A few Lessons for Jazz Ukulele to Get Started With
All available lessons tagged with the subject of Jazz.
Altered Seventh Chords on `Ukulele
Updated: 04 Apr 2014
Beyond basic open position chords, basic movable form chords, and a core set of 4-part chords. There are just too many chords shapes too memorize. Learning the principles of how chords are constructed and the ukulele fingerboard are the way to go. You can then create more advanced chords like 9#11, 7#5-9, 13b5, 7+9 on the fly as needed from your core set of chords.
Core Chords - The Big Six - Building a Solid Chord Foundation
Updated: 07 Sep 2021
The Big Six Core Chords is a series of lessons for building your core, essential 4-part chords. These chords commonly called jazz chords, are really just 4-part chords used in a wide range of musical styles. These chords include: Seventh , Major Seventh, Minor Seventh, Half Diminished Seventh or Minor Seven Flat Five, Diminished Seventh, and Augmented Seventh. These six chords form a core set of chords.
Exploring Jazz ``Ukulele
Updated: 24 Jun 2009
Wikipedia defines "Jazz" as a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions. The style's West African pedigree is evident in its use of blue notes, improvisation, polyrhythms, syncopation, and the swung note.
Six Essential Scales for `Ukulele
Updated: 24 May 2024
The six essential scales are: Blues Major Pentatonic Mixolydian Dorian Aeolian and Ionian From the six essential scales, you can get through a wide variety of traditional and contemporary music. A scale is simply a collection of pitches or notes, not really a "this is a Jazz scale", "this is a Blues" or "this is a Rock scale". It's how a scale is used that really matters not its name.
Upper Partial Chord Tones
Updated: 05 Jun 2024
Upper Partials or extensions for chords are the 9th, 11th, and 13ths of a chord. The 9, 11 and 13 can be altered chord tones depending on the type: e.g: b9, #9, #11, b13. These numbers, the 9, 11 and 13 refer to the scale tone/chord tone relative to the major scale used for building all chords.
What is the Difference Between a Scale and a Mode?
Updated: 08 Jun 2023
The terms "scale" and "mode" are often used interchangeably, but strictly speaking, there is a significant difference between them in music theory. Although they may share the same set of notes, a scale and a mode or modal scale are not the same thing. It's important to note that a scale and a mode can contain the same notes.
Exploring Improvisation on `Ukulele Using Tetrachords
Updated: 15 Aug 2024
Traditionally, a "Tetrachord" is a series of four tones filling in the interval of a perfect fourth. In modern usage a tetrachord is any four-note segment of a scale or tone row including the augmented fourth (+4). The term tetrachord derives from ancient Greek music theory, it literally means four strings.**
Creating Introductions and Turnarounds for `Ukulele
Updated: 20 Mar 2020
Introductions are a composed or improvised pieces of music that introduce - sets the stage for - a song or composition. Introductions, or intro for short, are used in all types of music. In this lesson, the focus is on introductions in contemporary pop, rock, blues, country, folk and jazz styles.
The Harmonized Major and Minor Scale Charts
Updated: 11 Jan 2022
The "Major Scale" or Ionian scale is a diatonic scale, made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first one octave higher. In solfege these notes correspond to the syllables Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti/Si, (Do), the Do in the parenthesis at the end being the octave of the root.
Transposing Individual `Ukulele Chords
Updated: 24 Jun 2022
"Transposition" is the process of moving a note, chord, scale or any musical passage from one key to another key. All music can be transposed, from a single note to a complex musical score. This lesson deals with transposing chords on ukulele and transposing chords.
The Big Six Core Chords - F6, Four Voicings
Updated: 30 Jun 2014
The Big Six Core Chords: "F6". This is the Level II of your core 4-part "Jazz" chords. The F6 is a 1 3 5 6 of the major scale, based on the root of the chord. A major 6th chord can be derived either from a seventh or major seventh chord. From a seventh chord lower the flat seventh one fret. From a major seventh chord lower the natural seventh two frets.
The Big Six Core Chords - Fm6, Four Vocings
Updated: 14 Jan 2021
The Big Six Core Chords: "Fm6". This is the Level II of your core 4-part "Jazz" chords. The Fm6 is a 1 b3 5 6 of the major scale, based on the root of the chord. A minor 6th chord can be derived either from a minor seventh or major sixth chord. From a minor seventh chord lower the flat seventh one fret. From a major sixth chord lower the natural third one fret.
The Big Six Core Chords - F7, four voicings, Chord Intervals
Updated: 15 May 2019
The Big Six Core Chords - Level I: "F7" is created from the "1 3 5 b7" of the major scale, based on the root of the chord. For "F7" the chord tones are: F A C Eb. This lesson introduces the four "F7" voicings on the string set, strings 1, 2. 3, and 4. The Chords are shown for C Tuning, Low and High G.
4-part Contemporary Chords, a.k.a. Jazz Chords
Updated: 17 Nov 2014
Core Chords is a series of lessons for building your 4-part chords. These chords commonly called jazz chords, are really just 4-part chords used in a wide range of musical styles. Beyond basic open position chords, basic movable form chords and a core set of 4-part chords. There are just too many chords shapes too memorize. Learning the principles of how chords are constructed and the ukulele fingerboard are the way to go. Then you can create more advanced chords like 9#11, 7#5-9, 13b5, 7+9 on the fly as needed.
Core Chords - Building a Solid Foundation of Contemporary Chords
Updated: 11 Nov 2013
"Core Chords" are a concept that I typically apply to 4-part chords and your more contemporary modern chords. This where a solid foundation of a core set of chords really help in learning the massive amount of chords that are required for play contemporary music or jazz on ukulele or guitar. Not such a task on ukulele with on one four string set of strings to build your 4-part chords vs. the theoretically possible 15 sets available for guitar.
Building a Solid Jazz Chord Foundation for `Ukulele
Updated: 12 Oct 2015
Commonly called "Jazz Chords", these more sophisticated, contemporary chord voicings find their way into a wide variety of music forms and styles. This lesson is the first on the series that builds your core foundation for these chords.
Secondary Dominant V of ...
Updated: 04 Sep 2024
A "Secondary Dominant" chord is defined as any seventh chord built on a scale root that is diatonic to the key that resolves up a perfect fourth or down a perfect fifth to a full diatonic chord. These chords function as a dominant (V) chord to the next chord, serving to temporarily tonicize the following chord.
The Big Six Core Chords - Fmaj7, Four Voicings
Updated: 04 Jan 2016
The Big Six Core Chords, Level I - Fmaj7, four voicings. Fmaj7 is a 1 3 5 7 of the major scale, based on the root of the chord. These are the four Fmaj7 chord voicings that will be used for deriving other major seventh derived chords. There are far too many chord shapes to memorize thousands of shapes.