Welcome to the Jazz Chords Workshop Lesson 12.
We’ve come to it at last, the last lesson in this series for learning jazz chords. If you have been following the video lessons, by the end of this video you would have acquired 12 different ways to play both major and minor II-V-I progressions in a single key.
The voicings this week span the 10th to 15th frets and are the bottom structure of Group C voicings (Jazz).
Click the video below to watch the lesson.
Learning Aids
The chord shapes and TABs for this lesson are provided as follows.
Primary Takeaways
The main takeaways of Jazz Chords Workshop lesson 12 are as follows:
1. E7(b9) shape is the same as that in Lesson 9, 10 and 11.
This is worth repeating because it helps with having one thing less to remember. The only difference is which fret the shape will be at. Nonetheless it helps to remember that these voicings sit squarely within one of the basic major scale patterns.
2. Cmaj7 in this group voicing
The chord voicing for Cmaj7 in this Group Voicing is probably the most unusual one you’ve yet to encounter. In any case, at this position the finger stretches required to play this voicing is still manageable. Be mindful however, when using Group C voicings on different keys where this chord shape is on the lowest frets. Those stretches will be harder to execute there.
3. Short note on Dropped II Voicings
I have tried to avoid mentioning this for the entire series in order to avoid unnecessary burden to our learning. Nonetheless, the chord shapes and voicing groups you have been learning are exclusively ‘Dropped II’ voicings and all of its inversions. Essentially, what we’ve been doing is learning dropped II voicings with voice leading without having to fuss about it. If you want to know more about the theory of Dropped II voicings, I will do a separate article on that. Notwithstanding, if you only follow the shapes in the exercises, you probably already are proficient with Dropped II voicings and probably need not know the theory.
If you’ve completed all 12 lessons, I congratulate you for sticking with us til the end. By this point you will have learnt 12 different ways to play the major and minor II V I’s albeit in a single key. As with all things on guitar, you simply need to slide these voicing groups to a different fret to transpose it to a different key.
In any case, that is my method, where we learn the complex concepts by ‘doing first’ and understand later. That is if you even want to understand. If you do, then your learning can continue at your own pace and I will upload the link when ready.
Regardless, this the method I will use for much of my teaching and I hope you’ve benefitted from it as much as I did developing it. Also, I hope to see you in future series learning other guitar topics.
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Cheers!
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