Revised and updated for 2025
Everyone gets in a rut at some point, and starts looking for a way to make the familiar sound new and fun again. If you feel like your blues chords and progressions need a reboot, it makes sense to think about learning some new voicings. But it's not enough to just get a few new chord shapes under your fingers – you need to learn how to use them, too.
In this newly-revised and updated version of my Freddie Green Chords workshop, you'll learn how to apply just a handful of essential voicings to three different, equally important progressions – an eight bar blues, a twelve bar blues, and the all-important 32-bar "rhythm changes."
Not just what, but how.
A step-by-step method for transforming I, IV and V into smooth and elegant progressions.
A Handful of Chords
Freddie Green style rhythm guitar is based on just a few recurring voicings played in a very specific groove. Use these building blocks to emulate this classic style, or repurpose them to your own creative ends.
See the Connections
By applying the same chord moves and substitutions to three different chord progressions, you'll learn how to start applying the Freddie Green chords to almost any I-IV-V song you can think of.
Build a Vocabulary of Moves
Swing chords resolve – like licks in a solo, swing chords are constantly on the go. With just a handful of two- or three-chord moves, you can start putting together your own variations on the changes.
Chord vocabulary doesn't have to be a big mystery...
Learning new chords and how to put them together does take time and practice, but what to work on and how to get there shouldn't be a big mystery or take the rest of your life to accomplish. From the outside, the Freddie Green style can look hard to decipher, but it's really just based on a handful of key chord shapes, and there is a logic to how guitarists put together those random-seeming sequences of voicings.
...if you take it step by step
For this workshop, I've distilled that logic down to the essentials, and I'll show you how to build up important chord progressions and substitutions starting from just the I, IV and V, the specific shapes you need to move smoothly from chord to chord, how to put those voicings together in the most musical, intuitive way possible, and the best way to practice your new vocabulary.
HOW IT WORKS
Sign Up
Use the secure form below to sign up for and attend the live online workshop (or watch the replay later).
Take The Workshop
Build up a vocabulary of chord moves, learn why and when to use them, and become fluent in a whole new approach to chords and chord progressions.
Transform Your Playing
Watch the replay for an entire year, refer to the tab for every example, and make Freddie Green chords a permanent new part of your vocabulary.
Jazz Chord Vocabulary For Blues Guitarists
Reliable Source workshops are for blues guitar players who want to become better, more interesting musicians without getting derailed learning all the modes in every key or learning tunes that don’t move you.
To do that, you need specific, focused lessons that will directly help you to play the way you want to. So much jazz instruction takes a "total mastery" approach – all the scales, all the voicings, in every position; hundreds of “must know" standards – which can get really overwhelming, really quickly.
I don’t think that should be your only choice if you want to become a better guitar player. As blues musicians, I think we should have a way to take just the things we need from the jazz world, and apply it directly to the music we like best: blues.
So here’s how Freddie Green Chords: Blues & Rhythm Changes will work: we’ll look at an eight bar blues ("Trouble In Mind"), a twelve-bar blues ("See See Rider") and a 32-bar song ("I Got Rhythm," or "Rhythm Changes"). I'll start with just a handful of essential chord shapes and some techniques for how to make them sound good.
Next, we'll look at each chord progression in it's simplest form – just I, IV and V – then slowly add in one new chord shape or substitution at a time.
By looking at all three progressions in the same key (Bb), you'll see how the same moves apply over and over in different situations. By the end of the workshop, you'll not only have a whole new vocabulary of chord moves; you'll understand why they work and how to apply them to other songs as well.
Stop feeling like you’re reaching for same ideas over and over, and start getting a handful of authentic jazz/blues moves under your fingers. Your hands, your ears and your imagination will thank you.
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$79 02/01/25 FREDDIE GREEN CHORDS: BLUES & RHYTHM CHANGES
Essential voicings and substitutions for essential chord progressions
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Get a year's access to Freddie Green Chords: Blues & Rhythm Changes for $79.
