Tag Archives: harmonic analysis jazz

The 10 Types Of Difficult Chords In A Jazz Standard

Leave a reply

If you are learning a Jazz Standard then the analysis is a great tool. It is very useful to know how the chords work and how they sound in the key of the song. But in a Jazz Standards Analysis, you are likely to come across chords that are not just a part of a II V I and more difficult to understand.

This video is on 10 types of chords that are like that and how you learn to recognize and deal with them. It should help you take your harmonic analysis up a level and help make it easy to learn jazz standards quickly.

My video on why you want to learn and use Functional Harmony
https://jenslarsen.nl/why-you-want-to-think-in-functional-harmony/

My video on why you don’t want to use modes:
https://jenslarsen.nl/learn-the-modes-is-horrible-advice-this-is-a-better-skill/

More information on Diminished Chords:

Secret to play over Diminished Chords

Content of the video

0:00 Intro

0:22 The chords that are not a II V I 

0:50 Secondary Dominants – Identifying and Playing

1:48 Function of a Secondary Dominants

2:13 #1 V of V

2:22 Example in C Major

2:58 Where they are in the form (ABAC + AABA forms)

4:05 Examples to hear V of V as Lydian and as “normal” dominant

4:22 #2 Secondary Dom7th that resolves to a major chord

4:45 Secondary II V Cadence

5:18 A Chord in the song vs A chord in a solo

5:52 #3 Secondary Dom7th that resolves to a minor chord

6:36 #4 Tritone Substitutions

7:18 Lydian Dominant on Tritone subs

7:34 Example in a Jazz Standard

7:45 #5 Secondary Diminished Chords

7:57 Example in a Standard + Reharmonization

8:45 Scale Choices for secondary diminished chords

8:57 #6 IVm chords

9:25 Basic IVm in C major

9:48 Example in a Standard

10:05 #7 Backdoor Dominants

10:18 It is a minor subdominant!

10:50  Scale choice and example in a song

11:11 #8 bIImaj7 and bVImaj7

11:23 bII – Neapolitan Subdominant

11:53 Standard Example You Stepped out of the dream and Suspension use

12:25 bVImaj7 

12:53 #9 #IVdim

13:05 Rhythm Changes example and voice-leading

13:30 Scale Choice for #IV dim

13:44 #10 bIIIdim

14:00 Typical Progression and Scale choice

14:40 #11 Reharmonized #IV dim chords

15:07 How it works

15:20 In a song: I remember you

15:40 Stella By Starlight

16:14 Understanding Jazz Harmony in Jazz Standards

16:35 Like the video? Check Out my Patreon Page

All The Things You Are – Harmonic Analysis

All The Things You Are is a great standard that we all need to have in our repertoire. In this video I am going to go over a thorough All The Things You Are Harmonic Analysis. Talking about how the song is constructed with Form, modulations, chord movement and scales for improvisation.

I also dedicate a part of the video to discuss pivot chords and how they work in modulation, and some of the subtleties we loose when we start turning the chords into jazz chords.

Being able to analyze harmony is a huge help in learning jazz standards and becoming a better improviser.

Table Of Contents:


0:00 Intro – All The Things You Are

1:44 The AABA Form

4:50 Analyzing First and Second A

6:55 Mediant Modulations

8:41 The Bridge

11:57 The Last A

13:20 IV IVm III bIIIdim

15:22 A few thoughts on #IV chords

17:26 Overview of the Keys of ATTYA

17:59 Modulations and Pivot Chords in Jazz

26:40 Scales for the chords

35:44 What we loose by adding extensions to the chords

37:41 Like the video? Check Out My Patreon Page!

Get a free E-book

If you want to download a Free E-book of 15 II Valt I licks then subscribe to my newsletter:

Sign up for my newsletter – Get the II V I Ebook

Get the PDF!

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

Jazz Guitar Insiders Facebook Group

Join 1500+ Other Jazz Guitarists 🎸Join us in the Facebook Jazz Guitar Group Community: http://bit.ly/InsidersFBGroup

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for topics then please let me know. Leave a comment on the video or send me an e-mail. That is the best way for me to improve my lessons and make them fit what you are searching for.

Please subscribe to my YouTube channel and feel free to connect with me via Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook to keep up to date with new lessons, concerts, and releases.

