BY BRUCE SAUNDERS
Bruce Saunders is an award-winning guitarist, composer, author, and educator. He has
recorded, performed, and toured with some of
the world’s best jazz musicians, including Jack
DeJohnette, Dave Holland, Bill Stewart, and Peter
Erskine. Saunders has been a faculty member
at the Berklee College of Music since 1992 and
has also taught at New York University and The
New School, and conducted clinics and concerts
in many countries. Visit brucesaunders.com for
more information.
CHOPS: Intermediate
THEORY: Advanced
LESSON OVERVIEW:
• Learn how major 7 and major
7(#11) voicings work over
blues changes
• Create harmonic tension using
altered chord tones
• Understand how to create drop
2 and drop 3 voicings
Click here to hear
sound clips of
these examples
Building a chord vocabulary is a lifelong journey for many guitarists. From open
to barre, rootless to power, chords take on
all shapes and sizes. In this lesson, we’ll discover how the same type of chord voicing
can perform different harmonic functions.
Let’s use the 12-bar blues form (both major
and minor) as our starting point.
First, we need to brush up on our basic
chord-voicing knowledge. I’m sure most of
you have played the voicing shown in Fig. 1
at one time or another. We describe this as a
“drop 2” voicing.
In order to create this type of voicing, we
first start with a close-position voicing. A
close-position voicing means that all the chord
tones are as close as possible to each other.
From there, we move the second note from
the top down an octave. In Fig. 2 you can see
how this makes otherwise impossible chords
Major Chords, Minor Blues
Fig. 1
44 &
COE„Š7
wwww
˙
3
5
4
5
Fig. 2
44 &
COE„Š7
ww ww
Close
˙
10
9
5
5
COE„Š7
Drop 2
wwww
3
5
4
5
COE„Š7 wwww
Close
9
5
5
3
COE„Š7
Drop 3
www
w
3
4
5
3
44 &
C‹7ww ww bb Fig. 3
E¨OE„Š7
Cm9
wwww bb
Fig. 4
44 &
C‹ 9 wwww bb
˙
E¨OE„Š7
6
8
7
8
&
F‹ 7 ww ww b b
A¨OE„Š7
10
12
9
11
&
D‹ 11(b5)
A¨OE„Š7(#11)
wwww b
11
12
12
13
˙
ww ww b b
E¨OE„Š7
10
12
8
11
F‹%wwww b
A¨OE„Š7(#11)
6
7
8
8
G7[åÁ]
BOE„Š7(#11)
wwww
8
9
8
11
6
8
5
8
C‹ 9
E¨OE„Š7(#11)
wwww b
6
7
7
8
6
8
7
8
wwww bb
E¨OE„Š7
8
8
8
10
C‹ 9
E¨OE„Š7
www
w
b
b
6
7
8
6
G7[åÁ]
BOE„Š7(#11)
wwww
2
3
3
4
C7[åÁ] wwww bb b
E¨OE„Š7(#11)
8
9
9
11
wwww bb
E¨OE„Š7
10
8
11
10
C‹ 9
E¨OE„Š7
wwww bb
3
1
3
