Little Jazz Workshop Lesson 1 - Chords

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Hi GMC, welcome to my new series about Jazz called "Little Jazz Workshop"!

In this series we will go through some main stages of making a good sounding jazz composition. By the end of the series I hope you will acquire enough knowledge to make your own jazz material, even if you never played jazz before. This lesson series are good for beginners, but those of you who already play jazz can also benefit from few tips&tricks. So let's begin!

You will have all the theory explanation in slow videos. I promise it would be easy, and don't be scared by those chord names on-screen. I will explain everything very straightforward so you can understand it.

This series contain three lessons. This one is the first in series and we will make chords for our jazz composition here. Some theory knowledge is important to have and I will write down exactly what you need to know.

Chords are the basis of a good composition, so I suggest you go step-by-step in the series. Lot of people think that scales and arpeggios are what is the most important thing, but chords are actually the most important thing. We will be doing scales and arpeggios for our composition in the second video. First we need to make a good solid basics and that my friends, are the chords.

Have fun learning and playing!

The Little Jazz Workshop Lesson 1 - Chords can enhance:

1. your chords playing
2. your right hand fingerstyle playing
3. your theory knowledge
4. your left hand muting
5. jazz composing

Tempo: Fast Shuffle 180bpm

Sound: Bridge humbucker, Line6 Piezo emulation preset.

Here are links to the second and third lesson in series:

Little Jazz Workshop Lesson 2 - Scales&Arpeggios
Little Jazz Workshop Lesson 3 - Solo

     F#9- F#9-    F#9- F#9-         A7  A7 A7 A7           
     E.   E    E  Q    S    Q       E.  E  E  Q    Q    S  
E||------------------------------|------------------------|
B||-------7-------7----L---------|------8-----8-----------|
G||-------6-------6----L---------|------6-----6-----------|
D||-------5-------5----L---------|------7-----7-----------|
A||--7---------------------------|--7---------------------|
E||------------------------------|------------------------|


     D7M D7M    D7M    D7M       C#dim C#dim C#dim C#dim C#dim       
  E  E   E   E  E   E  E   E     E.    S     E.    Q     S     Q     
------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
---------7------7------7------|--5-----------5-----5-----L----------|
---------6------6------6------|--4-----------4-----4-----L----------|
---------7------7------7------|--5-----------5-----5-----L----------|
-----5------------------------|--------4----------------------------|
------------------------------|-------------------------------------|

Welcome aboard! Today we have some fine soft jazzy chords to learn, and you know what? They are not difficult to play at all, as some may think.

We have 4 chords in this first video, and we are plucking them with our fingers to give the theme a little softer sound. If you don't wanna use your finger you can use the pick. It is all up to you. The lesson can be played with the pick as well.

If you do wanna play with your fingers we are playing with our thumb the bass note. It is not the root note because we are using inverted chords, but we are nevertheless plucking that bass note, making a little rhythmic pattern and a little bass melody down there. It is very common in jazz and classic to use the thumb for plucking the bass strings in order to make a good rhythmic pattern and melody "behind" the treble string main melody which is in the main focus almost all the time.

Now lets begin:

We want to make a composition out of nothing. So, we will take a Cmajor scale for example, and a let's say D major scale. In jazz we have to have some sort of modulation. SO we choose one modulation, we have Cmajor and Dmajor tonalities, that change during the song. We will know that they change during the song because we will use chords that are characteristic for that particular tonality, Cmajor or Dmajor.

We started with a F#9- chord. Don't be afraid by that mark. It is not a II World War code or anything, it is simply a name for that chord derived out of Guitar Pro chord generator program. Wow, what a science! :) The most important thing about the chord is to remember that this is a very similar chord to A7, only it has a diminished 7 note, instead of dominant 7. Now, this chord is nothing more that little "changed" dominant 7 chord and we can use it for the start of our melody. To important thing here is to know WHAT is the top note we are playing. This note is often first heard by our listeners and it gives the character to the whole chordal composition.

So we start with F# note as our top note, and moving along to G. Now we have entered a Dmajor territory. D major is the tonality where A note builds a Dominant chord. So F# on the first as an introductory note, and sliding into that dominant A. We are continuing with "ordinary" D major chords, Dmaj7 and C#diminished chord.

What have we learned, we are using our theory knowledge to know exactly what are we playing and why those chords. This is important because later we can know what scales to use over these chords, or better what combinations of scales. This is the whole essence of jazz. Sounds simple? Well...It kinda is really. The important thing is to know the theory well to be able to apply it fast in the real time situations that's all.

  F#9- F#9-    F#9- F#9-         A9+ A9+    A9+  A9+       
  E.   E    E  Q    S    Q       E.  E   E  Q    S   Q     
------------------------------|------8------8----L--------|
-------7-------7----L---------|------8------8----L--------|
-------6-------6----L---------|------6------6----L--------|
-------5-------5----L---------|------7------7----L--------|
--7---------------------------|--7------------------------|
------------------------------|---------------------------|


        Bdim    Bdim    Bdim       C7M C7M C7M C7M  C7M       
  E  E  E    E  E    E  E    E     E.  S   E.  Q    S   Q     
--------------------------------|----------------------------|
--------3-------3-------3-------|--5-------5---5----L--------|
--------2-------2-------2-------|--4-------4---4----L--------|
--------3-------3-------3-------|--5-------5---5----L--------|
-----2--------------------------|------3---------------------|
--------------------------------|----------------------------|

Now what do we have here:

F#9- A9+ Bdim C7M (Cmaj7)

you might ask yourself? Let me shed some light on the subject. I will not explain the function of the first chord (F#9-) in the progression, since we have learned his function in the first video. The second chord is just little modified second chord from the first video, except here we have one note added. We added the augmented ninth interval note (C) in order to give our chordal melody more flow. If we kept the A7 and played the dominant seventh, well, it may sound a little boring.

