Jack Pezanelli

In Jack's first Mike's Master Class, he will share his techniques for extending your harmonic reach and developing a pianistic approach on the guitar. Visit with Jack as he broadcasts live from his home in Massachusetts. In this lesson, he'll guide you through specific strategies and techniques that will enable you to visualize and realize the harmonic potential that's residing on your guitar fretboard. Jack will discuss and explain how to expand your harmonic perception as well as how to apply these concepts to a tune.

Jack Pezanelli opens a two-part series on hybrid chords — triads over a bass note, often written as slash chords like F/G — as a systematic tool for reharmonization. Approached this way, hybrids can take your harmony in an entirely new direction, from warm tonal colors to striking dissonance. What's covered What hybrid (slash) chords are and how a triad over a bass note creates sounds like G9sus Jack's chart of twelve triad structures over a C bass, ranked by acoustic weight — measurable dissonance rather than subjective taste Reading the chart: Arabic numbers for relative dissonance, Roman numerals for the interval between bass and triad Three harmonic options at each level, based on the triad's position against the bass note Spread voicings — dropping the middle voice an octave for a wider sound Harmonizing a C scale melody at different levels: from a warm, James Taylor-like sound at level four to a colder, more dissonant sound at level nine Advanced structures at the top of the chart, with references to their use in Stravinsky , and mixing hybrids with conventional chords Jack closes by applying these structures to the middle section of My Favorite Things , transforming a familiar tune into something harmonically rich and texturally diverse — with deeper exploration to come in Lesson II.

Jack Pezanelli continues his two-part series on harmony organized from the hybrid or “slash chord” viewpoint — triads over bass notes used as a systematic reharmonization tool. This second lesson builds on the framework introduced in Lesson I. The centerpiece of the session: Jack performs and explains two versions of “Giant Steps” reharmonized with hybrid structures, showing how the approach transforms one of jazz's most demanding progressions.

Jack Pezanelli explores the twelve-bar blues the way jazz players approach it: as a progressive form, open to harmonic and melodic devices that wouldn't be considered stylistically "bona fide" in folk or electric blues. In this lesson Jack discusses and demonstrates these components — options and techniques for developing the harmony of the blues, along with ways to build an expanded, horn-like linear approach to your solo lines. Full class runs about 76 minutes.