Major Jazz Guitar ChordsTo begin your study of jazz guitar chords, lets take a look at themajor familyof chords.In the following chord grids, you will find fingerings for 12 different commonly used major familyjazz guitar chords.Thesechordshighlight the maj7, maj6 (often written simply as 6), maj9 and maj6/9 chords.While these chords havedifferent symbols, think of them as different shades of the same harmonic color, as they can all be used to comp over a maj7 chord symbol when seen in a jazz standard progression.This means, if you see Cmaj7 written in a chord chart, you can color that chord with C6, Cmaj9 or Cmaj6/9, depending on your tastes and themusical situation.To see how these chords relate to each other, here is aquick chart guideto the interval structure of the four major family chords in this lesson. Maj7 R-3-5-7 Maj6 R-3-5-6 Maj9 R-3-5-7-9 Maj6/9 R-3-5-6-9Because theMaj9 and Maj6/9chords have five notes, and we are focussing on four-note shapes in this lesson, you will be leaving one of those notes out.This is acommon practice by jazz guitaristswhen it comes to playing jazz chords, as we have less fingers than a pianist to play chords, and so have to pair down chord shapes on the fretboard in order to sound the chord, but make it playable at the same time.Here arefour major family chordswith the root on the 6thstring that you can study and practice in all 12 keys in the woodshed.

6th String Root 4 Major Family Chords

5th String Roots Major Family

4th String Roots Major Family

Dominant Jazz Guitar ChordsYou will now move on to thedominant familyof chords, which feature the following colors for you to explore in your practice room and on the bandstand.As was the case with the major family, it is up to your taste and musical background to decide when to use any/all of these colors in yourcomping phrases. 7th R-3-5-b7 9th R-3-5-b7-9 13th R-3-5-b7-9-11-13 7#11 R-3-5-b7-9-#116th string Root (dominant)

5th String Root (dominant)

4th String Root (dominant)

Minor Jazz Guitar ChordsYou will now explore theminor familyof jazz guitar chords, 12 fingerings across three string sets.These chords features m7, m6, m9 and m11 sounds, and are treated the same way as you would treat any chord color inyour comping, with discretion and musical taste.Here are the differentinterval formulaefor the minor family of chords.m7 R-b3-5-b7m6 R-b3-5-6m9 R-b3-5-b7-9m6/9 R-b3-5-6-9m11 R-b3-5-b7-9-11

6th String Root (minor)

5th String Root (minor)

4th String Root (minor)

Diminished Jazz Guitar ChordsYou are now ready to explore the diminished family in your studies, which contains both half-diminished and fully-diminishedchord shapesand colors.When applying dim7 chords (fully-diminished) to your playing, they often act to outline other more commonly used chords in ajazz standard situation.An example of this, and one you will see in the exercises below, is playing a dim7 chord from the b9, 3rd, 5thor b7th of a 7thchord in order to turn it into arootless 7b9chord.Though this may sound tricky to pull off, simply find the root of any 7thchord you are playing and play adim7 chord one fret higher.This will get you started in applying this concept to the fretboard before taking it to other intervals of dominant chordsin your playing.Here are theinterval structuresfor each diminished family chord in the examples below. m7b5 R-b3-b5-b7 m11b5 R-b3-b5-b7-b9-11 dim7 R-b3-b5-bb7As you can see, there are two types of chords being outlined here, m7b5 (half-diminished chords) and dim7 (fully diminished chords),both are membersof the diminished family.This is because they both contain the diminished triad as the first three notes of the chord, R-b3-b5, with various other notes add on top of that triad to form the differentcolors in the family.

6th String Root

5th String Root (diminished family)

4th String Root (diminished family)

Chord DevelopmentThe exercise starts on any Maj7 chord you know, then you simplylower the 7thof that chord to produce a 7th.From there,you lower the 3rdto produce a m7, lower the 5thfrom there to produce a m7b5 and finally lower the 7thagain to produce a dim7 chord. See the Blue note.