Published:
2005-01-02
Updated:
2025-04-21
Learning Ukulele with Curt
Building a Solid Jazz Chord Foundation for `Ukulele
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.
Author(s): Curt Sheller Publisher: Curt Sheller Publications Code: UL42-7j
Main Category: Chords Main Instrument: Ukulele
Subjects: Chords
2025-04-21
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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.
Chords can be grouped into four categories. Open position chords, basic movable form chords, jazz
chords, and free form chords.
Your Basic Open Position chords are the common first chords that a beginning ukulele player typically learns. These chords are played in the fret one, two, three, and four areas of the ukulele and include at least one open string in the chord. Often referred to as “cowboy” or “folk” chords, a core set of open position chords would include A , C , D , E , F , G , Am , Cm , Dm , Em , Fm , Gm , A7 , B7 , C7 , D7 , E7 , F7 , and G7 .
The most common Movable Form chords, typically called barre
chords, are movable versions of the basic open position chords. Contemporary chords, or jazz
chords, are 4-part chords and the subject of this article. Free Form chords are where you know the notes of the chord and build chords, not in the other three categories. There is no real system for free form chords.
Core Chords is a series of UkuleleLESSONS for building your core 4-part, aka “jazz” chords. These chords commonly called “jazz” chords, are really just 4-part chords that are used in a wide range of musical styles.
These lessons present a highly organized and efficient approach to the mysterious subject of advanced chords. Chord dictionaries are not the answer. Even chord theory does not offer any insight into unraveling the complexity of Ukulele chord voicings.
More Building a Solid Jazz Chord Foundation for `Ukulele
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Building Your Core Chord Foundation
Sometimes called a “Dominant 7th” chord, the 7th chord provides a great foundation for building your core chords.
From the following four 7th chords you can build a set of chords which include: Seventh (7), Major Seventh (maj7), Minor Seventh (m7), Half Diminished Seventh (ø7) or Minor Seven Flat Five (m7b5), Diminished Seventh (°7) and Augmented Seventh (+7). These six chords form a core set of chords.
From four the F7 chord voicings or shapes below, your can build your massive 4-part, a.k.a., “jazz” chord vocabulary.
Click on any one of the individual F7 chords above to start the lesson for that particular voicing or shape.
Beyond Basic Open Position , Basic Movable Form Chords and Core Set Of 4-part Contemporary 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.
Seventh chords are the chords that have the most possible variations. 9th, 11th, 13th, b5, #5, b9, #9. And, combinations of the same.