How to Play Diatonic Scales and Harmonies in Jazz Guitar

Jazz guitarists rely on the diatonic scale to construct chords and harmonies. This structure is especially helpful for telling the player what notes and chords they are allowed to play during an improvised solo. The following steps will show how to play diatonic scales and harmonies in jazz guitar.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Identify the diatonic scale. This scale splits divides an octave into 12 evenly spaced tones. In this example, the number of the first note (also called the root note) in the octave as 1.

2. Study the major and minor diatonic scales. The major scale consists of notes 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 12. Note that this gives the intervals 2, 2, 1, 2, 2, 2 and 1 where the number indicates the number of tones separating successive notes in the scale. The intervals are 2, 1, 2, 2, 1, 2 and 2 for the minor scale.

3. Examine the use of ordinals in music. When musicians refer to a third, for example, they are talking about the third note in a given scale. Referring to the intervals given in Step 2, see that a major third is a difference of four tones and a minor third is a difference of three tones.

4. Construct tertian harmony based on the diatonic scale. This type of harmony is based on thirds so that a major chord includes a root note, a major third and a minor third. A major chord consists of the first, third and fifth notes in the scale.

5. Use chords with additional notes. The major seventh chord adds the seventh note in the scale (another major third) and chords with extended intervals are extremely common in jazz guitar. These chords use intervals that extend into the second octaves, especially the 9th, 11th and 13th notes.