Jazz provides some of the richest sounding guitar chords out there today, but a lot of beginners tend to shy away from them, possibly remembering the one or two times they may have seen some jazz chords in a music book they scanned at the store or online somewhere.

These chords only look like a postal code to many students of the guitar at first because they are not used to seeing these particular chord voicings.

You have probably listened to a lot of jazz chords even in pop or rock songs and you may have tried to capture those sounds on your own guitar.

These chords are actually quite easy to play once you learn just a few very basic pieces of information.

Also, let’s be right up front here; there is no such thing as a jazz chord.  It is really nothing more than a guitar chord that is more frequently associated with the jazz genre, and we will find out why right here.

What Makes a Jazz Chord?

The main ingredient in a jazz chord is that most of them contain a 7th.  That is the main scale degree and the biggest difference to the majority of sound in a jazz piece.

Without going to deeply into music theory here, we’ll just quickly acknowledge that each note in a scale is a certain degree away from the root note.

Take a look at this first before throwing your hands up in frustration.

C Major Scale Degrees

Note C D E F G A B
Scale Degree I II III IV V VI VII
Root 2 3 4 5 6 7

 

You will notice in our table that the seventh degree of the C major (M) scale is the note B.  (Scale degrees are most often depicted in Roman numerals.)

So, reviewing the above table, if we play a CM chord (first, third and fifth) and add in a B note, we then have a CM7th chord and we are on our way to sounding a little jazzier with our chord voicings.

Let’s get to some chords, so grab your guitar.

Four Jazz Guitar Chords

  1. Major 7 (M7)
  2. Minor 7 (m7)
  3. Dominant 7
  4. Diminished 7

Major 7

A major 7th will also be depicted as follows:

  • C▲
  • C and a 7 with a slash through the stem
  • CM7 (notice capital M)
  • Major 7
  • Maj 7

Here is a C▲ for you to try out on the eight fret.

You can move this chord formation up and down the neck to get other major 7th chords without changing your fingering.

For example, slide it up two frets and you are playing a DM7.

Here is a big top-secret for you.

I highly recommend that if do not already know so, that learning the notes of the two biggest strings (E and A) on the guitar will really help you with knowing where you are and what chord you are playing at all times, because with many chords your index finger is pointing at the name of the chord.  The eighth fret on the E string is a C.

Minor 7

Identify a minor 7th chord on charts and music sheets as follows:

  • minor 7
  • min 7
  • m7 (with a small m)
  • -7 (a minus sign)

Notice the more unique fingering on this chord.  This is how they do it in the big leagues and after you learn a few more jazz tunes you will see that using this fingering has advantages in getting around quickly.  So, stick with it and get it under your fingers.

Probably the trickiest part about learning any of these chords is to mute the strings that are not supposed to be played.

It will start to come together pretty naturally after a while.

Dominant 7

You may see this chord written as follows:

  • 7
  • 7th
  • sometimes dom 7

Dominant chords are easy to remember because they are just the ones with a number after them, no M or little m.

You may occasionally see a bracketed number after a chord.  This indicates that it is an altered dominant chord, say an added 9th or 13th added to the chord, the same way we initially added the 7th.

These chords will be discussed later on.

Diminished 7

You can tell a chord is a diminished chord by the following descriptions:

  • dim 7
  • °  (with a degree symbol as in C°)
  • diminished (b5)

Wrap-up

Here’s a quick wrap-up of things we’ve learned.

  • The main ingredient in a jazz chord is that most of them contain a 7th .
  • Scale degrees are most-often depicted in Roman numerals (it’s traditional in Western music).
  • You’ve learned four jazz chords.
  • You’ve learned there really is no such thing as a jazz chord.
  • You can identify these chords in written charts and music books.
  • These chords are all movable.
  • Learn the names of the notes on the fretboard (start with the bass strings).
  • These chords are all what’s called closed-position chords (no open strings).
  • Play these chords and get them under your fingers, especially before moving on to other chords.

A lot of the chords are often played higher on the neck as we have shown and this helps to give your guitar that jazz guitar sound you may have been listening to.

There are more chords to learn but these are the absolute best ones to get you going.  You can learn some similar chord formations by starting on the 5th string as the lowest note.  This will help you to stay more in one spot on the neck instead of going up and down to get the chord you need, but you still need to learn these chords first in order to get a good feel for the sound and the fingerings.  Then progress from there.

Wow!  Sounds like we did a lot more when you lay it all out like that.