Jazz Foundations

Here are the same six steps, applied to the ii Chord in C Major. Notice the use of the Dorian mode.

Here are six simple steps to understand the 2-5-1 chord progression with 3-7 guide tones in C Major, for the I Chord. Notice you are in the Ionian mode.

What's the smartest approach to turn your understanding of the 2-5-1 chord progression into an easy to retrieve 3-7 voicing?  Here, I give a rough overview of the process we'll be using to tackle this.

There are several approaches to thinking about (and memorizing) 7th chords.  The first one we examine is through stacked thirds.  First, we look at this theoretically, and in a future video, we will highlight how to use this theoretical knowledge on your instrument, to identify those sevenths chords without going through scale degrees or diatonic chords, for example.  Understanding this concept may be key in developing a chunking strategy, especially as you add more chords to your arsenal.  This is a theory video.

There are many voicings out there.  Eventually, we want to be fluent in many of them, but we need to start somewhere.  Maybe you're looking at rootless voicings.  Maybe your teacher started you on the 3 and 7 guide tones.  We had to pick one way to start off, so I picked this one - the simplest.  The 3 and 7 tones.  But did you know that learning these foundational chords can later help you with scaffolding your knowledge for other voicings?  That is because the 3rd and 7th chords have very special properties, and most other chords are built on them.  So you're really learning the basis for future chords, as you learn this particular voicing.

Whether you're transitioning from a different instrument or style, or returning to music after a long hiatus, this is an invitation to explore the world of jazz together.  In this introductory episode I share a little bit about myself and my top tips on how to use this podcast.