The Magic Chord is a great name for this Maj7(b5) voicing. This is because it can work for a lot of different jazz chords sounds and sounds really great as a lot of useful chords. The Magic Chord can be seen as an advanced chord concept, but really is a very practical way of playing a lot of chords.
In this video, I am going over 10 examples of how you can use this voicing as dominants, tonic minor, half-diminished, Phrygian chords and altered dominants. It really hits some great extensions and chord sounds in harmony from both Major and Melodic minor scales.
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.
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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Learning Drop2 and Shell-voicings is a great way to learn some systems of jazz chords and a lot of inversions all at once. But if you only think in systems you forget to explore what chords you can come up with that are not in those systems. That’s what I explore in this Jazz Chords Lesson.
In this lesson, I am going to talk about some of the guitar jazz chords that I like to use and find really beautiful which I don’t really hear people use a lot, probably because they don’t fit in the systems. And they are not even that difficult to play, so there is no need to not check them out!
Looking outside the systems
It is important not to be locked down by systems, also when it comes to learning chords. The Chords that I am using in this lesson are more aimed to be beautiful rich sounding chords. I mostly use them as sustained chords that I can leave there as a rich harmonic background for a soloist. They are not really intended for more rhythmical comp. When I do that I go for other chords and focus not on a single chord but as much on the movement.
Adding extra notes to a Dominant
The voicing that I am first going to show you is a chord that is really associated with the melodic minor scale. The first way to use it is as an altered dominant. In this case a G7(#9):
The Dm7 is a straight Drop2 voicing for an Fmaj7, which in this context is a Dm7(9). The G7 voicing is a basic 3-note G7 with an added #9(Bb) on top. This resolves nicely to another surprising voicing which is the Cmaj7. Here I play this with a G triad and a lower C (you can’t really call it a bass note).
Turning it into a Lydian Dominant.
In some ways this voicing works even better when you use it as a Lydian dominant. That is shown here below where I use it as a backdoor dominant in C major.
When used like this it becomes a Dominant chord with a #11 and a 13.
The Cmaj7 voicing is another rich chord voicing which has a 9th and a 13th. It is an Asus4 upper-structure and a B.
New Altered Options
This chord is another way to play an altered voicing and also have the 7th in the melody. The voicing in this case is a G7(#9): B(9), G(1), Bb(#9), F(b7). In the example I am moving the F down to a b13(Eb) and resolves it to the 9th of Cmaj7.
The Dm7 voicing is derived from a Drop 2 where the 5th has been replaced with the 11th and the root with the 9th.
The same voicing is also great for a Lydian dominant. Here it becomes a dom7th(13#11).
In the example below I am using it as a Bb7 in a backdoor dominant chord progression.
Bb7: Ab(b7),E(#11), G(13), D(3).
I am using the same voicing for the Cmaj7 as in the very first example.
Sus4 triads can be upper-structures too
This example is using three chords all based on upper-structures.
The Dm7 voicing is a Dm7(11) using a C major triad.
G7 uses an E major triad to create a G7(13b9)
C6/9 is made using a Dsus4 triad.
Why don’t you ever play a b5,b13 chord?
This last “bonus” example is a little different because it is a chord that you probably already know, but don’t use like this.
The Dm7 and Cmaj7 voicings are both drop2 chords.
The G7 voicing is a chord you probably know as a Db7(9) chord. Since Db is the tritone substitute of G7 we can also use this voicing as a G7.
That would give us this G7: B(3) Eb(b13) F(b7) Db(b5) – G7(b5,b13)
Explore more voicings
A great place to start exploring new sounds and voicings is to work with 3-note jazz chords. These are very flexible and great to use both as they are and as a starting point for adding more voicings.
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Flexible voicings like triads are very practical to add to your jazz blues chords. We can do a lot with Triads and they are fairly easy to play and move around. This video is taking a look at how we construct 3 note voicings for a jazz blues and then adding a triad voicing that fills a gap on the fretboard.
From there I show how you can take that thorugh a chorus and develop it into another similar type of chord which also gives us a complete set of voicings on the blues.
3-Note Jazz Blues Chords
Most of us use triad chords coming out of the chords that we already use but without a root, so for F7 we end up with these two voicings: F7 + F9 as seen in example 1 here below:
They work really well, but there is a long gap from rootless F9 to F7.
Constructing another voicing to close the gap
If we look at the F7 chord then a basic F7 is an F root and an A diminished triad and we can use that triad as a voicing as well.
A C Eb and that sort of bridges the gap between the two.
If I use a bit of voice- leading I can comp through a blues using this type of voicing as shown in the example 2:
The F7 is here the A dim triad: A C Eb. On the Bb7 this is voicelead into Ab C D which works as a Bb7(9). Then back to F7 and going to a F7(b13) : A Db Eb.
In bar 5 the chord is again the Bb7(9): Ab C D. The B dim is easy to create changing the C in to a B, so Bdim: Ab B D. This moves up chromatically to the F7: A C Eb. The D7(b9) is achieved by moving up the entire voicing so that the top note is an F#: C Eb F#.
The Gm7 is the upper-structure: Bb major triad: Bb D F. This is turned into a C7(9) by lowering the F: C7(9) Bb D E. The F7 is the original voicing and the last C7 is the C7(b9) version of the other voicings: Bb Db E.
Another voicing to check out!
There is one more voicing that we can check out from the previous example.
The 2nd chord on Bb7 is this Bb7(9): Ab C D. If this is transposed to F7(9): Eb G A
This can be turned into a complete other chorus:
In example 3 I have a shift from the D7(b13) down to a Gm7 chord that is a 1st inversion Bb major triad. This is one way of doing this, but another way would be to really aim for getting smooth voice-leading:
This is a bigger stretch but also a very smooth moving chord progression.
Harmonizing the F7 scale based on the 3 voicings
A cornerstone in my vision on comping is that the top note melody has to make sense. To make this possible it is very important to also be able to play the entire scale with a chord sound.
This lesson started with two 3 note voicings that I then added a 3rd voicing to, and using these 3 chord voicings you can harmonize the F7 scale as shown here below:
3-note flexibility and voice-leading
The flexibility and the fact that you can easily be quite free when working with 3-note chords is probably a huge part of why I use these voicings so much. I hope you can use this material to get more out of your comping and make it easier to play some solid ideas in your comp and in your solos.
Get the PDF!
You can also download the PDF of my examples here:
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.
