Chord Voicings Masterclass
The Harmonic and Melodic Minor Scales: Chord and Scale Fingering
About this masterclass
David Cohen gives beginning-to-intermediate jazz guitarists a complete system for visualizing the harmonic minor and melodic minor scales — and the chords that come from them — across the entire neck. You'll see exactly how a great number of chord shapes, voicings, and extensions live inside each scale, with a wealth of fingering options, licks, and patterns to practice.
Fingering approaches covered
- Mode Zones — David's position-playing system, where the first finger defines one of 7 zones corresponding to the modes of each scale
- 3-notes-per-string concepts and practicing the stretches
- Sliding scales — patterns that repeat on 2-string groups
- Full-range fingerings that traverse the entire neck
- 1-string, 2-string, and 3-string playing
- Triads from the scales, triad pairs, and "triad triples" for harmonizing on 3-string sets
Key concepts
- Harmonic minor: the Phrygian Dominant mode over dominant 7 chords, diminished 7th arpeggios, simple passages over ii-V-i, and turning a major ii-V-I into a harmonic minor ii (m7b5) - V7b9 - i
- Melodic minor: the interchangeability of minor-major 7, 7#11, m7b5, and altered dominant chords — their modes can all exchange licks and chord shapes — plus the famous "Jim Hall chord"
At the end of the video, everything comes together over "Take the A Train." You'll come away with a large number of ways to use these scales and add real variety to your playing. Materials included with TAB.
Lessons in this masterclass
Lessons
- 1The Harmonic and Melodic Minor Scales: Chord and Scale Fingering1h 21m
Reviews & Ratings
0.0
0 reviews
5
0
4
0
3
0
2
0
1
0
No reviews yet. Be the first to review this course!
Related Courses
About the instructor
David Cohen →
Baltimore-based Composer/Guitarist/Drummer/Educator David E. Cohen is featured in a number of groups including No Signal, a modern classical and jazz ensemble, the Banana Channel which performs his progressive rock, jazz-fusion, and classic rock pieces, the No Land Band in which he is the lead guitarist and a contributing songwriter. Mr. Cohen has composed a number of jazz and classical works, including pieces for big band, four-guitar ensemble, chorus with electric guitar, solo double bass, full orchestra, chamber orchestra and soprano, brass quintet, solo percussion, amongst many others. His musical influences are diverse, including John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Jean-Luc Ponty, Return to Forever, Billy Cobham, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Tony Williams, Charlie Christian, Pat Martino, Kenny Burrell, Joe Pass, George Benson, Jimmy Smith, The Brecker Brothers, Larry Coryell, Bartok, Stravinsky, Debussy, Messaien, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Steve Reich, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Kansas, Rush, Soundgarden, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Mastodon, and others. As an educator, Dave offers a unique view in his teaching methods. Trained at the world-class Peabody Conservatory by Paul Bollenback, Tim Murphy, Chris Theofanidies, Kevin Puts, Nicholas Maw, Shafer Mahoney, Paul Mathews, and Libby Larsen, he has many timeless compositional and jazz ideas to share. His instruction style is a fully comprehendible, step-by-step approach which emphasizes the understanding of music theory through an incredibly thorough system of guitar fingerings and visualization methods. Dave has many years of teaching experience and shares them week after week with his 25-student studio. David will present basic classes for the entry-level jazz guitarist.

