Alright… So we’re doing this! Jazz guitar crash course week 1 is memorizing chord voicings that are very common in jazz (and pop): Major 7 chords, Dominant 7 chords, and Minor 7 chords.
I should confess: before researching, I didn’t know that “7” chords (like C7, D7, E7, etc.) are the same as dominant 7 chords. I already know most of the dominant 7 chords, so that’ll at least save me some time.
Here are the chords I’ll be working through this week… They’re written in shorthand form, with only the fret numbers listed ascending from the 6th (thickest or lowest) string to the 1st (thinnest or highest) string. This shorthand is a mixture of picture “guitar chord charts” and text “tablature” (or “tabs”). An X represents a muted string; a 0 represents an open string.
Maj7
C X32000
D XX0222
E 021100
F XX3210
G 320002
A X02120
B X2434X
Dominant 7
C X32310
D XX0212
E 020100
F 131211
G 320001
A X02020
B X21202
m7
C X35343
D XX0211
E 022030
F 131111
G 353333
A X02010
B X20202
I imagine that each practice session will involve drills. I’ll first try to memorize the chords then I’ll setup a metronome going at 60 BPM. Then with the chords in front of me, I’ll play one chord to each beat until I can’t mess it up. Since there are 7 chords for each voicing, I’ll play the C chord again at the end before moving onto the next voicing.
If things go well, I’ll record a video of me playing these chords from memory. It’ll either be a video of me playing along to a metronome, or maybe I can ask my girlfriend to say different chords for me to play on the next beat (kind of like Bop-It).
Just for the heck of it, here’s how the drill will look:
CMaj7, DMaj7, EMaj7, FMaj7, GMaj7, AMaj7, BMaj7, CMaj7
C7, D7, E7, F7, G7, A7, B7, C7
Cm7, Dm7, Em7, Fm7, Gm7, Am7, Bm7, Cm7
and repeat forever…
