arranging, Jazz piano, Music Theory
Jazz Harmony – Building Chords – Simple to Advanced
This is one of my favourite worksheets on harmony - it's really a basic > advanced jazz harmony in only 2 pages! The stages are:
- Building up chords vertically
- Building chords along the scale, horizontally
- Adding extensions to the chords
- Altering the extensions
- Voicing the notes across the keyboard
Download the PDF and go over the examples.
There are two approaches to thinking about chord construction which are essential.
We can build a chord from it's root, adding the upper notes relating to the interval from the root (rather than the key)
Vertical Harmony:
Chord Voicing
These chords now need to be positioned on the keyboard (or arranged)
so as to make the most effective use of the notes-this is known as "voicing":
Author
James trained classically in Piano & Clarinet and studied Jazz at University. He has worked as an MD & pianist at Ronnie Scott’s, Pizza Express Jazz club Dean Street, The Hippodrome, Leicester Sq Theatre, London Palladium, & was MD for the “Rat Pack” band for David Beckham (with Elton John as support!)
