Nine Chords for Jazz Guitar

Series Summary

Music is one of the primary forms of communication on Earth. Whether the use of tones and melodies developed before, after, or in conjunction with spoken language is unknown; yet music is unique in that it helps us to talk to each other in ways that language cannot achieve. Jazz music was born in New Orleans as Dixieland; and it had an instantly recognizable swing and swagger to it. Since then, it has developed into a style of music particularly suited to improvisation, and a lot of jazz musicians use the form as a backdrop to play more freely expressed riffs and melodies; to expand on general musical themes. Thus while having an increased risk of chaotic polyphony, bordering on discord, jazz opens the field for the musical explorer to go forward. Jazz guitar music, in particular, is rooted in minor 7th chords and diminished 3rds; its sound is as distinctive as any in the jazz family. Advanced jazz guitarist will also need to know their 9, 11 and 13 chords as well, popular chords in Bossa Nova style jazz. In this series of free instructional video lessons for advanced jazz guitarists, you’ll learn how to play these more complex chords, as well as some popular songs that use these chords, like Girl From Ipanema, Blue Bossa Nova, and Georgia On My Mind. Expert John Armstrong will give you tips and techniques that will improve your ear and give you more confidence in your technical playing abilities.

Video Transcript

"I’m a professional guitar instructor and today we’ll be discussing advanced jazz guitar. Okay next I’d like to start off our first lesson of advanced jazz guitar and discussing nine chords, so far we’ve discussed triads and seven chords but now let’s go into the next group of chords in which we refer to as nine chords. What a nine chord is we’re using the root, the third and the fifth, the seventh and the 9th note of the major scale, now the ninth note of the major scale would be the same as the second note but in order to build in upward fashion using odd number notes will refer to the second note as the 9th note. Okay I’d like to first start off, we’re not going to start off with the major 9 let’s start off with dominate 9 so it’s going to have a flat and 7 in it, there’s a nice voicing right here, for example if I was to do a D9 based off the fifth string. What I have here is my root note followed by my third note of the major scale, my flat and 7, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven flatted, my 9 which is the same as my second and my 5th, so root, 3rd, flat and 7th, ninth and 5th. Important to memorize those chord tones, root, 3rd, flat and 7th, 9th and 5th because if I wanted to simply alter that chord by playing what we refer to as a D9, sharp 5 I figure out where my 5th is which is on the high E string, sharp it…now I have a D9, sharp 5 chord. Same thing now that a D9 flat 5, flat the 5 move back a fret, kind of an eerie sounding chord but a very popular jazz chord. When I altered the 9th either by sharping or flatting the 9th we no longer have what’s technically referred to as a 9 chord but we still use our 9 chord as our departure point, for example a D9 sharp 9 is root, 3rd, flat and 7th, take the 9th and sharp it, the popular ever so popular Jimmy Hendrix chord or Stevie Ray Vaughan type chord. The same chord now flat and 9th, a D7 flat 9 root, 3rd, flat and 7th, flat and 9th, I can also have 5ths in there, you can have a D seven flat nine and sharp five, D seven flat nine, flat five, D seven sharp 9 flat 5, where I got a sharp 9th and a flatted 5th. Unless the 5th is altered it’s a passive tone and can be omitted, for example like the D7 sharp 9 chord but if I have D 7 sharp 9 flat 5 I must figure out a way to incorporate that flatted 5th."