Guitar shell voicings allow you to play ANY jazz chord using just 8 shapes. Learn how in this lesson.
🎸 Get my FREE Method Booklet - Play any jazz chord with just 8 shapes

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: Major triad at 10:47 should be spelled "1 3 5" not "1 3 b5".

 

🕛 Video Content Outline

0:00 - About this shell voicings lesson
0:55 - About the “Any Jazz Chord” method
2:28 - Shell voicings explained
5:48 - All the shell voicing chord shapes you need
6:29 - Major 7 shell voicing
7:17 - Major 6 shell voicing
7:32 - Dominant 7 shell voicing
7:42 - Minor 7 shell voicing
7:58 - Half diminished shell voicing
8:35 - 7sus4 shell voicing
8:58 - Minor 6 shell voicing
9:16 - Diminished 7 shell voicing
10:08 - Min(maj7) shell voicing
10:47 - Major triad (spelled "1 3 5" not "1 3 b5")
11:54 - Minor triad (use same shape as min7)
12:38 - What to ignore
14:49 - Note names along the 6th & 5th string
15:10 - Lead sheets / Get iReal Pro
16:39 - Putting it to the test!
18:52 - Shell voicings in real music example
19:39 - Recommended tunes to practice
19:51 - Conclusion / Outro / What’s next

 

🔗 Links & Lessons Mentioned in This Video

🎸 Full playlist of this series
🎸 Sus chords lesson
🎸 6th chords lesson
🎸 The Girl From Ipanema chord tutorial
🎸 Bossa nova comping pattern rhythm
🎸 Chord extensions explained
🎸 Adding extensions to shell voicings
🎸 Get my FREE Method Booklet - Play any jazz chord with just 8 shapes

 

💬 Lesson Description

For years I've been teaching a method for how to play any jazz chord using as few as eight simple chord shapes by leveraging the power of guitar shell voicings.

It sounds like the promise of an infomercial but it really works!

The shell voicings method is such a powerful system for jazz accompaniment.

In this tutorial, I walk through the whole guitar shell voicings method and play examples of how it can sound while jamming.

If you're interested in jazz guitar or classic standards then learning these powerful but simple chord shapes is definitely the way to go.

This is the kind of material that can be a complete game changer for your playing.

You may find yourself using it many years to come!

I hope you enjoyed this lesson about guitar shell voicings and found it beneficial.

Let me know what you thought in the comments.

Thanks! :)

- Jared

 

More of a reader?
Here’s the whole lesson adapted in written form just for you ⬇️ 

 

In this lesson, you're going to learn guitar shell voicings.

This is an amazing approach to play simple jazz guitar chords and accurately interpret literally any jazz chord from any jazz tune using as few as eight simple chord shapes.

I've been teaching this method for years.

I even put the whole approach into a free PDF booklet called "Any Jazz Chord."

In this lesson, we're going to go through that method exactly as it's laid out in the PDF booklet.

So if you want to get a copy and follow along, you can grab it here.

 

About the “Any Jazz Chord” Method

Imagine that you’re jamming with some friends.

Things are sounding pretty good and you're feeling confident.

Then someone pulls out the lead sheet of a jazz tune and asks you to play the chords while they play the melody and improvise over it.

You take a look and you see chords like: Gmaj9(#11), C#-7(b5), F#7(b9,b13), or B-(maj9).

How would you do if that happened to you right now?

If your answer was "not so great," then I'm excited for you because you're about to learn the simple system to be able to play any jazz chord with as few as eight easy chord shapes.

I know it sounds too good to be true.

It sounds like an infomercial, but it's real.

So if it's real, what's the trade-off?

There must be some sort of catch.

This must be some sort of beginner method that doesn't sound legit or professional.

But that's not the case.

One of my favorite things about these chord shapes is that the best guitar players will often choose to use them even when they know a bunch of other stuff, just because it's the sound they want to hear.

It’s a sound that provides clarity and space to the music.

This approach is about making sure that you have two accurate chord shapes that you can fluently jump to for literally any chord type that exists in jazz harmony.

