes the second, fifth, and first scale degrees and revolves around seventh chords. This progression would be Dm7 - G7 - Cmaj7 in the key of C major. vi-IV-I-V: Also incredibly popular in pop music, this progression is known fo...
It’s hard to look past his complex and effortlessly executed modulations. There are no dramatic string lines or intense atonal jazz stuff. He has this way of taking you on a journey through different keys without noticing where you went or how you got there. You just arrived, and it feel...
The Best Guitar Chords for Beginners (You Should Know Them) Career Path The first and most important step is tomaster the guitar. Some people go to school to get a degree in guitar, while others choose to learn on their own. From there, you can explore the several income streams we cov...
In genres like jazz, you may find funny-looking chords like C9 or even Cmaj13! These are calledchord extensions. Chord extensions refer to chords that have notes beyond theoctave. Basically, we keep stacking notes on top of a seventh chord to create tension. However, a key thing to remem...
Don’t write chords and expect that a tune will grow out of them. Good melodies have internal correspondences that give them grip and character regardless of harmonic content. Remember, jazz musicians spend a lot of their time rewriting chords under given melodies. In songs that rely on repeate...
When you do this, you’ll start getting comfortable with jazz chords! The next step would be to pick a jazz standard and use these chord shapes to play the song. =) Ready? Now go practice. =) Hope you found this blog post helpful. Please share this post if you think others might ...
“We had the best jazz band on the planet, and yet we were literally starving. That’s when I discovered that there was music, and there was the music business. If I were to survive, I would have to learn the difference between the two.”— Quincy Jones, after losing money on tour...