Bailey's Boot Camp Basics - Part III

Sheryl Bailey teaches drop 2 chord voicings in this third installment of her Boot Camp Basics series for jazz guitar. After covering scales in Part I and drop 3 voicings in Part II, she turns to the voicing system she calls fundamental to developing jazz style, voice leading, comping, and chord soloing — the sound behind much of Wes Montgomery's chord work.

What's covered

• What "drop 2" means — dropping the second voice from the top of a closed voicing down an octave to get playable, open shapes
• All three adjacent-string sets: high, middle, and low
• Drop 2 inversions organized into ii-V-I-VI progressions (in F), with downloadable PDF charts for every set and register
• Adding extensions like 9ths, 11ths, and 13ths to dress up basic progressions
• Using passing diminished chords for smooth voice leading between inversions
• Comping patterns and how drop 2s feed into chord soloing
• How voicing choices shape your personal sound, with the bebop tradition as the reference point

The class opens with Sheryl performing the bossa nova "Once I Loved" before getting into the material. PDF worksheets are included so you can work through each voicing set yourself. A solid foundation class for anyone building their jazz comping and chord-melody vocabulary.