In addition, these chord shapes serve as a foundation to later build more complex harmony on top of, such as chord extensions, alterations, and substitutions.

I'm excited for you to see how well it works.

 

Guitar Shell Voicings Explained

With all the extensions, variables, and possibilities included, there are 60+ different chord quality types that you could play.

Chord qualities are terms like major, minor, and diminished.

But with all of them, there is a core that defines their true essence.

That essential part actually provides all the information that is really needed for any chord in jazz harmony.

These essential versions of chords are often referred to as shell voicings.

Shell voicings are interpretations of chords where we only play three essential notes - the root, third, and seventh.

Playing those notes actually creates a complete sound, and in many cases shell voicings sounds cleaner than chords with more notes.

The root is the root, so we need that.

However, there are chords called “rootless voicings,” and I talk about that later in this lesson series.

But the two notes other than the root - the third and seventh - are often referred to as “guide tones” because they are that essential piece of the chord that determines its quality, motion, and function.

For example, without the third, you can't tell if a chord is major or minor.

Without the seventh, you won't know if it's dominant seven or not.

Without the three or the seven, chords become ambiguous, and we can't really tell what harmony they're supposed to represent.

With shell voicings, we don’t play the five of a chord, but that doesn't mean the five is gone.

The five is still a part of the chord; we're just allowed to not play it.

Omitting notes is actually very common in a composition technique called “voice leading.”

The five is the first note that’s okay to get rid of, and it's implied that it's still there even though we're not playing it.

Using guitar shell voicings, we can play 60+ chord types with just a handful of three-note, movable, simple, easy chord shapes.

We’re able to do this by ignoring all of the information that is not totally necessary.

The idea of not playing all those tasty extra notes, like #9 and b13, might be a little disappointing.

But don't worry, we will definitely get there.

We're setting up a foundation to build on top of, and it will make adding those kinds of extensions way easier later.

Remember, shell voicings are often the most desirable ones.

They allow breathing room, and they allow the melody to define the harmonic quality a little more.

Using them prevents us from stepping on the toes of other things that are going on in the music.

You can still think of the extra information in a chord as an important part of the music.

It might represent what's happening in the melody.

It might help an improviser choose a certain scale to play over a chord.

All of it is still present.

We're just providing a very essential bed underneath everything else to happen on top of.

If you're interested in playing jazz, especially if you want to be able to sight read chord changes off a lead sheet, you should have these guitar shell voicings super down.

You should be able to jump to them and sight read them before worrying about adding other chord shapes and extensions.

 

Lesson Outline

First, we’ll go over all the guitar shell voicings you need to play any jazz chord.

After that, we’ll put it to the test on a bunch of jazz tunes.

Any jazz chord can indeed be played with eight shapes, but we're going to learn two versions of each shell voicing, making 16 shapes in total.

We’ll learn a version off the 6th string and a version off the 5th string.

I recommend memorizing the shell voicings rooted off the 6th string first, then learning the shapes rooted off the 5th string.

Going in that order will make it a little easier to move around the fretboard.

That being said, as we go through each chord type, I'm going to give you both shapes at once.

As a side note, you can definitely play shell voicings off the 4th and 3rd string too.

But where they're most commonly played is off the 6th and 5th string.

Having two options for each chord type is plenty.

 

Shape #1: Major 7 Shell Voicing

You'll see that I include the 5 in the spelling of the chord because, again, it is a part of the chord.

Remember that we're just not playing it.

I also show the chord symbols that often represent these chords.

Those could all mean major 7.

For the 6th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, 7, 3.

We're not playing the 5th string.

If you're strumming this, you have to make sure that's muted with one of your fingers.

If you're plucking, then you don't have to worry about that as much.

For the 5th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, 3, 7.

 

Shape #2: Major 6 Shell Voicing

My last lesson was all about 6th chords.

For the 6th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, 6, 3.

For the 5th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, 3, 6.

 

Shape #3: Dominant 7 Shell Voicing

For the 6th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, b7, 3.

