>Step by step

Building basic jazz chords

1 Let’s begin with our standard starting point, the C major scale – eight notes, from C to C, using all the white notes on the keyboard –C, D,E, F,G, A, B and C once again. We’re going to form some chords using only these notes. Stacking up alternate notes from the scale produces a set of ‘diatonic’, three-note chords, or triads – C, Dm, Em, F, G, Am, Bdim and C. 2 If you stack an extra fourth note on the top of each chord, you get a set of diatonic seventh chords. In C major, these are Cmaj7, Dm7, Em7, Fmaj7, G7, Am7, Bm7b5

and Cmaj7. This gives us four of the most common jazz chord types – the major seventh (maj7) minor seventh (m7), dominant seventh (7) and half

m7b5) diminished seventh ( types. 3 We can extend these chords further using extended intervals. An interval is the distance in pitch between two notes – the interval between C and G, say, is a perfect fifth (see 209’s Easy Guide for more on intervals). Once you get two notes that are more than an octave apart, you get into the realm of extended, or ‘compound’ intervals. 4 If you stack thirds continuously from a C, you get C,E,G, B, D,F, A, C, named root, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh, thirteenth and root. The extended intervals (ninth, eleventh and thirteenth) are technically the same notes as the second, fourth and sixth intervals – just an octave higher. A third above the thirteenth brings you back to the root, two octaves higher. 5 Modes are slightly altered versions of regular scales, made by playing the notes in a scale from different starting notes other than the root. Each mode has a different name according to the interval patterns between the notes. For the purposes of this tutorial, we’re going to focus on the Major (aka Ionian), Dorian and Mixolydian modes – shown here. 6 The basic jazz major chord is the major seventh – a major triad with an added major seventh note. To get a C major seventh, you spell the notes C-E-G –aC major triad – and add the seventh degree of the scale, B, to make C-E-G-B: Cmaj7. You can extend this chord by adding intervals all the way to 13 – C-E-G-B-D-F-A would make a Cmaj13.

7 The basic jazz minor chord is the minor seventh. To get a C minor 7th, Eb- you take a C minor – C- G – and add the Bb, Eb- Bb: minor seventh of C, to make C- G

Cm7. To extend this chord, you need to use notes from the Dorian scale. C Dorian Eb Bb is spelled CD FGA C, so adding extended intervals all the way up to 13, we Eb- Bb- would get C- G- D-F-A – Cm13. 8 Let’s make a dominant seventh. To make a C7, start with C major ( C-E-G) Bb, and add a the minor seventh from the Bb: root, to make C-E-G- C7. To extend this chord, you need to use notes from the Mixolydian scale. C Mixolydian is spelled Bb

CDEFGA C, so adding extended intervals all the way up to 13 would give Bb- us C-E-G- D-F-A – C13. 9 With so many notes, 13ths are tough to play, but we can use a special jazz voicing. Leave the root out for another instrument to play (or use the left-hand on a piano), exclude the 5th, 9th and 11th notes, then rearrange the remaining chord tones into an easier shape. This makes Bb- our C13 chord C- E-A – C in the left hand, Bb-

E-A further up the keyboard. 10 Let’s apply all this to a progression. A lot of standard jazz progressions are diatonic, and here’s one of the most common jazz turnarounds there is – the ii - V - I. This relates to the way the chords in a harmonised scale are labelled with Roman numerals – for instance, a ii - V - I in C major would be Dm - G - C, played here as simple root-position triads. 11 We can use a few jazz harmony tricks to spice it up, starting by dropping the root notes into the bass octave and using extended chords. Our melody descends through the notes G,F,E, and D, so we can use a Dm9 ( D-F-C-G) as our ii chord. The voicing above removes the 5th (A) and 9th (E), but it still works because the major 3rd (F), major 7th (C) and 11th (G) are still there. 12 For the dominant V chord, I’ve used a G13 ( G-F-B-E), supporting the melody notes in the second bar before resolving to the I chord, a C6/9 ( C-E-A-D). Note how the note orders in these voicings are now spread out evenly to fill the stave, and the melody notes are picked out by the chord tones at the top of each stack.