Jens Larsen
II V I - Who Has The Best Approach For Jazz Beginners?
Connect the cadence to target notes and jazz vocabulary instead of treating ii-V-I as three unrelated scale shapes.
Learn jazz guitar
Hear it. Voice it. Put it in time.
Explore the progressions that organise standards, the substitutions that reshape them, and the fretboard techniques that turn harmony into musical comping. Each lesson connects theory to practical voicings, voice movement, rhythm, and sound.
Changes and song formsSubstitutions and voice leadingComping and fretboard voicings
Progression library
Explore thirteen iconic harmonic patterns
Preview lament basses, classical variation grounds, pop loops, J-pop harmony, two-chord vamps, and jazz cadences together on one detailed page.
Interactive fretboard lab
Build walking bass lines with chords
Select chord tones and chromatic approaches beat by beat, inspect their string locations, and hear the line with compact solo-guitar voicings.
Watch the ideas in action
Guided examples from trusted teachers
Use these demonstrations to connect the playable examples below with real musical phrasing, touch, voice leading, and harmonic context.
Jens Larsen
Jazz Turnaround - How To Get Started
Start with I-VI7-ii-V, then hear how chord tones and voice leading turn the repeating progression into musical phrases.
Damian Bacci
Rhythm Changes Decoded: Step by Step
Work through the A and B sections on guitar and hear how the form connects turnarounds with a dominant-cycle bridge.
Vox
The most feared song in jazz, explained
Follow the three-key cycle behind Giant Steps and hear why its rapid tonal shifts demand precise targeting.
Chris Whiteman
Jazz Guitar Lesson: The Tritone Substitution
See the shared guide tones, descending bass motion, and guitar voicings that make the substitute dominant work in a ii-V-I.
Signals Music Studio
Secondary Dominants: Write Better Chord Progressions!
Hear how temporary dominant chords tonicise diatonic targets and add momentum without permanently changing key.
jazzetguitare
Diatonic chord substitutions in jazz guitar
See how chords with related functions and shared notes can enrich an accompaniment without obscuring the tune.
Signals Music Studio
5 Easy Ways to Use and Write with Diminished Chords
Hear five practical uses for diminished harmony, including chromatic passing chords, pivots, and tonic diminished colour.
GuitarVersum Sandra Sherman
Jazz Guitar Strumming Patterns + Freddie Green Style Lesson
Watch the pick attack, short note lengths, dynamics, and relaxed motion that make four-to-the-bar comping swing.
Open Studio
Barry Harris' 6th Diminished: The Basics
Adam Maness demonstrates the basic Barry Harris idea of alternating a sixth chord with its related diminished chord.
Jens Larsen
Modern 3 Note Voicings and Voice Leading
Follow compact three-note voicings through cadences while individual voices move by small, singable intervals.
Jens Larsen
Triads - How To Make Them Jazz Chords
See familiar triads become compact jazz voicings through inversions, extensions, and practical voice leading.
Jeremy Siskind
Jazz Piano Voicings 101: Triad Pair and Cluster Voicings
Hear close-position seconds used as expressive colour, then compare cluster shapes with more open triad-pair voicings.
Jazz Guitar Lessons
Jazz Guitar: Quartal Voicings - Part 1
See fourth-based shapes built on the middle strings and moved through their inversions across a major scale.
David Bennett Music Theory
7 Super Common Chord Progressions and Why They Work
Compare seven recurring progressions across familiar songs and hear why the same harmonic patterns support very different melodies and styles.
Jens Larsen
Walking Bass and Chords - Part 1
See how a guitarist maintains a quarter-note bass line while adding compact chords for duo or unaccompanied playing.
Jens Larsen
How Many Ways Can You Reharmonize a II-V-I?
Compare increasingly adventurous ways to reharmonise one ii-V-I using dominant colours, tritone substitutions, modal interchange, and diminished harmony.
The roads through a tune
Changes
Recognise the recurring progressions and forms that organise standards.
01 · Foundation
Major and minor ii–V–I
Predominant, dominant, tonic—and the guide tones between them.
02 · Form and motion
Turnarounds: 1–6–2–5 and 3–6–2–5
Loop a phrase home with 1–6–2–5 and 3–6–2–5.
03 · Standard form
Rhythm changes
Hear the AABA form behind hundreds of contrafacts.
04 · Advanced harmony
Coltrane changes
Navigate three tonic centres that divide the octave equally.
Technique, rhythm, and texture
Comping and Voicings
Shape rhythm, texture, and inner voices with guitar-specific approaches.
01 · Swing rhythm guitar
Freddie Green four-to-the-bar comping
Create the light, percussive quarter-note engine of swing.
02 · Harmonic movement
Barry Harris sixth-diminished chord scale
Alternate sixth and diminished inversions to harmonise motion.
03 · Horizontal harmony
Smooth voice leading on guitar
Connect guide tones while the bass carries harmonic function.
04 · Small shapes
Triad inversions and upper structures
Use inversion fluency for agile and transparent harmony.
05 · Close-interval colour
Cluster voicings
Use close seconds as a deliberate upper-register colour.
06 · Intervallic harmony
Quartal and quintal comping
Stack fourths and fifths for open, mobile modal textures.
Alternate harmonic routes
Substitutions
Change colour and voice leading while keeping the phrase intelligible.
01 · Dominant colour
Tritone substitution
Keep the dominant tritone and move the bass by half-step.
02 · Tonicisation
Secondary dominants
Make any diatonic destination briefly sound like home.
03 · Common-tone harmony
Diatonic and mediant substitutions
Preserve upper notes while changing bass and harmonic emphasis.
04 · Passing harmony
Diminished passing chords
Connect tonic to ii with a rootless applied dominant sound.