For the 5th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, 3, b7.

 

Shape #4: Minor 7 Shell Voicing

For the 6th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, b7, b3.

For the 5th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, b3, b7.

 

Half Diminished Shell Voicing

Our next chord type is half diminished.

This is also called minor 7b5.

What distinguishes half diminished from minor 7 is the b5.

So it's spelled as such:

We're not playing 5s for shell voicings, so we get a freebie.

This is still shape #4, so use the minor 7 shape when you interpret half diminished.

You see all those crazy symbols there - all of those could mean half diminished or minor 7b5.

 

Shape #5: 7sus4 Shell Voicing

A few lessons ago I talked about sus chords.

7sus4 can be thought of as a sus chord with a b7, or a dominant 7 chord where the 4 replaces the 3.

This will often resolve to the normal dominant 7 before it moves on.

For the 6th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, b7, 4.

For the 5th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, 4, b7.

 

Shape #6: Minor 6 Shell Voicing

This was also in the last lesson, where I talked about 6th chords and their theory.

This is the mysterious spy soundtrack chord.

For the 6th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, 6, b3.

For the 5th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, b3, 6.

 

Diminished 7 Shell Voicing

We're still on shape #6 because we get another freebie here.

“bb7” is said as “double flat seven.”

Don't worry about what it means right now.

That's not what we need to get into at the moment, but know that it's labeled that way.

What used to be the six we're now calling double flat seven.

They are the same note.

That's called an enharmonic equivalent.

When you see diminished 7 or minor 6, you can use the same shape.

Minor 6 and diminished 7 are the same shape because the only difference between them, structurally, is the b5.

For the 6th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, bb7, b3.

For the 5th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, b3, bb7.

 

Shape #7: Min(maj7) Shell Voicing

This is a minor triad with a major 7.

It's a very crunchy chord.

It’s used pretty rarely on its own.

Min(maj7) is most commonly used in a specific progression with a distinct sound, sometimes called the “Stairway to Heaven” sound.

Go to the video at 10:22 to hear what I mean.

For the 6th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, 7, b3.

For the 5th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, b3, 7.

 

Shape #8: Major Triad

This is down the list because it's actually pretty rare that you'll see it in a jazz tune.

If you're flipping through the real book, triads just won’t come up that often.

They'll come up more often in more modern compositions.

Pat Metheny uses a lot of triads in his compositions.

Traditional jazz tunes and standards very rarely use triads.

Anyways, here are the shapes we want:

We’re going to root both of these shapes on the 6th string.

That's just the most compatible way to play a triad that sounds good when you’ve already been playing shell voicings.

For both shapes we skip the D string.

For the first shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, 5, 3.

For the second shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: 5, 3, root.

 

Minor Triad

We have one more chord type though to address and that's the minor triad.

This is just a repeat of shape #4 because I want you to interpret any minor triad as minor 7 in this system.

That's pretty safe to do.

Only very rarely would that not be the intended harmony underneath - where a minor triad doesn't imply that a minor 7 could be there.

Almost always if you see a minor triad, you are accurately representing the scale that chord comes from by playing a minor 7 shape.

For the 6th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, b7, b3.

For the 5th string shape, the order of the notes from lowest to highest is: root, b3, b7.

 

What to Ignore

Alright, those are all the guitar shell voicings that we need.

Pretty exciting!

They're very approachable chord shapes that you really can play any tune with.

We're going to put it to the test soon.

But first we need to first talk about what to ignore.

In order to not get hung up on complex chords, we need to ignore 5ths, slash chords, and extensions.

Shell voicings automatically leave out the 5.

Remember, this isn't a cheap shortcut.

Leaving out the 5 is a more open and often more desirable sound.

When you see a something like “G7/B” that's a slash chord.

Sometimes it refers to an inversion of a chord.

Sometimes it's a complex polychord.

But we get to ignore it.

If you're ever playing with a bass player, they will always play the bottom note.

I recommend specifically not playing it if someone else is going to play it.

