Easy Jazz Guitar Chords: Your Complete Beginner’s Guide

by

Jazz guitar chords can really look intimidating the first time you take a look at them, but really, you only need a handful of easy jazz guitar chords to get started.

You see, jazz guitar chords aren’t any harder to learn than the chords you already know. They’re just different patterns than you’re used to. Your fingers have to go into a little bit different shape.

But if you can learn your basic D, C, and G chords, you can learn jazz guitar chords. You really don’t need to be a theory wizard or even understand how jazz guitar chords are built in order to play them (although we will cover that in this lesson). 

All you need to be able to do is this:

Recreate the finger patterns and move them around the neck.

You Don’t Need Theory to Start Playing Easy Jazz Guitar Chords

The benefits of understanding the theory at the beginning are oversold and over-emphasized. When I got into college, I could play all the jazz guitar chords all over the neck. 

I was in middle to upper level groups as a freshman, but I also almost didn’t test into basic theory. I almost had to take remedial music theory because I just learned the grips and I learned the notes on the neck, and that was enough for me as an early player.

So we’re going to cover the theory because it’s important to become a well-rounded musician, but you don’t really need it if you just want to play.

What You’ll Learn in This Easy Jazz Guitar Chords Lesson

Here’s what we’re going to cover in this lesson:

  • What makes a jazz chord a jazz chord
  • The five essential jazz chord types: Major 7, Dominant 7, Minor 7, Half Diminished, and Diminished
  • How these easy jazz guitar chords work together
  • Practice tips for incorporating these chords into your own playing

Let’s jump into it.

Table of contents

What Makes a Jazz Chord a Jazz Chord?

So what exactly makes a jazz chord? In most beginner guitar situations, what you’re really playing with any grip is triads. 

Your basic G chord is really a three-note structure called a triad, just with repeated notes.

So even when you are playing all six strings, there are typically really only three unique note names happening at any given point.

Basic G chord, and the triad it's made up of.

Chord Construction Basics

Triad chords are built of three intervals: the root (or the 1), the third (or the 3), and the fifth (or the 5).

How to build a G major triad.

Where we start getting into easy jazz guitar chords is when we start using four-note structures instead. We have the root, we have the third, we have the fifth just like before, but now we also have a seventh (or a 7).

It's easy to turn triads into jazz guitar chords - just add the 7th.

Cutting Out Doubles

Another little detail that makes these jazz chords stand out and can really make you sound better right away as you start learning them is that jazz chords don’t tend to double notes. 

When you’re using open strumming chords or even barre chords, you tend to have doubled notes. You have a couple of roots in there, sometimes you have a couple of thirds in there. 

You can see that the 1 and the 3 are both doubled. It's normal in open chords, but we don't do that in jazz guitar chords.

These notes are happening multiple times to fill out the six strings. We don’t tend to do that with jazz chords, and that just bumps your level – your perceived level – up almost immediately. 

Jazz guitar chords only use one of each interval that makes up the chord structure. No doubling.

So you only have one root in the shape, one third, one fifth, and one seventh. You’re not going to have doubles of any of those most of the time.

Now, just because these easy jazz guitar chords are friendly under your fingers and easy for you to learn – you can start playing them pretty quickly – doesn’t mean they’re just for beginners.

 You’re going to keep using these chords for years and years, and they’re going to form a really solid foundation for advanced jazz guitar playing.

The Five Essential Easy Jazz Guitar Chords

I think there are five essential easy jazz guitar chords. There are five types of chords you need to be able to play in order to be able to look at a jazz chart and feel confident playing it.

These are also called chord qualities. Major is a chord quality, minor is a chord quality. We take things a little bit further in our naming because we’re dealing with four-part chords, so there’s more detail in there.

The five essential types of chords you need to be able to play for easy jazz guitar chords are:

  • Major seventh chords
  • Dominant seventh chords
  • Minor seventh chords
  • Minor seven flat five (or half diminished) chords
  • Diminished seventh chords

Now, some of the more old-time jazz guitar players would simplify this into saying you need to be able to play major chords, dominant chords, and minor chords. 

But while that approach looks a lot simpler on the surface, it requires a lot more theory and a lot more splitting of hairs to be able to actually use that stuff, and it ends up becoming more complicated. 

These five categories match up very neatly with chord symbols that you’re going to see in the Real Book or in iReal Pro or on a jazz chart on a gig.

One final important point as we go forward is that every chord shape in this lesson is movable, which means you can play each chord in different keys by moving the root note to a different fret. 

So the more you move these around, the more you get to play in every single key.

Major Seventh Chords

Major seventh chords are built with a root, a third, a fifth, and a seventh. The technical names for these are root, major third, perfect fifth, major seventh. 

Easy jazz guitar chords Major 7th shapes.
Notation example of major 7th chords.

Typically, this shows up as the one chord or a four chord of a progression.

I like to use it as a starting point for learning or creating chords. Because once you understand how chords are built, you can create any chord by starting with a major seventh chord.

You just have to alter one note at a time. 

And that theory is actually sneakily built into this lesson. If you follow the order of chords we go through today… you’ll start to see it.

