Constructing Jazz Guitar Chords

Jazz music is some of the most complex music in modern society. Don’t let this turn you off though; Jazz is mostly built upon seventh chords, which are in fact very easy chords to build.

Before we get into building our own jazz guitar chords, we need to cover a few basics.

You should fully understand how to build a triad before you approach building seventh chords. A triad is a chord built of three notes.

There are four different types of basic guitar chords; Major, minor, augmented and diminished. This also means that there are four different types of triads as well, and of course this extends to seventh chords as well.

A Major triad is built of a Major third with a minor third on top. A Major triad’s musical interval from the root is called a perfect fifth. A minor triad is built of a minor third with a Major third stacked upon it. This is also called a minor triad.

Diminished and augmented chords are a bit different. A diminished triad is built of two minor thirds which makes an interval called a diminished fifth. An augmented triad is built of two Major thirds whose combined interval is called an augmented fourth.

Building basic triads is easy. For example, we will use a C Major super tonic triad. The super tonic in most Major keys is minor, so if we take the second letter name of C Major (D) and move up a minor third, we come to F (D#, E, F). From F we will need to move up a further Major third, which brings us to A (F#, G, G#, A). Our super tonic C Major triad consists of the notes D, F and A.

Now that we have arrived at our triad, how exactly do we create a seventh chord?

Seventh chords are built off of triads. Triads have a root, a third, and a fifth. We need to add a seventh. This is done by adding a further third. For a Major seventh chord, we would take a Major triad and add a second Major third to the end.

For a minor seventh chord, we would add a second minor third to the end of a minor triad. For a diminished seventh chord --you guessed it-- we add a third minor third to our diminished triad, and for an augmented seventh chord we would add a three Major third to the end of an augmented triad.

So now, using our C Major super tonic triad, we will create a minor seventh chord by moving a further minor third from our fifth bringing us to C (A#, B, C).

Sounds simple, right?

That’s because creating seventh chords is actually fairly easy once you have practiced a few times. Try creating the other seven C Major seventh chords using the method explained above. Once you finish those, you will find that constructing seventh chords becomes almost second nature.

Once you have finished with C Major, move onto its relative minor, a minor, and construct those eight seventh chords. By then you should be proficient enough with building seventh chords to approach any key you desire. Have fun!

Click here to access Guitar Scale Mastery instantly...