Autumn Leaves is a timeless jazz standard recorded by numerous jazz legends, making it a must-know tune for any aspiring jazz guitar player. In this guitar lesson, you will learn a beginner-friendly chord arrangement of Autumn Leaves.
This arrangement uses drop 2 and drop 3 chords, two basic chord shapes essential for every jazz guitarist.
Mastering drop 2 and drop 3 voicings will open up new colors and textures in your playing, making your jazz guitar sound more vibrant and expressive.
Learning the chords of Autumn Leaves helps you get familiar with a classic jazz standard and deepen your understanding of jazz harmony and chord progressions.
The harmony of Autumn Leaves is a great example of major and minor ii-V-I progressions, the backbone of jazz music.
Once you are comfortable with these beginner chords, take the next step with our Autumn Leaves jazz guitar chord study, where you will explore more advanced voicings and ideas.
This chord study is an excerpt of our course Jazz Standards 101 – Autumn Leaves.
Video & Guitar Tabs
Listen & Play-Along
Guitar Chord Chart
Here are the guitar chord charts for every voicing used in the Autumn Leaves arrangement.
This chord study is an excerpt of our course Jazz Standards 101 – Autumn Leaves (click below for more information).
Thanks for sharing this Dirk. This is a super chord etude of Autumn Leaves. I love the harmonic progression, voice leading and the chromatic Bass movement. There is so much going on in this arrangement that make it interesting all on its own.
It will be nice to get this under my fingers.
merci beaucoup c’est magnifique pour les élèves
merci merci !!
What a excursion of ear delight thank you
Thank you so much for your amazing work and for sharing it this way.
Feeling very thankful.
Made my day =D
Wow,,,, I really like this version. Thank you very much.
Merveilleuse progression d’accords. Beaucoup de plaisir à la jouer. C’est très généreux de la publier gratuitement. Merci beaucoup, c’est super, Marc
Hi ,
play guitar and a bit of alto sax and I was blown away at the number of chords in jazzstandard”Autumn Leaves” I,ll start saving to buy some of your tutor books.I,ve got a lot to learn Excellent arrangements!
Great exercise Dirk – much appreciated my friend.
A very pleasant version of an old favourite, Dirk.
Thanks Keith!
Hi Dirk, thank you for publishing this … your chord analysis and tab really help to make this playing this lovely jazz standard a possibility for me.
I love the sound of your guitar and I’m curious to know which strings (brand, gauge) you use to get those full tones on the upper strings.
Really appreciate your help, Ron-Orlando Florida
Thanks for the feedback, Ron! I use Thomastik Swing JS112 strings.
I’ve just fitted a set of JS112 flats on my 345. Lovely to play and they sound more jazzy!
Yes, great strings!
I love this song! I’ve played it before but not like this. Great exercise.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us! One of my all time favorite jazz standards!
Thank you for this. Great tune.
Good exercise.
I like this
After listening a couple times to this arrangement of autumn leaves , be it simple or complicated I guess you could say (at least in my mind ) that every arrangement of a piece or song should be a study in its self to get the full understanding of how and why.
This is one of my all time favourite, thank you for sharing your knowledge to us simpletons who love Jazz but never got around to learn more.
Gerry
Magnífico estudio. Muchas gracias maestro.
Gracias Salvador!
Like that guitar! Sweetest sound!
Thanks for sharing! I like it
beautifull guitarsound!
Thanks Ed!
do you have a video of this tune?
Sorry, totally forgot to embed the video, it’s up now…