This Simple Jazz Chord Exercise Will Change Everything

This way of practicing jazz chords and comping will help you develop your skills in chord melody, rhythm, and voice-leading. The crazy thing is that it is made for guitar and very easy! You need this skill!

This "Stupid" Triad Exercise Is More Powerful Than You Think!

The Biggest Misunderstanding About Jazz Chords
Joe Pass was right: Play Simple chords and learn how to use them!

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Content:
00:00 Level Up Your Comping!
00:24 Build The Foundation
01:45 This was MADE for guitar!
02:04 It Don't Mean A Thing
03:24 Red Garland Exercise
04:52 Flexible Chords
07:18 Practical Practice!
08:35 Perfect for Chord Melody
10:40 The Most Powerful Exercise!
11:01 Like the video? Check out my Patreon page!

My name is Jens Larsen, a Danish Jazz Guitarist and Educator. The videos on this channel will help you explore and enjoy Jazz. Some of them teach you how to play jazz guitar, but other videos focus on Music Theory, like Jazz Chords, or offer advice on practicing and learning Jazz on guitar or any other instrument.

The videos are mostly jazz guitar lessons, music theory, song analysis, and videos on jazz guitars.

My Gear:

[quincytennyson]

Jens you're one of the reasons the YouTube era is absolutely nuts. I can reliably tune in, for free, anytime and get an idea from a master player, and it's going to impact my practice for a month or two. Its serendipitous for me to see this, because I have combo practice today and I consider myself a fairly strong rhythm player in general particularly in generating new motifs on the fly, but now we have a real bassist and I am just TOO rooty with all my voicings. This video is a strong incentive to get creative. Thank you - each of these free videos is really a service to the musical world as I'm sure you know.

[LuizTrevisani]

I was just working on "All the things you are" this week and, of course, I was not seeing any progress. Then, you come along, Mr Larsen, and show us how to do it in a fun and simple way. You're a great teacher, man. Thanks a lot.

[ctubo]

"Playing full chords makes it almost impossible" pummelled me when I restarted learning guitar 2 years ago. If only I had seen your videos sooner and learned about the shell voicings back then. Now I know and always use them when learning a new song, and can finally hit the changes in time without breaking rhythm.

[blinkzrz]

3:04 Words of wisdom! For any musician, internalizing concepts is one of the most difficult, yet one of the most efficient ways to gain autonomy. Making sense of the exercises and using them at will on command takes so much time and practice, but it's worth it.

[elninojustino]

This was a great lesson. I always play the whole transcription, but just focusing on the 1st few measures is a good way to remember them

[elninojustino]

Your lessons always seem to make me aware of my weaknesses. Rootless voicings being a big one

[peterbrazier]

First class lesson really rich vein to explore well done Jens

[yoichinikka]

Very well explained the simple way of doing jazz

[taufiqandikajazzer]

Amazing tips.
Assalamualaikum from Indonesia ❤

[tomcripps]

This is right up my alley Jens. I took on All The Things You Are a few months ago and I think it re wired my brain. It improved my playing on everything and I love playing voicings on the D and G strings. I've been really indulging into Lenny Breau lately and he uses those well.

[robertbalogh]

This is great. Thanks Jens for all your videos.

[un-dos-tres-mambo]

holy comets!!! this lesson is top.... a must-see... // thank you Mr Larsen for the knowledge // blessings 🙏

[johnveccchio]

Love it! I’m actually working on all the things you are right now and this changes everything. Fantastic lesson!

[stevenk]

Thanks for the tip about counting. This tripped me up when I first started to play. I find that I play much better when I sing the song and internalize it.

[patrickblay]

Great lesson Jen’s and so Concrete. Thank you for helping us to progress.
I bought your book Advanced Concepts and I am delighted with it.

[ingom]

Thank you Jens, always excellent information 👍

[kevindonnelly]

It will be on at 3am Saturday morning 12th April in the Mt Dandenongs, Australia. All is not lost. I've been practicing the chord in the thumbnail. I suspect the chord in the thumbnail can have tones added and or changed - to change its name(s) and function(s). If you wear sunglasses while playing it - it will only have one name and function. 😎

[cbolt]

Superb! Will be watch this many times 😎

[stumpshot]

The twisted finger "full chord" jpeg at 1:35 looks like an Allan Holdsworth chord. Made me laugh.

[Gregorypeckory]

😂🤣😂🤪😂🤣😂 to the picture illustrating "playing full chords makes it almost impossible" at 1:35!