Do you want to play great jazz piano chords sheet music? The good news is that you don’t have to learn the theory of jazz to play the piano. Learning jazz theory can be confusing to some people and it can frustrate you. There are a lot of blogs, videos and teaching online that will teach you the basic root position piano chords but they generally sound corny. In this post, we will learn some easy jazz chords that sound great.

Shell, root and pretty

You can hop straight to the slick sounding stuff by skipping the root-position chords. The main elements you need are shell, root and pretty. We will build up all five of our chords the same way. 3 notes will be in the left hand while 2 notes will be in the right hand. We will start by learning them in the key of C then go to all the 12 keys in a simple way. This is the way to start jazz piano chords for beginners.

Major 7ths

This is the bottom note found in the left hand. It is the root of the chord. We then add the major 3rd and the major 7th to the left hand. This will give us the root plus the shell. Now let us add the 9th and the 5th to get pretty.

That is the big deal now – you are playing piano chords now. You should be enjoying it. If you would like to compare this with the root position version then play it.

Minor 7th

These jazz piano chords sheet music are the same as major 7ths with a minor 7th and a minor 3rd. we will build up from the bottom of the 2 handed voicings for C minor 7. This is usually written as Cm7. The bottom note in the left hand is the root of the chord.