How To Analyze Chords and Progressions

We Analyze Chords and Chord Progressions because it is very important to understand how the music flows and also to figure out what to play and how to play when we solo over it.

In this video I am going to take a well know Jazz Standard There Will Never Be Another You and use a step-wise method to analyze the a song. Understand the chords and the progression, and find out what scales go with the chords. This will go a bit beyond just recognizing the II V I’s and also help you really understand a lot of progressions in jazz.

As a musician I find that knowing and using music theory like this is really helpful when studying pieces and sight-reading charts. For me it helps me hear the music on the page, the changes and the color of the melody. For that Harmonic analysis is a very useful skill.

Analyze Chords – Video Content:

0:00 Intro

0:36 What we use the Analysis for

1:06 Three Step Analysis using Roman Numeral

1:29 A few approaches to find the key -The Melody

2:00 The Chord as a way of finding the key

2:27 Diatonic chords in the scale

2:56 The Diatonic chords in the progression

3:54 Adding secondary Dominants and Cadences

6:34 The 3 remaining Chords

6:46 Minor Subdominant

8:47 The Tritone substitute

9:47 The #IV

11:40 Using the analysis to assign scales

13:30 Like the video? Check out my Patreon Page!

Get a free E-book

If you want to download a Free E-book of 15 II Valt I licks then subscribe to my newsletter:

Sign up for my newsletter – Get the II V I Ebook

Jazz Blues Analysis – The Variations you need to know

The 12 bar Blues is probably the most common song structure or chord progression in music! In this video I am going to analyze some of the common variations of the Jazz Blues and cover what you need to know to make have a strong chord progression adn chord substitution vocabulary for playing over a jazz blues.

I am going to talk about how the jazz blues can contain IVm progressions, #IV dim chords and also some other parallel II V options.

Hope you like it!

0:00 Intro – Jazz Blues – the most common progression in Western Music

0:34 Example: The Basic Jazz Blues form

0:57 The Main Structure and parts of the form

1:35 Analysis of the harmony

2:20 A bit of history of the Blues Harmony since Charlie Parker

3:50 The options for altered dominants and Tritone II V’s in various places

4:07 Examples of possible cadence to IV

5:25 It’s all about the subdominant!

5:40 #IV dim chord

5:50 Example: Blues with a #IV dim chord in bar 6

6:18 Scale choices for the #IV in the blues

7:07 Blues themes with #IV in the progression

7:20 #IV bonus: The Blue note!

9:02 The IVm chord

9:34 Scale options for IVm or bVII 10:24 IV in Blues themes

11:21 Cadence to II chord

11:56 the chromatic II V chain

12:22 example with the Chromatic II V’s

12:45 How to deal with the parallel motion in a solo

14:21 Tritone sub for the II chord

15:00 Do you know any great Blues Progression harmonizations?

17:00 Like the video? Then check out my Patreon page!

5 Types of Chord Progressions You Need To Recognize and Be Able To Play – Harmonic Analysis

Analyzing Chord progressions is something we all do as Jazz Guitar players. We need to understand Jazz Harmony in order to play good solos and to improve our Jazz Comping.

Here’s what most people seem to get wrong: Understanding the chords in the context of the song and not just looking at what type of chord it is.

The way we apply Music Theory to our harmonic analysis of a song decides how well we understand the chord progression and helps us play better solos.

In this video I will go over 5 types of progressions that if you can use to better understand the functional harmony that you find in a jazz standard.

 

0:02 What we use Music Theory for in jazz

0:23 The II V I problem

1:21 What I want from Music Theory

2:08 Examples of why you want to think beyond “it’s a II V I”

2:13 The III VI7 II V I

2:34 Cmaj7 and Em7 both Tonic

3:26 Why Modes fail in Jazz: Phrygian

3:46 IV IVm I and IV bVII I

4:25 Why group in functions?

4:53 V I and II V I progressions

5:36 “Turnaround” the II V I

6:19 Secondary Dom7th and Cadences

8:15 IVm progressions

9:01 Common IVm chords

9:28 The two uses of IVm chords

10:56 The #IV Progressions – The basics

11:31 How #IV progressions are treated in Jazz

11:58 The #IV resolving to a Tonic

13:29 The #IV resolving to IV or IVm

14:47 No Modulations?

15:09 Modulations!

16:03 Examples of songs that modulate

17:10 The point of this way of thinking