Published:
2003-01-01
Updated:
2024-08-13

Learning Ukulele with Curt

Core “Jazz” Ukulele Chords - The Big Six

Core Chords for Ukulele, The Big Six - From four F7 chord voicings or shapes, your can build your massive 4-part, a.k.a., “jazz” chord vocabulary. 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.

Main Category: Chords Main Instrument: Chords

6 August 2026

Core “Jazz” Ukulele Chords - The Big Six

Core Chords for Ukulele, The Big Six - From four F7 chord voicings or shapes, your can build your massive 4-part, a.k.a., “jazz” chord vocabulary. 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.

    1

    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.

    This is an expanded and improved version of my Building A Solid Jazz Chord Foundation for Ukulele workshop that I've presented several times at various ukulele festivals over the past several years.

    3

    The Big Six Core Chords - F7, Four Voicings, Learning Process

    The Big Six Core Chords - "F7", four voicings. From shape to chord tones to intervals and back again. Really, learning what a chord is made of.

    From knowing the numeric chord formula of any chord you can get to the notes of that chord from it's corresponding major scale based on the same root. And, inversely from the names of the notes of a chord you can get to it's numeric chord formula.

    For some chords it will be the intervals that come before the names of the chord tones, for other chords it might be the intervals that come first. The order doesn't matter, only the outcome.

    4

    Core Chords - The Big Six - Building a Solid Chord Foundation

    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.

    The Big Six chords include: Seventh 7, Major Seventh maj7, Minor Seventh m7, Half Diminished Seventh or Minor Seven Flat Five diminished 7 m7b5, Diminished Seventh o7, and Augmented Seventh +7. These six chords form a core set of chords.

    5

    Core Chords - Creating the Big Six from F7, 1st Voicing

    Taking a movable F7 chord, you can derive each of the Big Six essential chords. 7, maj7, m7, m7b5, dim7, and aug7 from that voicing.

    6

    Core Chords - Creating the Big Six from F7, 2nd Voicing

    Taking a movable F7 chord, you can derive each of the Big Six essential chords. 7, maj7, m7, m7b5, dim7, and aug7 from that voicing.

    7

    Core Chords - Creating the Big Six from F7, 3rd Voicing

    Taking a movable F7 chord, you can derive each of the Big Six essential chords. 7, maj7, m7, m7b5, dim7, and aug7 from that voicing.

    8

    Core Chords - Creating the Big Six from F7, 4th Voicing

    Taking a movable F7 chord, you can derive each of the Big Six essential chords. 7, maj7, m7, m7b5, dim7, and aug7 from that voicing.

    9

    The Big Six Core Chords - F7, four voicings, Chord Intervals

    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.

    F7, often called a Dominant Seventh forms the foundation chords that are used to build ALL of our 4-part chords..

    10

    The Big Six Core Chords - F7, four voicings - Chord Tones

    Learning the locations of the chord tones - the actual names of the "F7" chords, the foundation chord for our Big Six Core Chords.

    11

    Color Tones and Chords

    The most important notes or chord tones in a chord are the notes that contribute most to the actual sound or “color” of the chord. For a major or minor triad, the third of the chord performs this function. For other chords, any note that makes it different from other chord types with the same root are the color tones.

    12

    Core Ukulele Chords - Level One

    The remaining chords for The Big Six, Level I Core Chords. The Big Six chords include: Seventh 7, Major Seventh maj7, Minor Seventh m7, Half Diminished Seventh or Minor Seven Flat Five m7b5, Diminished Seventh o7, and Augmented Seventh +7. These six chords form your core set of 4-part chords.

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Chords

Chords

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