TIP: So what we have learned here then. When you are playing some jazzy chords, sometimes it is enough to just add the top note on the existing progression and it will get a whole different feel right away.

Going to third and fourth : Bdim & C7M. Here the modulation begins, as we enter the realm of Cmajor. These two chords are old partners, and typical to use in this order, because Bdim is leading into the Cmaj7 chord very naturally. Here we have another thing to note: dim and maj7 are actually teh same type of chords that we used in the previous video right? So, we are going into modulation, but in the another key, and while doing that we are not actually changing the character and the overall feel of the composition, just the key.

TIP: This is useful, when you wanna make some modulations out of same chordal shapes, just move it by a whole tone up or down, and you will get a plenty of room for improvising and a two, or three hew chords to use.

 F#9-                           G  
  E.   E    E  Q    S    Q       E.  E  E  Q    S Q     
------------------------------|------------------------|
-------7-------7----L---------|------3-----3----L------|
-------6-------6----L---------|------4-----4----L------|
-------5-------5----L---------|------5-----5----L------|
--7---------------------------|--5---------------------|
------------------------------|------------------------|


        Bdim                       Bbdim 
  E  E  E    E  E    E  E    E     E.    S     E.    Q     S     Q     
--------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
--------3-------3-------3-------|--2-----------2-----2-----L----------|
--------2-------2-------2-------|--1-----------1-----1-----L----------|
--------3-------3-------3-------|--2-----------2-----2-----L----------|
-----2--------------------------|--------1----------------------------|
--------------------------------|-------------------------------------|

We are back to our main chord F#9- (Aaug7). As you probably noticed by now, this chord has intro function in our composition - it "passes" the melody on to the next chord which will determine what kind of character will the progression have.

And the progression is modulating in Cmajor again, across G major chord. Very straightforward chord, and you can notice how the whole character changes because of this chord. This chord is actually what gives the whole composition little mellow feel, and comes down the character of the other chords that are making a suspense atmosphere most of the time (dim, 7, 9-, 9+).

I the end, two chords actually represents one, the Bdiminished chord. We are still in the Cmajor realm here. Bbdim is added to "spice-up" the progression.

TIP: Often a good rhythm player will add a halfstep down/up chord in the progression, to rhythmically and melodically spice up the song a little. IT requiers little chordal work since we are sliding the chords, and an experienced player knows where is the good time to put these little emeblishments. Often a chromatic run is very suited across these type of figures.

Lesson Questions, Feedback & Comments

Kristofer Dahl	21st February 2008
GMC Founder & Rocker	Ivan I can't thank you enough - you are giving us fantastic lessons, very thoroughly prepared and always great sounding, you rock!

Toni Suominen	21st February 2008
Instructor	I love jazz lessons, this is great Ivan!!

Bogdan Radovic	21st February 2008
Bass Instructor	Awesome jazz lesson , thanks !

botoxfox	21st February 2008
Member	Sounds nice.

Pi38	21st February 2008
Member	Cool chords, great lesson, what more could you ask for?

Joe Kataldo	21st February 2008
Instructor	Sound Nice

Muris Varajic	21st February 2008
Instructor	Well done Ivan!

kyldeee	21st February 2008
Member	Nice Lesson Ivan

Tuubsu	21st February 2008
Member	cool and smooth, all jazzed up, just how you play jazz. Nice lesson indeed!

at lights end	21st February 2008
Member	real cool.

Ivan Milenkovic	21st February 2008
Instructor	Thank you guys

Martin la guitarra	21st February 2008
Member	love it, great to see some "old-style" jazz

Dejan Farkas	21st February 2008
Instructor	Good work Ivan

dreamtheaterfreak	21st February 2008
Member	very nice

Pablo Vazquez	21st February 2008
Instructor	Nice lesson! Really cool!

chast	21st February 2008
Member	I really like this soft Jazz, cool lesson, Ivan

Ivan Milenkovic	21st February 2008
Instructor	thanks guys! more jazzy stuff coming up!

Hisham Al-Sanea	21st February 2008
Instructor	nice feeling ivan,,much Jazzy good lesson

Gabriel Leopardi	22nd February 2008
GMC Coordinator & Instructor	Excelent job Ivan!

Carlos Carrillo	22nd February 2008
Instructor	Hey Ivan!!!fantastic job!!!thanks

WillH	23rd February 2008
Member	great sound, nice introduction to jazz

Crazyfret	3rd March 2008
Member	Marvelous lesson Ivan, just what I wanted to unravel the mystery of jazz Keep up the good work

RIP Dime	4th March 2008
Member	Great, I wish there were more lessons like this, that teach how to compose our own songs, great job!

BJJSchecter	10th April 2008
Member	Sweet lesson Ivan!! Been wanting to start getting in some jazz playin.

Ivan Milenkovic	10th April 2008
Instructor	Thanks a lot guys. Will do another jazz series soon. Stay tuned. Some feedback on how you want the next jazz series to look would be appreciated.