John Coltrane´s Giant Steps Chord Voicings | Easy Tabs with Video

Hey, how’s it going guys this is Jon McLennan with Guitar Control, excited
to bring you this lesson. We’re looking at the chord changes to the first eight or bars of “Giant Steps” by John Coletrane’s tune. I want to show you some great voicing for getting through those changes.

Check the image above to follow the chords and tabs.

The first chord is a B major 7 and we’ve got 2, 4, 3, 4. Then we’re going to go to a D13 over C, which would be 3rd fret, 4th fret, 4th fret, 3rd fret, G6-9 over B: 2, 2, 2, 3. Then to a B flat 9, which is 6, 6, 5, 3. And then B flat major 7. This is a nice voicing here 6 , 5, 3, 3.

Notice there’s a common note between all those changes. A minor 11: 5, 5, 5, 3. Then, I just drop those two notes. A flat 7 flat 5: 4, 4, 5, 3. Resolving to G major 7. That’s a II-V-I cadence, then you go 3, 4, 4, 3. Back up to B flat 9; B flat major 7; F sharp 13: 2, 2, 3, 4; B major 7, the first chord. A nice little cadence here, II-V-I going to E flat major 7. It’s going to be 3, 5, 4, 6. B flat 9: 6, 5, 4, 6. E flat major 7: 5, 5, 6, 6.

So the whole thing slowly is like this. You want to focus on getting those chords clean and being able to play it at tempo, of course, and then all
those voicing are going to be super applicable to tons of other jazz tunes where you have II-V-Is and just a lot of those typical movements, major 7th chords, minor 7. So here we go; one more time up to speed.

All right, listen to some John Coletrane and the next section we’re going to get into some lines playing over this. So practice that and we’ll see you in the next video.