JA-001 • Basic Jazz Chords

[justinguitar]

Questions...

[Ron620]

I have a hard time playing a B7 barre chord, and Barred 7th chords in general, and I was wondering how important it is to mute the low E string (the thickest string). It sounds ok to me when I play it that way but I am a novice and it is easier to play it if I barre all of the strings. Also my fingers are not the longest in town. Is this ok?

[julije]

I suppose muting will do good when you're strumming along the barre chord. When it's amplified (electric), the unwanted note will be heard quite well among audience, probably creating disharmony.

I suggest strive for muting. Make it a habit. And I think it'd be a good one

[mpk]

Can you tell me what the difference between 7 and dom7 is? The second chord for example has a raised 7th right? How does it make sense in my playing because normally the 7th isn't raised. If you can see where i'm going give me an answer.

[nephente]

Hey,

they are the same.
Take a Major chord and put a minor seventh on top (eg. C E G Bb) and you get a seventh chord C7. Notice that Bb is not a note of the Cmajor scale!
So C7 is not a diatonic chord in Cmaj.
If you produce a diatonic seventh chord on C it comes out as C E G B which is referred to as CMaj7, because of the major seventh between G and B.
Do the same with the fifth of Cmaj-scale which is the note G you end up with G B D F. Now you have a MINOR seventh between D and F. So this is G7 and because the fifth is degree is the dominant you also call it dominant seventh chord.
Put a minor seventh on top of a minor chord and you get a min7 (eg. dmin7 in cmaj)

Hope this helps!

[NiJle]

Questions...

Hi all, Can anyone tell me which real book is the best for  jazz guitar as there seems to be lots of different versions and volumes?

[Randaman]

I'm having problems remembering these chords. Can anyone recommend me some songs that use these chords so i can remember them more easily? Thanks.

[jph]

Hi All,

I don't know what it's worth (pricewise it's EUR 5.99) but I just found out that there's an iReal Book for sale on the iTunes Store. I haven't bought it yet because I have soooo many things to work on first. If you want to have a look at its features, here it is: http://irealbook.net
Again, I don't know if it's any good and I'm not advanced enough to judge from what I've seen. Perhaps Justin or another advanced player w/ a good technical knowledge could have a look at it?

JPH

[smitten]

Questions...

I would like to begin to play jazz and I have a question about how to approach these chords. Forgive me if this has been answered elsewhere.

Till now I have used a guitar pick for everything. Everything on guitar, that is. I noticed for jazz, Justin uses fingernails to pluck these chords, which works well both for the timing (which has to be bang-on) and because if you strum them, there are a lot of strings to be muted (I find this awkward).

I can't grow fingernails because I also play piano, and also because my job won't allow it. I bought some little clip-on 'nails' from the guitar shop, and although the metal ones are a little better than the plastic, they still don't work well. I don't feel like I have good control over where my 'nail' is, or when it plucks the string.

What do other people do? I can't be the only one in this situation. Is there a better gadget I can buy? Do I just need to use my fingertips? That doesn't sound as good.

Thanks in advance for any help with this.

[smitten]

bump

Is anybody around?

[gman]

I've got a question on the lesson.  For the first position of the minor 7 chord, why is it necessary (or preferred) to mute the high E string?  If your third finger plays that note rather than muting it the note is still part of the chord.  So why leave it out?

Smitten, just fyi, I play with my fingertips often and like the sound.  In fact I just clipped my thumb nail short because I prefer the sound of fingertips rather than the hard plucking sound of the nail.

[smitten]

For want of a better solution, I've been using fingertips. I'd been blaming them for why it sounds so rubbish, but maybe that's just technique!

[jph]

Hi Smitten,

Just have a look here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vcf9K5BTNk

You CAN produce a pretty nice sound w/out growing your nails or using fake ones.

Don't bother about the "press the string down" thing: that's only relevant for scales. The most important is to always use the same part of your right hand fingers so that the tip gets harder.

Hope this helps

JPH