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15 Chords, Scales and Arpeggios Every Jazz Guitarist Should Know
Learning to play jazz guitar means getting many concepts into our heads, sounds into our ears and shapes under our fingers.
While we can never say that “if you learn these exact things you will be a great jazz guitarist,” there are specific fundamental chords, scales and arpeggios that every jazz guitarist should get under their fingers and in their ears.
Below is a list of 15 Chords, Scales and Arpeggios that I’ve culled together from my two decades of studying with great teachers, learning from great players and watching my students struggle and grow as jazz guitarists.
This list alone won’t make you a great player overnight, but it will give you a leg up on those players who don’t want to put the time in to learn this important fundamentals of our instrument.
Have a question or comment about this lesson? Visit the 15 Chord, Scales and Arps thread in the MWG Forum.
Learn Jazz Guitar Scales and Scale Patterns with the Matt Warnock Guitar Jazz Scales App.
Practice Tips and Guidelines
- Practice Chord Scales
- Improvise with a single harmonic color, such as 5th mode harmonic minor
- Practice Chords in Cycles and not just inversions
- Practice at every tempo you can think of
- Run intervals through any scale
- Improvise using only one scale and one interval, such as Ionian and only using 5ths
- Try soloing with one scale or mode but stay within one octave on the fingerboard
- Practice rhythmic accents, both harmonic and melodic, while running these ideas or improvising with them
- Apply any/all of these ideas to the tunes that you know and that you are working on. Technique without emotion or context is just that, technique, but coupled with tunes, dynamics and creativity and these 15 items can go a long way.
The 15 Chords, Scales and Arpeggios
1. Major, Minor, Diminished and Augmented Triads in all 12 keys starting on the 6th, 5th, 4th and 3rd string groups.
2. One and Two Octave Arpeggios starting on the 6th and 5th strings for Maj7, 7, m7, m7b5, mMaj7 and Dim7 chords.
3. 3 to 9 Arpeggios for Maj7, 7, m7, m7b5 and mMaj7 on both the 6th and 5th strings, one and two octave.
4. Drop 2 Chord Voicings for Maj7, m7, 7, m7b5, mMa7 and Dim7, all inversions and string sets.
5. Drop 3 Chord Voicings for Maj7, m7, 7, m7b5, mMa7 and Dim7, all inversions and string sets.
6. Drop 2 and 4 Chord Voicings for Maj7, m7, 7, m7b5, mMa7 and Dim7, all inversions and string sets.
7. Major Scales and Modes in all 12 keys
8. Melodic Minor Scales and Modes in all 12 keys
9. Harmonic Minor Scales and Modes in all 12 keys.
10. Symmetrical Scales in all 12 keys.
11. Altered Dominant Bebop Scale in all 12 keys.
12. Major and Minor Pentatonic Scales in all 12 keys.
13. Major and Minor Blues Scales in all 12 keys.
14. Dominant, Minor and Major Bebop Scales in all 12 keys.
15. Harmonic Major Scales and Modes in all 12 keys.
Being able to play all of these 15 items won’t make you a great jazz guitarist, but it will give you a strong command of your instrument and expose your fingers and ears to the main building blocks of jazz, and any modern music.
The key is not to only practice these ideas and then move on to improvising when you have them down, you should be practicing improvisation as you learn these ideas as well.
Do you have a fundamental concept that you think every jazz guitarist should know? If so, share it in the comments section below.
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7 Responses to "15 Chords, Scales and Arpeggios Every Jazz Guitarist Should Know"
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Jake Estner posted this list as a response to mine over at the Jazz Guitar Forum. I asked him if I could republish it here as a companion to my list. Check it out and make sure to visit Jake’s site at http://www.jakeestner.com/
1. Listening
2. Technique
3. Repertoire
4. Ear
5. Rhythm
6. Reading
7. Pitch/tuning/intonation
8. Theory
9. Writing/creating/composing
10. Improvisation
11. Fretboard knowledge
12. Tone
One thing that I find very helpful is to practice using varying positions and rhythms with the right hand. Subtleties in movement can really make or break a musical moment and having a good variety of these to pull from will increase your chances of nailing the articulation you are feeling while improvising.
For sure, I’m big on accents and rhythms in one’s playing to vary things up. I wrote a couple of articles on the subject and am working on a new book talking about rhythmic playing.
http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/rhythms-for-jazz-guitar-soloing
http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/practicing-rhythmic-variations-and-melodic-accents
What is number 11?
It’s the altered dominant bebop scale, forgot to add it in, it’s there now.
http://www.mattwarnockguitar.com/the-altered-dominant-bebop-scale-mixing-modes-to-master-minor-progressions
Also, are these in any order of importance?
They grouped in arpeggios, chords, then scales. Not in any order of importance in the list as they’re all good to check out and you can basically start on any one and work your way to the others in any order and still get the benefit of each one. There’s no right or wrong order to learn these in.