Progressions

Progressions to practice

Jazz is a small number of chord movements, played in every key and in every order. These are practice pages rather than articles: a chart, the fingerings that connect it, and a band that loops it wherever you set the key.

• The major ii–V–I, in every key Three chords that lean, pull, and land — voice-led into one four-fret window, with the band walking underneath.
• The jazz blues, in every key The twelve bars everyone knows, and the three bars jazz replaces — both loops side by side, five grips for the whole chorus.
• The minor ii–V–i, in every key The cadence a minor key resolves with, the half-diminished chord that starts it, and the minor blues it usually arrives inside.

How to use them

Pick a key, start the loop, and comp along with the shapes on the page until you stop reading them. Then change the key and do it again — the chart re-spells, the fingerings move to the nearest window, and the band follows. The playing is the point; the page is only there to be right about what the chords are and where they sit.

If you want the reasoning behind the shapes rather than the drill, the articles cover it: what a drop-2 voicing is, how voice leading chooses between the inversions, and which two notes — the guide tones — do the work in every chord here.

Next: Browse the articles →