Dominant Seventh Chords

Dominant seventh chords are built with a root, third, fifth, and flat seventh. You can think of it as a major seventh chord with a lowered seven. 

Now, the technical terms for the intervals after the root are major third, again, perfect fifth, and minor seventh. 

I prefer to talk about it as a flat seven because that’s a little more directly applicable to the chord itself and doesn’t get confused with theory interval names and chord names.

Easy jazz guitar chords for dominant 7 shapes.

The dominant seventh is kind of a wild card chord. Technically in the theory sense, it’s a V (5) chord. But these pop up everywhere in jazz. 

They’re often used as substitutions. In fact, Joe Pass said in his guitar style book (affiliate link) that you can turn any chord into a dominant seventh chord.

He’s also famously said he only plays easy jazz guitar chords.

And they’re also used to set up key changes. 

So if you’re going to change the key, you’re going to see a dominant seventh chord that doesn’t quite fit leading to a major seventh chord.

Minor Seventh Chords

Minor seventh chords are built root, flat three, five, flat seven. You can think of it as a dominant seventh with a lowered three. 

So again, the technical terms would be minor third and minor seventh. I prefer flat because it matches up with what you’re going to see in the notes that are actually written out. 

And it’s a little more clear when we’re talking about chords to talk about flat or lowering, rather than whether an interval is major or minor.

Minor 7th chords - these are some easy jazz guitar chord shapes.
TAB and notation examples of how to play minor 7th chords.

This chord gets a lot of use along with the dominant seventh chord. In theory, it occupies the two, three, and six chords of a key, and also it’s the one chord of a minor key. 

This is an essential part of turnarounds like 2-5-1 and 3-6-2-5-1. Both of these are ways to set up new keys or get back to the original home of the key that you started in.

Minor Seven Flat Five (Half Diminished)

This chord is built root, flat three, flat five, flat seven. So technically it’d be root, minor third, diminished fifth, minor seventh. 

Again, flat is just clearer and it more directly applies to the chords, so that’s what I’m going with.

Important for this – this one has two different chord symbols. 

The first one being the minor seven flat five chord symbol, which is a lowercase m or a minus sign (-) followed by a seven followed by a flat five. (Gmin7b5, Gm7b5, G-7b5)

And the other one is the half diminished seventh chord symbol, and that is a circle with a slash through it, followed by a seven. (Gø7)

For an example – on the fretboard diagrams, I’ve labeled the chords as half-diminished (Gø7). And in the notation example, I’ve labeled the chords as minor 7b5 (m7b5). 

It’s good to get used to seeing both symbols so you’re ready for anything.

Easy jazz guitar chords have shapes like minor7b5.
TAB and notation examples for minor 7b5 chords.

What’s the Difference?

Now the big difference in these is just how it’s written down. It doesn’t act any different. You don’t have to do anything differently for it. You just need to know that both of those chord symbols are valid for this chord structure. 

It really depends on who wrote it. 

Initially, when people were handwriting jazz charts, it was faster to do things with symbols rather than with letters. It had fewer pen strokes, took up less space on the page. (Gø7)

As we got into using computer programs to do this stuff, you started seeing more spelled out chords – m7♭5 or min7♭5. 

And now with some programs like iReal Pro, we’re getting back into seeing some of these symbols to mean the chord symbol, like the circle with a slash through it for half diminished. 

So at the end of the day, you need to just understand that both of those mean the same thing.

This is typically used at the beginning of a minor 2-5-1 progression. So that’s going to be a big clue that a progression is in a minor key. 

If you see a minor seven flat five or half diminished chord at the beginning, at least that chunk is going to be in a minor key. It doesn’t necessarily mean the whole song is in minor, but at least those few measures are.

Diminished Seventh Chords

Diminished seventh chords are built root, flat three, flat five, and double flat seven. So technically, root, minor third, diminished fifth, diminished seventh. 

Again, I just like the flats. It looks more like music notation and it doesn’t get confused between what the interval is and what the chord is.

Easy jazz guitar chords to cover the diminished 7th chord symbol.
TAB and notation examples for diminished 7th chords.

This can be used as a passing chord, or when written in a progression, some songs just specifically call for diminished chords. 

Sometimes they’re used as just kind of a way to get from like a one chord to a two chord. You go 1 chord, diminished passing chord, 2 chord. And this is something you can apply yourself, or it will be written in the chart.

Using diminished 7th chords as passing chords in a progression.

Bonus Chord: Dominant Seven Flat Nine

The dominant seven flat nine is really just a diminished seventh chord, but there’s a trick to it. 

This is an easy way for you to create an alteration on a dominant seventh chord, which is a nice way to spice up a 2-5-1. And it’s my preferred way to play the five chord in a minor 2-5-1.

This ends up getting built with the flat nine instead of the root, three, five, flat seven.

And the way you do this is very simple. 

Once you know how to play your diminished seventh chord, you take your dominant seventh chord and you play the diminished shape one fret above the root. 

Diminished 7th chords are an easy way to generate altered jazz guitar chords.

So if you need to play a G7, you’re going to play a G# or A♭ diminished, and that’s going to generate the dominant seven flat nine for you. 

