This lesson is designed to set you on the road to playing chordal swing and jazz guitar with the freedom of an accomplished improvisor. It can help you hold a large repertoire of chords in your head, without recourse to "chord dictionaries" or other written material, and to then learn how these chords go together into sequences commonly found in swing and jazz standards and other music of the past century and beyond.
Material covered includes:

• The simple "240 chord" exercise: 3 minutes a day to develop a great chord repertoire.
• The five string-sets for 4 note chord voicings.
• The 3 basic chord families how they work with each other, and how the art of "chord substitution" provides an infinite amount of variability.
• The 3 most common systems of chord progression and their variations.
• How to start applying this material to actual tunes.

102 minutes • Level 2 • Tab/Music material is on the DVD as a PDF file

Review: I just finished watching your DVDs on the Nuts and Bolts series for both Chords and Melody and I just wanted to write to you to thank you so much for producing these! These have been the most instructive and useful guitar lesson videos I've ever watched. Being one of those who has struggled with the notion of improvisation, it's been a real obstacle for me to play melody beyond uninteresting scale sequences and patterns. So, it was a huge, huge awakening for me to understand the relationship of the phrasing of melody with the human voice and the cadence of speech. I immediately started observing the rhythm of my own speech and its relationship with music. That insight left me, well... speechless :) With respect to chords, your approach is the most lucid, logical 'system' I've been introduced to. I can see the path now for learning how to comp or to play chord melody. Having already developed quite a bit of theory, physical technique and a good understanding of the geography of the fretboard, I now feel a level of confidence in approaching my playing with a sense of musical expression. And, five years into this 20 year project of learning to play guitar, I didn't think it was going to happen but I see it's possible and I'm forever grateful for your insight.

Thank you for sharing your own insight as well as the lessons you learned from your mentors. And, I hope you've enjoyed making your instructional materials as much as I've enjoyed watching them. – Chris Giordano