Ukulele Chords in C major, Part II: Secondary Triads
In this pair of video tutorials, I introduce the 7 essential chords belonging to the key of C major. This will give you the chord vocab to play a wide range of songs on the Ukulele, in C major. Part II focuses on the so called Secondary triads – the minor chords built on the […]
Analysis of Stella by Starlight
An Analysis of Stella by Starlight In this lesson I am going to do an Analysis of Stella by Starlight, a harmonically sophisticated Jazz Standard which forms a cornerstone of “The Great American Songbook” In order to dispel some of the confusion surrounding Stella by Starlight, I’m going to compare the tunes original changes with the […]
Jazz Chord Substitution
Enhance Your Harmonies with Jazz Chord Substitution Jazz Chord Substitution – the mere name elicits an aura of mysterious and arcane music theory beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. But in fact it is simple enough. What were are dealing with here is the technique of Reharmonisation – changing the chords of a composition in order […]
Tritone Substitutions, Part 1
Basic Theory Hi Folk, and welcome back for more lashing of red hot theory. This week I’m going to delve into the arcane mysteries of the dread “Tritone Substitution”, a diabolical techique where an innocent dominant 7th chord is substituted for more diabolically satanic alternative…ahem! Sorry…little musical joke – if you want the scoop, here’s […]
Ukulele Chords in C major, Part I: Primary Triads
In this pair of video tutorials, I introduce the 7 essential chords belonging to the key of C major. This will give you the chord vocab to play a wide range of songs on the Ukulele, in C major. Part I focuses on the so called Primary triads – the major chords built on the […]
Altered Dominants for Guitar, Part 2
Shapes in the ‘E’ Position Hi Folks Welcome to the second installment in my series on altered dominant chords. Last lesson I introduced you to the basic theory of altered dominant chords. In this lesson I demonstrate the most common chord shapes for the guitar, limiting myself to the ‘E’ type CAGED position (where the […]
Altered Dominants for Guitar, Part 3
ii-V-Is using the ‘C’ & ‘E’ CAGED shapes Hi folks Welcome to the third lesson in my jazz guitar series on using altered dominant dominant chords. I’m getting down to business in this lesson and demonstrating how to apply the altered dominant chords in the keys of D minor and D major, using the ii-V-I […]
Altered Dominant Theory
Altered Dominants for Guitar: Part 1 – Altered Dominant Theory I want to do a short series on using altered dominants chords since they seem to be particularly intimidating from a theoretical point of view. This is largely because of the descriptive notation which generates length chord names. Indeed it is often a lot simpler to […]