17 essential jazz chords for beginners

Bron: Jazzguitar.be

Jazz guitar chords can be complicated, and as a beginner it’s hard to know where to start. Well, this chord chart is a good place to start, it has the 17 chord shapes that are essential when you start learning jazz guitar. With these 17 chord shapes, you can play the chord changes of any jazz standard.

Because these chords are the basics of jazz guitar, it’s important you memorize them. The easiest way to memorize these chords is by understanding how they work and how they are constructed, which you can learn in this lesson: How to Understand and Construct Guitar Chords.

Another way to memorize this set of chords is by playing songs and practicing the chord progression exercises that are below the chord chart on this page. When you have these exercises under your fingers, move on to other chord progressions, like the ones in these lesson: The 10 Most Popular Jazz Chord Progressions.