Category: The Jazzy stuff (but good for every style!)
Playing in Fourths
I really like this style of phrasing, take some great examples like McCoy Tyner, and a lot of the ‘hard bop’ jazz cats. The basic idea is this: take a scale, in this example I will use a C major scale. Now play all the diatonic fourths contained in C major: In the video I am playing…
Tips: play Giant Steps on guitar
Giant Steps has always been a challenging standard to play, in this video I give a few tips on how to approach this famous tune. The Chords (from the fake book-as far as I know it is not copyrighted material so I am posting the original): One good ‘pattern’ to start familiarising with the progression in playing…
Jazz guitar: Altered Chords Pt2
In this video I show how to use the Superlocrian mode (nothing more than the 7th mode of a minor melodic scale) to improvise over altered chords. On C7 the choice would be C Superlocrian C, Db,Eb,E, F#,G#,Bb (also known as Db melodic minor starting from C). Listen to a few examples of resolution from C7(alt) to…
Jazz guitar: Altered Chords Pt1
Altered chords are a flavour of dominant chords, where we add certain extensions: #9,b9,#5,b5. In the example on the video I use C7 as basic chord and add the extension D#,Db,G#,Gb also as combinations.
How to use the Diminished Scale Pt 2
Continuation of the diminished scale video…in this Pt2 I show how to incorporate triads into phrases or altered chords voicings. If we take a C half step/whole step scale C, Db, Eb, E, F#, G, A, Bb we see that four triads can be found within the notes of this scale: C major, Ebmajor, F#major,…
How to use the Diminished Scale Pt 1
In this guitar lesson I am going over a scale that is widely used in the jazz and fusion circles and creates quite a distinctive sound. Actually…it is not a single scale, but two. The two scales are very similar and in my opinion this is something that can create some confusion. These two diminished…
Triad Pairs – Examples
Just a few examples from the triad pairs video: http://www.TrueGuitarist.com/triad-combinations-also-known-as-triad-pairs/
Harmonic Major Scale
This is a scale I use really often and that can be incorporated in many different progressions. The Harmonic major scale is nothing but a major scale (in the example C major C D E F G A B) with the b6th instead of the natural 6th. So C Harmonic Major is C D E…
Tritone Substitution/Passing Chords
Very simple concept widely used in jazz ( but good for other styles). Like shown in the video, G7 and Db7 are two chords a tritone away (tritone=6 semitones) that share the same 3rd and 7th. G7= G B D F Db=Db F Ab B as you see the notes B and F are common…
Chord Scale Relationship, a Practical Tip.
Throughout the last few years, every time I learnt a new chord I always tried to associate the right scale to cover that same area. Watch the video and you’ll understand what I mean.

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Professional guitarist, producer, internet enthusiast and overall geek, Gianni Chiarello has been playing, performing and recording for over 25 years in different parts of the globe. Read more about it here: