You don’t need tons of complicated chord shapes to play jazz guitar… although that’s what you’re going to find with most jazz guitar books and lessons out there today.
Do a quick search for “easy jazz guitar chords” and you’re gonna find a big list of chords to learn and memorize… and it seems like an impossible amount of work to do before you even get to play anything.
As you get better, you’ll naturally build a solid library of jazz guitar chords you can use in your playing. It just takes time.
But you can actually get a surprising amount done with just two chord shapes that are actually easy to play, simple to understand, and friendly under your fingers.
The real secret here is in two things:
Number one: learning movable chord shapes, rather than specific chords.
And number two, learning how to recognize and manipulate the chord tones (which is another term for the intervals or notes inside the chords).
What I’ll show you today are two easy jazz guitar chord shapes that you can probably master the basics of within the next 10 minutes.
I’m also going to show you how to move the chord tones around to create any chord type that you need.
When you can understand and manipulate your chord tones, you have even more control over what chords you play.
Between using movable chords and manipulating the chord tones, you can build a huge chord vocabulary without memorizing thousands of chord shapes out of a book.
You can come up with the chords you need right there, on the spot, in the moment.
What Are Movable Chords?
Okay, let’s check out moveable chords first. Basically what we are talking about is using chord finger patterns that do not contain open strings. If you don’t have a finger on a note, you don’t play that string.
You either mute the string, or use your picking hand fingers to avoid that string as you play the chord. That way, the notes stay the same in relation to one another when you move them up and down the guitar neck.
So, this helps you because it lets you turn one chord finger pattern into all 12 chords or all 12 keys, which is super important if you want to be a self-sufficient jazz guitar player.
It’s really helpful to focus your energy on learning movable chords rather than learning individual chords, right? Instead of looking up how to play an Eb7, you learn how to play a seventh chord.
Then you would find an Eb on your guitar, and play your seventh chord from that note.
It’s a little bit more work up front, and you do have to learn some of the notes on the neck, but long-term it’s going to be a much faster and easier way for you to learn.
What Are Chord Tones?
Chord tones are numbers assigned to the notes within a chord.
Now typically, a chord is going to have four chord tones.
It’s going to have a root (1), a third (3), a fifth (5), and a seventh (7).
This is true most of the time… but the chords I’m going to show you today are only going to use three of those notes.
We’re going to use the root (1), the third (3), and the seventh (7).
This is technically called a shell voicing. It eliminates the 5 of the chord, which helps make it easier to play, and gives you a nice clean sound for each chord.
Whether you want to call them shell voicings or not, I just think of them as basic jazz guitar chords.
By learning to manipulate the seventh or the third of your chords, you start to be able to change the quality or type of chord you are playing. You can turn your major 7th into a dominant 7th, minor 7th, and more by learning how to move chord tones around.
So in the next section, we’re going to look at the “big three” chord types or qualities and these are: major 7th, dominant 7th, and minor 7th.
“The Big 3” Easy Jazz Guitar Chord Types
Major 7 Chords
Let’s start by taking a look at the major 7th chord. If the root of your chord is G, the chord symbol for this is going to be something like Gmaj7,G∆7, or sometimes GM7 (but that one is less common these days).
6th String Root
The first of our two chord shapes is going to be built with the root on the sixth string. You’ll build it with the root (1) on the sixth string, skip the fifth string, put the seven (7) on the fourth string, and then the third (3) will be on the third string. You won’t play the 2nd or 1st strings.
So the chord tones from low to high in this chord shape are root (1), third (3), and seven (7). The most important thing for you to remember about this chordis the structure: 173.
5th String Root
Our second chord shape is going to be built with the root on the fifth string. You’ll build it with the root (1) on the fifth string, put the third (3) on the fourth string, and then the seventh (7) will be on the third string. Again, you won’t play the 2nd or 1st strings for this chord.
For this shape, the chord tones from low to high are root (1), third (3), and seven (7). And again, remember the structure: 137.
So with these two chord shapes, you can play any major seventh chord with the root on the sixth string or with the root on the fifth string.
You just need to move the chord shape around the neck so that the root of the chord (marked by in red) is on the right fret.
So if you need a Gmaj7, you would find a G on the sixth string, put your pointer finger on that note, and form the rest of the sixth string chord shape.
Or if you needed a Cmaj7, you could find a C on the fifth string, put your middle finger on that note and fill out the rest of the fifth string chord shape.
It’s that easy.
If you needed an F you would find an F and put your finger there and build the chord shape off of that instead. Or any other chord name you need.