It’s a great way to add some color, add a little bit of spice to the five chord in a 2-5-1 progression.

Easy Jazz Guitar Chord Construction Theory

I mentioned a little bit earlier that if you know how chords work, you can start with a major seventh chord and generate any chord that you need. 

And that’s true. 

While I don’t want to go deep into this, it’s already outlined in the lesson you’ve gone through so far.

So the basics is this: if you start with a major seventh and lower the seven, now you have the dominant seventh. 

Changing major 7 to 7 by lowering the 7th of the major 7 chord.

From that dominant seventh, if you lower the third, now you have a minor seventh. 

You can change any dominant 7 into a minor 7 by lowering the 3.

And from the minor seventh, if you lower the fifth, now you have a minor seven flat five. 

Minor 7 can become a minor7b5 or half diminished by lowering the 5.

And from the minor seven flat five, if you lower the flat seven one more time, now you have a diminished chord.

By lowering the b7 of the minor 7b5 chord, you now have a fully diminished 7th chord.

So that takes us one step at a time, one note at a time, from a major seven all the way to a diminished chord. 

You can generate any chord you ever need from a major 7th shape. You just have to lower one note at a time.

There’s nothing you really need to do with this – it’s just something that once you understand it, you can start to work your way through all of these easy jazz guitar chords without having to memorize every single one.

Easy Jazz Guitar Chord Progressions

The best way to learn these chords and make them things that you can actually use in your playing is to put them to work as soon as you can. 

Once you can play the basic shapes reasonably well, you’ll polish them faster by putting them into context than you will by endlessly drilling the same chords over and over again.

So playing tunes out of the Real Book or a program like iReal Pro are both great options for getting these chords under your fingers fast.

That being said, sometimes starting small is a good way to dip your toe in and get used to playing these easy jazz guitar chords. 

So with that in mind, here are examples of some 2-5-1 progressions you can start using today.

Major ii V I Progressions

Practice your easy jazz guitar chords with ii V I progressions in major keys.

Minor ii V I Progressions

You can also practice ii V I progressions in minor keys using easy jazz guitar chords.

Easy Jazz Guitar Chord Practice Tips

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and there’s no rush to master these chords. In fact, if you try to learn all of these chords as much as possible, as fast as possible…

… you’re just gonna set yourself up for frustration.

So my advice is this: take one chord type at a time and practice it until it’s easy for you. It might be a few minutes, it might be a few weeks, but you’re going to get there. 

What’s more important is that each chord you learn, you can use and retain over time. 

It would be better to end up taking a month to learn these easy jazz guitar chords cold…

… than to try and cram them all in to every practice session. You’ll only end up halfway learning them, and getting frustrated.

Use these chords as a way to get to know the notes on your guitar fretboard. By moving each of these around, you can play all of these chords in 12 keys. 

The cycle of fourths is a great way for you to get there.

If you follow that cycle with the root notes, it’s a great start. You’ll be able to start finding each of these chords in any key anywhere on the neck. 

As a bonus, you’ll get really, really comfortable with all of the notes. On the sixth string, fifth string, and fourth string. You’ll know them all really well.

Click here to check out the free lesson on the cycle of fourths.

Now remember to take your time and have fun with it. 

There’s no reason to stress out about learning jazz guitar chords. 

Just take one little step at a time and you’ll be playing like a pro before you know it.

Ready to Master Easy Jazz Guitar Chords?

If you want a step-by-step system to learning essential jazz guitar chords, I’ve got you covered.

Check out the ebook “10 Easy Jazz Guitar Chords You Should Know.” 

This is a super simple system that I’ve used for years. It will get you playing jazz guitar chords FAST. And sounding good while you do it. 

I still use all of these chords every single day in my own playing. And I use it with all of my students to get them up and running as quickly as possible.

These chords just work – and you can learn them in an afternoon.

So if you’re ready for the system that’ll take you there the fastest, click here to check it out.

You’re Ready to Play Real Jazz Songs

With these easy jazz guitar chords and progressions, you’re ready to tackle real jazz songs today.

In fact, practicing just these five chord qualities will take you a long way. You’ll build a real foundation for advanced jazz guitar skills…

… even though you might be a beginner right now. 

And if you remember that you can change one note at a time to create any chord you need, starting from a major seventh chord, even better. 

Go back through the five essential chord types section if you need a refresher on this – remember, it was kind of hidden in the lesson. We didn’t really talk about it specifically.

There’s real power in learning the fundamentals. This applies to jazz guitar, and it applies to anything else you do. 

But when you can play these chords and progressions everywhere on the neck in any key, you have a real advantage over players who just learn songs one at a time.

Because instead of needing to practice each tune for weeks to be able to perform it, you’ll be able to sit down and read through any song and play it reasonably well from day one. 

And from there, you can continue to practice, polish, and make it your own.

Mastering the fundamentals like this is a good way to become a more flexible, more able player in the future.

So let’s get to work, and if you want a step-by-step system to master easy jazz guitar chords quickly, click here to get the ebook “10 Easy Jazz Guitar Chords You Should Know” today.