Major Chord & Minor Chord Theory for Jazz Guitar

Video Transcript

" Hi! My name is John Armstrong with expertvillage.com. I'm a professional guitar instructor and today we are going to be studying beginning jazz guitar. Okay next I would like to discuss how the basic theory of major and minor triads which we looked at examples in the open position how those work in movable chords. This is really going to be an important aspect if we start covering 7, 9, 11 and 13 chords. Basically instead of concerning yourself so much with the names of the notes, the letter names of the note in the scale. What you are concerning yourself with here is going to be the notes relationship to the major scale pattern. For this we are going to be using a 2 octave major scale. Here I'll do it in the key of A. It starts off that I add the other octave. If I think about it I've got number of the notes in it root 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th root. Okay. Now to make this a major chord base out of that major scale, I have the root 2,3, 4, 5, 6, 7, root again. It's the root 5th the octave. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2, 3, so I have root 5th and root 3rd. 1, 2,3,4,5, 6,7, 1,2,3,4,5, so I add another 5th and then 2,3,4,5,6,7, 1,2,3,4,5,6,7, 1 another root. I come up with this major voicing. If I take that voicing and place it here, it is now a G major chord. Why, because no matter where I play this chord under the neck of the guitar, it always sets up the same exact pattern of root 5th, root 3rd, 3rd, 5th and root. Here is B major, B flat major, because it always sets up the same pattern regardless what the letter names of the notes are; the same pattern of roots 3rds and 5ths. Now I simply make that major triad into a minor triad by taking the 3rd and flatting it. Here is an A minor for example. Here would be an F sharp or G flat minor, a B minor because it always sets up the same exact pattern of roots flatted 3rd's and 5th's. "