🎹 Static Chords? Try These 5 Professional Movements Instead!

A lot of jazz students spend time learning what chords to play—but not always how to make them move. If harmony ever feels static in your playing, it’s usually not because you don’t know enough chords. It’s because the chords aren’t interacting with each other in a meaningful way.

In this week’s video, I walk through five compact chord moves that help create real harmonic motion. These are small ideas, but they’re powerful—and they show up constantly in the playing of great jazz pianists.

Some of these moves are rooted in II–V–I progressions. Some live over a single chord. And one is a beautiful little ending idea I picked up from Barry Harris.

Why Small Harmonic Ideas Matter

I’m a big believer in learning small things deeply. Each of these chord moves gives you:

• A way to bring life into a II–V–I

• A glimpse into diminished harmony and secondary dominance

• Practical drop-2 voicings you can actually use

• Clear voice-leading that creates tension and release

More importantly, they give you something to investigate. Instead of just memorizing shapes, I encourage you to ask:

• What harmonic device is being used here?

• Where does the tension come from?

• How does it resolve?

• How can I isolate this and practice it in all keys?

That process—learning, analyzing, and then pulling ideas apart—is how vocabulary turns into musicianship.

Practice Ideas You Can Take Away

As you work with these chord moves, try:

• Transposing them slowly through all 12 keys

• Isolating one small movement and looping it

• Applying the idea to a tune you already know

• Creating your own variation based on the same harmonic concept

The goal isn’t just to collect licks—it’s to build awareness and flexibility so harmony starts to feel alive under your hands.