With movable chord shapes, you really do get to learn one finger position, and then you technically “know” that chord in all 12 keys automatically by moving your shape to different starting frets.
(You just have to know the note names on the 6th and 5th strings to pull it off…)
Dominant 7th Chords
Now let’s talk about changing our major 7th chords into dominant 7th chords. This is where we start to deal with manipulating chord tones.
You don’t want to have to memorize all new chord shapes for dominant 7th chords, you want to learn how to change just one note to turn your major 7th chords into dominant 7th chords.
This way you don’t have to learn tons of chord shapes… you just have to learn a couple of simple rules about how chords are built. And you get to learn them right on your fretboard, under your fingers.
So what we do here is we take our major seventh chord shapes that you’ve just learned, and we lower the seventh. (Remember how I told you the chord tones and structure were the most important thing?)
So now your seven (7) is lowered by 1 fret and becomes a flat seven (b7). That’s all it takes to turn a major 7th chord into a dominant 7th chord. The chord symbol for this would be G7, if G was the root of the chord.
This changes the sixth string shape into a 1 b7 3 structure and it makes the fifth string shape into a 1 3 b7 structure.
Minor 7th Chords
Finally, let’s look at turning our dominant 7th chord into a minor 7th chord. We’re going to take the dominant 7th chord shapes and lower the thrird (3) by one fret, changing it into a flat third (b3).
And that’s how you change a dominant 7th chord into a minor 7th chord. So now your 6th string shape is going to be 1 b7 b3, and your 5th string shape will be 1 b3 b7.
Your chord symbols for this will look like Gmin7, G-7, or Gm7 if G is the root of your chord.
These three chord types (maj7, 7, min7) give you just about everything you need to get started playing jazz guitar right now, today. Next let’s take a look at some ways to practice these chord shapes to make them your own.
Practicing Easy Jazz Guitar Chords
Chord Manipulation Exercise/Warmup
A great exercise you should try is to start with the major seventh,and practice moving one chord tone at a time to create a dominant 7th and a minor 7th chord.
So start with a Gmaj7 on the sixth string, and then practice lowering the 7 to make it into a G7 and then lowering the 7 to make it a Gmin7.
Then practice raising the 3 back up to make it a G7 again, and raising the 7 back up to make it a Gmaj7 again.
What I’m thinking when I’m playing this exercise is Gmaj7, lower the 7, G7, lower the 3, Gmin7. Then when we go back up, I’m thinking Gmin7, raise the 3, G7, raise the 7, Gmaj7.
Make sure you repeat the process with your 5th string chord shape. Check out the example below for Cmaj7.
This is a great way to get a real understanding of how chord construction works on your fretboard. You’ll also be able to apply this concept to other chords you learn down the road, which will be a great way to improve your chord vocabulary over time.
Practice Around the Cycle
You can also work on these chords by playing around the cycle of fourths, which is a fundamental jazz guitar exercise.
I would recommend working on one string, and one chord type at a time. So try 6th string major 7th chords, and follow the cycle of 4ths until you’ve played every key.
The cycle of 4ths is essentially a chord progression, where the root notes follow this order: C F Bb Eb Ab Db Gb B E A D G.
Playing through this cycle will help you find every major 7th chord you could possibly need, with the root on the 6th string. Of course, you’ll need to do this on the 5th string as well.
Once you’re comfortable with your major 7th chords, practice around the cycle with dominant 7th and minor 7th chords as well.
Finding the right root notes gets easier and easier over time, so play this exercise every day and before you know it, you’ll “just know” where the notes are… no special memorization tricks needed.
Easy Jazz Guitar Chords in Songs
Another thing you can do to practice these chords is just open up your Real Book and find a song to play.
Take your time, and figure out how to play each chord in the song using the chords you’ve learned in this lesson. Don’t worry about getting it smooth right away, just work on getting through it.
If a whole song seems like too much to do, start with 4 measures. And when those get easier, add the next 4. Everything builds up your skill level, and you’ll be playing whole songs before you know it.
Conclusion
Practicing these chord shapes will get you off to a really good start. They’re easy to play and understand, and you can play tons of jazz songs using the simple chords that we looked at today.
And as an added bonus, you’re going to learn all the note names on the sixth string and fifth string by playing through the cycle of fourths, or by working on songs in the real book.
You’re also getting a lot of real “hands on” music theory… learning how to move the chord tones around to create different chord types, or chord qualities. This is gonna give you a practical understanding of chord construction that a lot of people miss.
So keep practicing these simple shapes, and put them to work in jazz songs as soon as you can. Have you tried these easy jazz guitar chords in your own playing? Let me know in the comments below.