The Most Powerful System For Jazz Chords

Drop 2 voicings are powerful for comping, chord melody, and chord solos. But if you learn them the wrong way—just running endless inversions—you’ll never actually use them in your playing, and too often, that is how they are taught.

Autumn Leaves Chord Melody:

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 Swiss-Army Jazz Chord
00:19 What Is Drop2?
01:56 Getting Started With A Song
04:14 Harmony Not Inversions
09:31 The Inversion Trap
11:26 Comping with Drop2
13:02 Drop2 Chord Melody
13:41 More Chords And More Melody
13:55 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:

[JensLarsen]

Which type of Jazz Chord do you use most?

Ask Joe Pass:

[Pablo-ftun]

Jens THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. It finally clicked.

[voronOsphere]

Astounding lesson, Jens! Pure gold! Thanks!

[monsieurhercule]

Until the age of 50 there's Chicago blues guitar and women. After 50 there's jazz guitar. 53 now and forced to move to Helsinki to care for my old mother, those winter nights in Finland are just what you need to study all of Lars' videos. No way I could focus on all this back in London.

[gavinroberts]

Thank you Jens -- I've been returning to this lesson again and again; it's really helped me achieve a new level of confidence in my jazz playing 🙏

[CrazyQ]

I find this AMAZING. Just got out of the hospital. Will spend a lot of time in a room learning to put this to work. Thanks Jens, you have no idea how you are influencing the world with music. Some of it is just plain healthy to do. Thanks❤️

[DrMuse-ondx]

Thanks again. I saw some of these while playing this puts it all together.

[Pete-nt]

I already play and use some of these chord shapes. I had no idea they were called drop 2 voicing . Thanks for the education.

[stevepickrell]

This video was worth more to me than a 30 minute private lesson—thanks!

[Guitarslngr]

Jens, I have watched a ton of your videos. This one may be the best! Thank you!!!

[cmc]

Watching your videos opens up the possibility of my playing jazz even a little bit. Thank you for your dedication~!!

[ericjervis]

Some video lessons can be digested pretty fast. Others, like this lesson, will take months to chew on. Thankyou for the high information density, AND, thankyou for making the PDF of this lesson (essential) freely available without "signing-up". Awesome.

[NicholasStein]

Love it. This is a very useful approach. Being able to redefine a grip as 6, 9, 11, 13 really adds a lot of use cases for chords I am already fluent with. Your presentation really makes clear how to use this approach. Bravo and thank you!

[ricardotijerina]

Awesome lesson Mr. Larsen, it's gonna keep me busy for a while.
And thanks for the PDF's 👏👏👍🇲🇽

[damonshanabarger]

Wow! I really love getting tangled up in chordal harmony. But I have to admit, this video is extremely informative and well worth the time and effort to learn. This is undoubtedly a very good approach to learning chord structures that is of no small amount of practicality. The best way to learn something is by actually doing it. This really solves the problem of learning inversions because they don't sound like music. Thank you, Jens. This video ranks right up there with the Robin Ford diminished scale trick.❤🎉

[agger]

You taught me a version of this approach in a “harmonized chords” lesson a few years ago. It was a huge step forward for me! Thanks, master!

[scottnipper]

The relationship between what you're talking about here and Barry Harris 6th diminished scales is apparent and really helpful to me. Everything seems to link back to diminished chords. The connections and concept of playing within families is really something. And that these shapes fit into these families makes it a little easier to digest. At least it seems that way to me as I try to absorb the magnitude of all this.

[reinh]

Great stuff. Two things really freed up my chord work: understanding synonyms and visualizing chromatic voice leading opportunities between chords. Studying Barry Harris and Ted Greene unlocked this for me but I wish I could have watched this video ten years ago, it would have been a short cut.

[perisg]

This video is extremely useful when it comes to understanding the nature of the guitar as an instrument and how to connect visual shapes on the fretboard with harmonic knowledge. One of the best lessons on the subject of voicings I've come across on YouTube. Great work man 👍

[marcusaurealius]

Even though a lesson like this is intimidating, it really shows underneath the hood of what jazz music really is. Imagine how much knowledge some of the greats have about voicings and melody!