Chords for Play Jazz with Just Six Chords - Gateway to Jazz Guitar

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If you are a rock or folk player and you would like to get into jazz, then I hope this study
is going to have some information for you that you can put to use pretty easily. _
_ Jazz players don't think of chords individually so much.
They think of them as little groups, little groups of two, [C] [N] three, and four chord _ patterns
that are locked together and move around the guitar neck in different places.
_ I would like to turn you on to this concept because it is one of the cornerstone concepts of jazz.
Once you get it you can do an awful lot with it.
But I don't want to use a lot of music theory or jazz lingo to get it across to you.
So for the purpose of this study I am going to call these locked jazz chord patterns.
Now it is not what jazz players call them when they are out on the gig.
They have terminology, jazz terminology they use to describe everything.
But we are not going to get into that.
I am not even going to put names on the chords yet.
Because as soon as I do that _ it opens up a lot of questions.
You want to know why things are called what they are.
You feel like you have to know the names before you can play them.
You have to remember the names.
So we are not going to even go there.
Just watch where my hands are and see if you can get this concept, this very important
concept of how chords are moving together in little blocks, locks that keep moving around
the guitar neck.
_ _ I think you can put it to use.
[C] So here is the one that you use the most. _ _
_ _ It's made with the first two chords on fret 5.
Here is how it is made. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ Chords.
I go to fret number 6.
[Db] _ [G] Same three chords locked together.
[Cm] _ _ _ _ Start on fret 4.
Same [B] three.
_ _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ [Bbm] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] Here I will put it in a bossa nova groove and start up on fret number 8.
[Cm] Same pattern.
Two, three, four.
_ _ _ [F] _ _
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Bm] _ _ _ _ [Ab] _ _
_ [A] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ [Dbm] _ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _
_ [B] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
And so [Ab] forth.
_ _ [G] Let me come in a little closer here and show you [Eb] the fingering.
I will go up to fret number 5 again.
_ Here I am using this fingering mostly for [C] elucidation so you can see what strings are
being played and not played. _ _
If you have small hands this is a good fingering.
I do have small hands.
I use this fingering sometimes.
_ I prefer [C] to use this fingering.
I just put my hand straight across as a bar.
But I am a fingers player so I pull the [G] strings.
I can avoid the string doing that.
_ [E] Most jazz players play it this way.
This finger mutes this string.
[Am] These three are played.
That leaves this string open to add a pinky on it as a hammer [E] on or add on note.
The second chord looks like this.
_ _ So these fingers stay the same from this fingering down to this.
[C] _ _ These ones are not being played.
Just the four middle ones.
Drop [G] back two frets and make this chord.
_ I have two outside strings.
[E] These two strings.
[C] This one is not being played.
Muted by this finger.
[G] The bottom is not being played.
_ _ [C] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Bm] _ _ _ _ [E] Now if you would like to [C] improvise over this chord [G] you want to build a major scale using
this as the beginning note. _
[C] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ So it goes over all of the chords.
Here is the first chord.
[C] _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [D] Second chord.
[C] Same scale.
_ _ _ _ [E] _ _ [G] _ _
_ _ [E] _ _ [G] _ _ _ [E]
You can just [Am] improvise.
_ [E] _ [G] On to the next pattern.
The [C] next very valuable [E] pattern.
It is a very easy one to learn because it is exactly like the three chord major pattern
but we just don't play the last chord.
_ Easy, huh?
Here is how it sounds.
[G] We take the first two [E] chords.
Start on fret five here. _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [G] Don't play the third one.
Go to the next spot anywhere. _
[Gb] _ Don't play the third one.
So what are we doing?
[Ab] We're creating [Em] a tension. _ _
You [Gm] might not think of it that way but it [D] is.
It wants to [A] go, _ wants [E] to resolve the work to this third chord but we're not doing it.
_ So we're up in the air with the tension.
[Bbm] We go [G] somewhere else.
Move the tension again [Abm] to the next spot.
_ [Db] Now we'll bring it down [Bbm]
and resolve it finally [N] with the third chord.
_ Now we haven't looked at any of the names right away because then you'll start individualizing
them and you can go moody blue hooey in your mind trying to figure out what chord goes
with what chord.
What I'm trying to get across here is this concept, the larger concept of moving the
chords in blocks, in locked patterns.
We've got these two things [Db] working.
The [Eb] two chord pattern and the three chord.
_ [Ab] So before we get to names, [G] just try to move them around together.
Put them together in any fashion you want.
Don't even think about it.
You don't [Gm] know the names of the chords yet.
Maybe.
Don't think about it.
[Db] But just [Cm] _ make a [G] spot.
_ Make the chord.
Make a two chord pattern.
[Gm] Go to another spot.
It doesn't matter [C] where.
_ [E] _ Wherever you go, it's going to blend from where you just came from.
It's the beauty of these patterns.
_ _ They can't be combined in a way that doesn't sound good.
Whether you put a two chord [Ab] pattern or a three chord pattern, _ _ _ they're always going to sound
blending.
So you can have a lot of fun with this and go a long [E] way.
You can actually [G] _ [G] sound like you're playing jazz [E] without having any idea what the heck you're doing.
You can write songs _ _ any way you want by combining these.
You'll have kind of a jazz sound to your songs for sure.
It depends what kind of tempo you're working with.
Here's something fun about having the bass note in the chord like we do.
It's the lowest note.
In a way, you can be playing the bass and the chord pattern _ _ all in one.
Because the bass note, let's go to the [A] fifth fret for example.
Here's the bass note.
The [C] chord is here.
So you can go back and forth just like you have a bass [Am] player.
Your bass player is this finger.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
You can hear that bass note [Gb] down there.
So you're creating a bass.
You can go to the next [Eb] chord.
_ [Am] _ _ _ [E] _
_ [Gb] _ You're playing bass _ and rhythm with these three fingers.
You can do it with a pick too.
[Gb] _
_ _ _ _ _ [Am] _ _ _
_ You can hear that bass note ringing out. _ _
_ [Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _
[C] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ [E] _ _
So you can hear [E] what we call root movement.
How the root is moving.
You hear this too when you're listening to music.
You hear the bass player playing whether you [Gb] realize it or not.
But the bass player is leading you around.
[Gb] We can isolate him and call his role root movement.
So you can establish root movement with all of these chords.
[A] _ [E] If you concentrate on the bass, you don't have to single it out like I'm doing there.
But you can hear the thing on the bottom of the chord.
_ _ _ _ There's a low note in there. [C] _ _ Now_ _ _
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