Even if you don't have a bass player and you ignore the bottom letter of a slash chord, it’s totally fine.

You're still accurately playing a chord.

What you might be missing is some specific melodic root movement that’s intended to happen in the progression.

But you're still accurately playing the chord.

It's going to fit and support the song exactly as it should.

Sometimes the bottom note in a slash chord actually changes the sound of the harmony significantly.

Still, for our purposes here, we're just going to ignore it.

You're not playing anything wrong by only playing the top part.

We are also ignoring extensions.

You can just ignore things like: 9, b9, #9, 11, #11, 13, b13.

You can easily learn how to add these later on top of the shell voicings and that's going to be really fun.

And we'll do that very soon in a couple lessons from now.

When you see any extended numbers alone by themselves, like G9 for example, you have to pretend that it says 7.

If you see G13, you have to pretend it says G7.

Just turn everything into seven.

If you see Am11, pretend it says Am7.

If you see D9, treat it as D7.

If you see Dmaj13, treat it as Dmaj7.

If extended numbers come after a 7, like G7(b13) or Amaj7(#11), you still totally ignore them.

Just play the first part.

 

Note Names Along the 6th & 5th String

We are ready to put it to the test!

In order to play any jazz chord using guitar shell voicings, we need to be able to find note names along the 6th and 5th string.

If you're not comfortable with finding the notes along the 6th or 5th string, you can use this diagram that shows them for you.

This exact diagram is also in the PDF booklet.

 

Lead Sheets & iRealPro

To put these guitar shell voicings to the test, grab a lead sheet for any jazz tune.

A lead sheet is a version of sheet music that shows only the melody and chord symbols.

Use whatever resource you want for finding a lead sheet.

If you Google a tune name and type in “lead sheet,” an image should come up.

But I highly recommend using an application called iReal Pro.

It's available on any device (with some limitations for Windows computers) and it's a super awesome resource that tons of jazz musicians use all the time to practice along with thousands of chord progressions.

I'm not affiliated with them in any way; it's just a resource that I use and recommend.

Once you’ve downloaded the app, up in the left corner, there’s a forums tab.

Click on the forums tab and that will take you to the forums.

On the top it says “Jazz.”

Click on that, and you should see “Jazz 1350 Standards" (now “Jazz 1410 Standards”).

If you download it, it's going to open in the iRealPro app.

All you do is click import, then you should have a list of tunes.

Once you have it imported, you can click through randomly and put this method to the test.

Will you be stumped by any chord you encounter?

 

Video Demonstrations

Watch the video at 16:39 to see me play through some random tunes and test the guitar shell voicings we just learned!

Watch the video at 18:52 to hear me play a tune called “Black Orpheus” using only those chord shapes.

I also play a solo on top of it so we can hear how guitar shell voicings sound in the context of real music.

 

Recommended Tunes to Practice

If you want to practice the chord changes of any specific tune and get it down, here are some that I recommend:

• "Fly Me to the Moon"
• "The Girl from Ipanema"
• "Autumn Leaves"
• "Dream a Little Dream of Me"
• "My Funny Valentine"

Those should all be available through iRealPro.

 

Conclusion

Now you can do it!

You can play the chords of any jazz tune with just eight chord shapes.

Any jazz musician that wants jam, improvise, or sing, needs someone to provide the chords and harmony.

Using guitar shell voicings, you have what it takes to do that.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments.

If you know anyone who plays guitar and who might be interested in being able to do this, consider sharing this lesson with them.

I think you'll have a lot of fun playing songs with this method!

In the next lesson, I'm going to go over the theory of 9s, 11s, and 13s.

In the lesson after that, I’m going to talk about specifically applying extensions to shell voicings, so we can beef up our jazz playing and provide some thicker textures when and if we want to.

This was episode 15 of my series on how to learn guitar chords.

See you in another lesson soon.

Thanks so much for reading this far!

Happy practicing!

 

🎸 Get my FREE Method Booklet - Play any jazz chord with just 8 shapes