A great way to add some surprising sounds to your Jazz Chords and comping is to add chromatic passing notes in the different voices but also as complete chromatic chords.

Using Chromatic passing notes is a part of jazz and we all know how the greats like Charlie Parker and George Benson use chromaticism in their solos. But you can also use this in your comping in several different ways to get some great sounds.

In this video I am going to go over some example of how you can add chromatic passages to your chords in a few different ways: in the melody, as inner-voice movement, and as complete chromatic passing chords.

When you start using chromatic notes in the melody and in voice-leading then sometimes you are going to come across chords that may seem out really of place but make perfect sense in the context. This is where we can let the melody over-rule all the rules we know about chords.

Expand your voicing Vocabulary

If you want to check out some more voicings that you can use and add these types of voice-leading and chromatic ideas then check out this video where I go over 9 types of very useful voicings that are common in Jazz.

Jazz Chord Voicings – The 9 Different types you should know

Content:

0:00 Intro – Chromaticisim in Chords

0:34 Passing Notes, Inner-voices, and Chromatic Chords

0:43 Melody is more important than Harmony!

1:08 #1 Top Note-Melody

2:06 Example 1 Slow  

2:14 #2 Inner-voices Polyphonic Chromatic Ideas

2:58 Common ideas on a Maj7

3:18 Example 2 Slow

3:28 #3 In-complete chords and Line-Clichés

4:05 Example 3 Slow

4:12 #4 Close voicings with chromatic passing notes

4:51 Example 4 Slow

4:59 #5 Chromatic Passing Chords

5:44 Example #5 Slow

5:51 #6 A Tritone Dominant as a Chromatic Chord

7:22 Example #6 Slow

7:33 Like The Video? Check out my Patreon Page

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The PDF with examples for this video is available through Patreon. You can check out my Patreon Page here: https://www.patreon.com/jenslarsen

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