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15 Easy Beginner Jazz Guitar Chords

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So why do you want to learn jazz chords? Well, jazz chords will spice up and enrich your playing. It doesn’t even matter if you want to play jazz or not, the chords are perfectly suited for/and regularly used in pop, blues, country, flamenco, and other styles of music.

It’s a good collection of chord types and flavors to add to your chord vocabulary, and expand your skill set. You will come across these chords one way or another in the songs you always wanted to learn. So, if you don’t have these chords under your belt yet, now is the time.

If you do want to step up your playing and learn jazz, these chords are a great start and a solid foundation. There are an endless amount of chords used in jazz, but you can already come a long way with just these 15 easy and popular beginner jazz chords.

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How to Play Captivating Diminished 7th Chords

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How to Play Diminished 7th chordsThe diminished 7th chord is used a lot in jazz music but also in pop music you keep bumping into them. Songs like “Michelle” by the Beatles, “Who says” by John Mayer, “Friends in low places” by Garth Brooks, “Road trippin'” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, “My sweet lord” by George Harrison and “God only knows” by The Beach Boys are just a few of many popular compositions using diminished chords.

Diminished chords are considered “dissonant” because of their tonal instability. They create a sense of tension and drama, and have a strong drive toward tonal resolution, meaning that, they want to move to a more final and stable sound (consonance). This is why they are often used in music, they can make a song more captivating, stirring, and charismatic.

The Dim Chords
There are different types of diminished chords: There is the diminished (dim) chord, the half diminished chord (m7♭5) and the diminished 7th chord (dim7). The diminished chord itself is not used very often, the half diminished and diminished 7th chord are more commonly used.

Dim Chord Analysis
Compared to a minor chord (1 – ♭3 – 5), the diminished chord has a flat 5th (♭5), the half diminished chord adds a flatted 7th (♭7) on top of that, and the diminished 7th chord adds a double flatted 7th (♭♭7).

Here are the chord formulas:
Major chord = 1 – 3 – 5
Minor chord = 1 – ♭3 – 5
Diminished chord = 1 -♭3 -♭5
Half diminished chord = 1 -♭3 -♭5 -♭7
Diminished 7th chord = 1 -♭3 -♭5 -♭♭7

Let’s take C as the root for example:
C major = C – E – G
C minor = C – E♭ – G
C dim = C – E♭ – G♭
Cm7♭5 (half dim) = C – E♭ – G♭ – B♭
C dim7 = C – E♭ – G♭ – B♭♭ (or simply “A”)

How to Play Diminished 7th Chords
The diminished 7th chord is made up of minor third intervals. That means all the notes are three semitones (3 frets) away from each other. This specific feature of the chord makes it possible to move the chord 3 frets up the fretboard each time and the chord will remain the same.

We start with a dim7 chord shape played on highest four strings. As you can see below from left to right, we move the diminished chord shape 3 frets up each time. Start the chord shape on the 1st fret, then move up to the 4th fret, the 7th fret and finally the 10th fret. Of course, you can move it up as far as you like. Continue Reading

New Website: YourGuitarChords

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C
Also known as C chord – C major chord
C – Cmaj – Cmajor – C chord

CCCCC

Today I’m happy to announce the launching of my new website YourGuitarChords.com

YourGuitarChords is a simple, clear and Easy-To-Use website that focuses on the most essential chords you need to know to build your chord vocabulary!

Each chord is shown in 5 different positions using the most practical, common used and best sounding chord shapes.

Whether you need simple easy chords for beginners or more challenging blues rock & jazz chords, it’s all there. And the best thing is, it’s free. :)

Let’s take a look how the website works:

Easy Navigation
The website has a top menu displaying all keys for every chord. Scroll over a key and you will see two submenus for major and minor chords. Click or scroll over these submenus to see all chord types. Chords with an arrow-down icon have an extra submenu with more related chord types.

The Chords
When you choose a chord in the menu it will appear BIG on the screen. This will give you a clear view for every chord. For each chord you can choose five different chord shapes / variations. These are shown below the main chord.

Each of the five chord shapes are played in a different position on the neck. Each time you click on one of the smaller chords it will be shown Big, Plain, Simple and Clear.

Fret Numbers
A green number next to the chord diagram indicates the fret number. For example, a “5” next to the chord diagram means that specific fret is the 5th fret on the neck. The fret below that is the 6th fret and so on.

How to Read
If you don’t know how to read a chord diagram there’s a link in the right sidebar on the website How to Read a Chord Diagram and other chord notation

YGC Help Kit
The sidebar on the right shows several posts that will help you out on your journey learning new chords.

The Essentials
I have chosen to build a website that doesn’t have a zillion chord types (which most of them you will never use), but one that contains only the most essential chords that you’ll need for the songs you want to learn, chords with beautiful sounds that will inspire you to play, practice, study and create your own music.

Updates
I will continue to update the website with more essential chords along the way and of course you’ll be the first to know. This website is build for you “The eager student”.

I hope you like YourGuitarChords and may it be a valuable tool to improve your guitar playing.

Enjoy!
YOURGUITARCHORDS.COM

Let me know what you think about the website in the comments below. I appreciate it.

Warm regards,
Klaus Crow

How to Play and Apply Dominant 7th Chords

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How to play and apply dom7th chordsThe dominant 7th chord is a chord that you will find in a lot of popular songs and many styles of music. In fact it’s the most essential chord type in blues music and one of the defining characteristics that defines the blues sound. But even if you’re not into blues, you want to make this chord part of your guitar vocabulary.

The dom7 chord comes in various shapes and sizes. We start with the “open” dom7 chords which are great for beginners and work our way up to more intermediate level dom7 chords: “The moveable chords”.

We’ll first take you through some basic dominant 7th music theory, we’ll show you the different types of dom7 chords and shapes, and then apply the chords to the song.

Let’s dive in!

Analysis
The Dom7 chord is simply a major triad with a flatted seventh (b7).
The major triad consists of the root (1), the major third (3) and the perfect fifth (5).
So the Dom7 chord formula = 1 3 5 b7

Let’s take a Cdom7 (also called “C7”) chord as an example.
We look at the C major scale: C D E F G A B C and we take the root (1st), 3rd, 5th and b7th note of that scale and you get the notes: C-E-G-Bb. So a Cdom7 (C7) chord consists of the notes: C E G BbContinue Reading