Welcome to Jazztheorylessons.com, the best place to find lessons on jazz theory and improvisation. If you are looking to learn jazz theory then our free jazz lessons will help you. We will be adding new and interesting jazz theory lessons each week. Our site is here to make learning jazz theory fun and interesting. We have lessons on scales, jazz chords, modes, arpeggios and jazz repertoire. 
When we start playing jazz getting a good understanding of altered chords is a must, but unfortunately they can be confusing when you first see them. Here is a quick guide to altered dominant chord tones and how they work. We will use a simple C7 chord as the basis for all our alterations in this example. Perhaps I think differently about altered chords but this is my method for understanding altered chord tones.
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Have you ever wondered how we find out which scales to play over which chords? This article should help you. A recent comment on the site asked the question of
“How do you know which scales go with which chords?”
This is a really problematic area for many new jazz players but it need not be. The idea of finding which scale to use over which chord is actually fairly simple but confuses a lot of people. I will do some more articles on this topic in the future. For now let’s take a look at how we find out which scales to play over a simple dominant 7 chord.
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In this lesson we are going to take a quick look at turnarounds in jazz and how you can play over them. A turnaround is simply a chord sequence which happens at the end of chord progression which takes you back to the beginning. There is a lot of room to experiment with jazz turnarounds because usually there is not much happening in terms of the melody when you get to the last few bars of a song. This means that jazz turnarounds are an ideal place for chord substitutions. Generally turnarounds in jazz are two or four bars long.
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Slash chords are fairly common, especially in piano music, and most people initially get scared at the sight of them, wondering what on earth they are and how they can play over the things. In this article I will explain to you what a slash chord is and how you can use slash chords in your own playing. A chord like G/B is an example of a slash chord voicing and it simply refers to a G major chord with a B as the bass note or “G over B”.
Piano players quite often make use of slash chords when creating smooth bass line movements and guitarists can do the same, using slash chords to create smooth walking bass lines.
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Welcome this lesson on seventh chords. Seventh chords are probably the most common chord types used in jazz harmony and in this article I will show you how seventh chords are built and how you can use them in your own playing.
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This lesson will focus on a particular chord voicing that really brings out the sound of the Phrygian mode. The chord we will be looking at in this lesson is the susb9 chord.
The susb9 chord has a dark and mysterious sound to it and can sound really beautiful when played in the right context. Although it is not a sound you will hear too often, it is a sound you should definitely get to know at some stage.
The notes of the susb9 chord are:
1 4 6 b7 b9
You can voice the susb9 chord in different ways and you might need to alter the voicing to suit your instrument. Piano and guitar players will probably want to use different voicings for the susb9 chord.
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Most chords you learn are constructed by stacking third intervals but as well as standard chords created by stacking thirds, you can also create chords by stacking fourth intervals. Fourth chords were first made popular in jazz by pianist McCoy Tyner, and in particular on the Miles Davis album So What.
Fourth chords are sometimes referred to as quartal voicings and are very common in modal jazz music. In this lesson, I will show you how to build chords using fourths and how you can use these interesting fourth chords in your own playing. Fourth chords are well suited to modal jazz music or in situations where you want to create a modern and open chord sound.
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