You may have noticed that jazz musicians use a lot of colorful chords so what exactly are
those chords that they're playing and which ones do you need to know in order to play jazz let's
go over all of them so we're gonna break this down into five categories of chords major chords minor
chords dominant chords half diminished chords and fully diminished chords we'll go over some
of the possibilities the basic construction of each chord and where you might see some of these
chords in jazz standards so category number one is Major chords and the first chord we're going
to talk about is the major seventh chord okay and it sounds like this this is a C Major Seventh
okay and the way this chord is spelled is root third fifth and seventh now all of these by
the way just in case you're not sure how chords are built in the first place are usually coming
from the concept of a scale so the c major scale has different tones one two three four five six
seven and then the octave up right so when we're playing just the root the third the fifth and the
seventh that's what makes up a Major Seventh chord keep this in mind as we go forward through all
the other kinds of chords now seventh chords in general are the default chord that we use in jazz
we don't so much use Triads like in other styles of music we always default to seventh chords
meaning we stack a seventh on top of the fifth now you'll find Major Seventh chords all over in jazz
standards here's one example in my shining hour it'll sometimes function as a one chord but even
later on in the song you can actually see that the four chord is also a Major Seventh chord so we'll
come up all the time now the next major chord that we need to talk about is the major ninth chord and
this one is spelled root third fifth seventh and Ninth and a C major ninth sounds like this [Music]
now a ninth is what we call an extension notice that we have this fifth note stacked up on top
of the seventh so to better understand this take a look at a C major scale again
okay now when we look at this we have the root the third the fifth and the seventh in between
all these different scale tones remember we have one and two and three four five six and seven and
then finally we could call the octave eight but if we continued up to the second octave
right then we have what we call the ninth the 11th and the 13th
in between these which are actually the chord tones now you could also think of the ninth as
being the same as the second tone of the scale the 11th as the fourth tone and the 13th as the sixth
tone however the important thing to understand about extensions is that these are added on top
of the chord they don't replace any of the core chord tones the root the third the fifth or the
seventh that's why we call them extensions and before going forward one other thing to note is
that these are what we call closed position voicings in other words you might not play
this this way at all on the guitar or on the piano these are just how they're constructed
and you'll want to think about different ways you can voice these and use different inversions
when we're doing this but this is just so that we understand the construction of these chords
the next major chord is the major 13th chord and the major 13th chord sounds like this
now all again we're doing is we're adding the 13th on top of the chord the 13th in C
major is an a natural now another thing you'll notice here is the way this chord is drawn out
we actually do have the ninth in here as well it doesn't mean if you're voicing a chord on a
guitar piano that you have to include the ninth it's just this is the way we build
chords and we're stacking them like this in closed position now the next major chord is
the major seven sharp 11. you may have noticed that we didn't have an 11th extension there we
skipped straight to the 13th that's because we can't put just the natural 11 in a major chord
it sounds kind of funny however we can do a sharp 11 chord which sounds like this foreign [Music]
sound to it and once again you can add the ninth into the voicing but you don't have
to as well just depends on what you're trying to do now we've talked about extensions and altered
extensions like the sharp 11 but there's also a other kind of major chord which is actually
where we're replacing one of the chord tones the root the third the fifth and the seventh
with a different scale tone altogether this one is called the C6 chord and these kinds of chords
are used especially in earlier styles of jazz so for example all of me six chords are used
quite often for the major chords so as you can see with this particular chord we have the root
the third the fifth but then this a natural actually replaces the seven and instead we're
playing a six so there's no seventh so that's the difference between these kinds of chords
instead of it being a 13th where we add it on top of the chord and it would still
include the seventh in this particular case we're subbing out the seven four a six let's
go on to the second category of jazz chords which is minor chords the first minor chord
is the minor seventh chord in this case we're looking at a C minor seventh chord
foreign is spelled root flat three five and flat seven so if you know your natural minor scale
this is exactly where all these chord tones are coming from so where can we find these
minor seventh chords in jazz standards well taking a look back at my shining hour we see F
minor seven actually functioning here as a two chord we also see a C minor seven chord acting
as a one chord and so there's a lot of different ways you'll see minor seven chords come up and by
the way if you're not quite sure what I mean by one chords four chords and all this other
stuff please do stick around to the end of the video where I'll share with you something else
that will help you understand everything about chord progressions so just like on major chords
we can also add extensions to the chord so in this particular case we can play a C minor nine [Music]
and again we're just using the root flat three five flat 7 but adding the ninth
on top of it the second scale tone now unlike the Major Seventh on the C minor
seventh we can actually add the 11th which would sound like this [Music]
is a really nice sound for a minor seventh chord and because that 11th isn't clashing
with the major third like it does in the major chord it works great with the flat
three in the chord structure now we can also add a 13th to minor seventh chords
and again just as a reminder we do have the ninth and the 11th in this particular voicing
but if you're a guitar or piano player you may or may not choose to use those extensions
alongside the 13th and minor seventh chords actually don't have any alterations that we
can use however like the major chords we can add substitutions for the chord tones so the
first one is a minor six chord [Music] this one works great in the case for example if
you're playing like a two five one and a minor key landing and resolving on a
minor six sounds really good instead of a minor seven and this one is spelled root
flat three five and then six Now The Miner family has another really cool chord where we substitute
a chord tone and that's the C minor Major Seventh chord and it sounds like this [Music]
another great one where if you're playing a minor two five one you can substitute it for this chord
now just as it implies we're instead of using a flat seven uh minor seven we're using a major
seven a natural seven so it's spelled root flat three five and major seven and by the way if
you're wondering what's the best way to get to know these chords and how they actually perform
in jazz standards well the answer is learning more Jazz standards the more Jazz standards you
learn the more you'll see these chords at play and functioning in different ways and the more
you'll understand them so I have a free guide called learn jazz standards the smart way I'll
leave a link to that in the description it'll help you learn the melody to Jazz standards by
ear but also my free master class that comes with it Jazz standards Mastery formula will teach you
everything you need to know about understanding learning and improvising over Jazz standards so
you can get all that for free click the link in the description down below now let's move
on to category three which is dominant chords now dominant chords have the most possibilities out
of all the chords in jazz so pay special close attention here the first chord is the dominant
seventh chord in this case a c seventh chord sounds like this [Music] and the formula for
this one is root major three five and then flat seven so it's kind of in between the major and
the minor seven it shares the major three of the major seven chord but it also shares the
flat seven of the minor seven chord now as far as where do we see dominant chords within Jazz
standards well everywhere actually so often times for example in the case of this B flat seven it's
acting as a five chord or right here it's a five chord in the key of C minor or right here it's
actually a dominant four chord in c minor or right here it's actually a dominant six chord
in the key of E flat major but also dominant seventh chords are really the key of the Blues
so in this case E flat seven it's a one dominant seventh chord A flat seven is a four chord right
so the blues really is mostly comprised of dominant seventh chords so just like the major
and the minor we can also add extensions and alterations on top and the first one
would be the dominant ninth chord right so just adding the ninth on top of the chord the next
extension you can do on a dominant seventh chord is a 13th in this case a c thirteenth
really excellent extensions to add on top of a dominant seventh chord now this is where things
get really really interesting there are a lot of altered extensions that we can add on to dominant
seventh chords and in certain contexts especially when we're approaching a one chord or a new tonal
center it's a great idea to use these the first one we can do is a dominant seven flat nine
and again all this one is is the same as the C9 chord just making that nine a flat nine we can
also do a sharp nine so a C7 sharp nine chord another great idea some people dubbed this the
Jimi Hendrix chord now Thelonious Monk's favorite chord is the dominant seven sharp 11 chord
and then finally we can do a dominant seven flat 13 chord [Music]
really taking any of the extensions that are possible in flatting and sharpening them now
because you can do so much over a dominant seventh chord sometimes you'll see a chord like this on
a jazz standard chord chart altered chord so in this case C7 alt and it looks kind of crazy
here that's just simply because we're looking at a closed position voicing to show you how it's built
but essentially it includes all of the altered extensions that you can possibly do the ones
that we just went over however when you see one of these on a chord chart it's important to know
that it's not necessarily asking you to play all of them it's really just kind of giving you the
option to choose which one you would like to do for example this is a combination of a Sharp nine
and a flat 13 but I'm not including the sharp 11 or the flat 9 but if you're a piano player
it's possible that you could actually play all of these extensions and alterations at once so don't
get confused when you see an altered chord it just means you can kind of pick and choose now like the
major and minor chords we also can substitute a chord tone so we have this C7 sus4 so we notice
we didn't have the 11th extension but we can't have a sus4 and so that would sound like this
now this is great if you're doing like a pedal at a beginning of a tune [Music] that's the sus chord
and then going to the top of the song so this one is spelled root and then the sus4 is actually
replacing the third and then the fifth and then we have the flat seven now if the dominant seventh
chords was exhausting don't worry things are about to get a lot easier with the last two the fourth
category is half diminished chords and so in comes the minor seven flat five chord sounds like this
and this one is spelled root flat three flat five and then flat seven so the only difference
between it and a minor seventh chord is that it has a flat five hence a minor seven flat five
chord but we also call this half diminished now going back to my shining hour we can see
this most often showing up as a two chord and a minor key this is almost 85 percent
of the time what you're going to see but it also can show up as a six chord as well in
a minor key so the two most common errors you'll see is a two chord and a minor key
and a six chord and a minor key now as far as extensions and alterations there's really not
a whole lot of things that jazz musicians do to these so really the only one you truly do need
to know is this one the C minor seven flat five and of course if you're a guitarist or
a Pianist plenty of voicings and inversions to go along with those fifth category is the fully
diminished chord and for jazz we use diminished seventh chords which sound like this [Music]
which you can conveniently move up in minor thirds to create the different inversions of that chord
now this one is spelled root flat three flat five and double flat seven and once again there's not
really any alterations or extensions that we add on top of diminished seventh chords
so all you really need to know is how to make a diminished seventh chord and you're good to
go in jazz now where do we see this playing out in jazz well for example we have it playing out
here and have you met Miss Jones where we have a one chord F major seven going to an F sharp
diminished seventh chord going to a two chord and we would call this a sharp one diminished
chord and it acts as what we call a passing diminished chord another example of passing
diminished chords comes here in Someday My Prince Will Come and then Someday My Prince Will Come we
have a three and then a flat three diminished seventh chord sounds like this D minor seven
and d flat diminished seven two five right so diminished chords are often used as passing
diminished chords within Jazz standards so these are all the Jazz chords you need to know but you
also need to understand how to combine these chords together to make chord progressions
in jazz so I have a video on the screen right now that shows you every single jazz chord progression
you possibly need to know so go ahead and click on that one next make sure you like this video
if you found it helpful please hit subscribe and we'll see you in the next video cheers