lo Over All The Things You Are Without Thinking in Scales? Five Chords, Two ShapesHow Do You So
The first five chords of All The Things You Are reduce to two upper-structure shapes. That's the whole answer: Fm7 is played as A♭maj7, B♭m7 as D♭maj7, E♭7 is that same D♭maj7 with one note lowered a half step, and then the real A♭maj7 and D♭maj7 arrive — shapes you're already holding. This is how Junewon Choi teaches advanced harmony at VoiceLid Jazz Guitar, whose online jazz guitar lessons replace scale-per-chord thinking with upper structures: seeing what to grab on each chord instead of what to run.
What is an upper structure on jazz guitar?
An upper structure is what remains when you remove the root and read the guide tones plus tensions as their own chord. The conversion table is small enough to memorize tonight:
Minor 7 chord → major 7 built from its 3rd (Fm7 → A♭maj7)
Major 7 chord → minor 7 built from its 3rd (Cmaj7 → Em7)
Dominant 7 chord → m7♭5 from its 3rd, or maj7♭5 from its 7th
The payoff is enormous: instead of eight chord scales for eight chord symbols, you're managing a handful of familiar shapes whose meaning changes with the bass underneath them.
How do five chords become two shapes?
Walk the first phrase of All The Things You Are with roots removed. Fm7: grab the guide tones plus the 9 and 5 — that's A♭maj7. B♭m7: same logic gives D♭maj7. Now E♭7 — and here's the punchline — you don't reach for anything new. Lower one note of that D♭maj7 (the 5th, A♭, drops a half step) and you have D♭maj7♭5, which is the E♭7 sound most players would laboriously label "9 and 13." Then comes actual A♭maj7 — already played it — and actual D♭maj7 — played that too. Five chord symbols, two shapes and a half-step nudge. Junewon covers this rootless shell-to-upper-structure system step by step in the Bridge Series.
Why does the same shape sound different over different chords?
Because the emphasized note changes. The A♭maj7 shape over Fm7 leans on A♭; when the progression later lands on the real A♭maj7, the melody posts pull your emphasis to C — same grip, different gravity. This is why upper structures aren't a cheat code that makes everything sound identical: the concept repeats, the sound doesn't. It's also why guide-tone hearing matters more than shape memory. Through the fifths cycle, only one note moves per chord change — B♭m7's D♭ arrives, then E♭7's G, then A♭maj7's C — and if you extract just those moving notes, you get something startling: the melody. Composers pulled tunes out of guide-tone motion; soloists who can't hear it are fighting the song.
Is Roman numeral analysis useless for soloing?
Not useless — mis-assigned. Roman numeral analysis is a composer's and arranger's tool, and it earns its keep when someone calls the tune in a new key. But in real time, on the bandstand, analysis doesn't tell your hands what to play. The working question on each chord isn't "what function is this?" — it's "which upper structure do I grab, and which note is moving?" Sort your repertoire tunes that way — concept per chord, one moving voice — and the fretboard stops being a map of theory and starts being a sequence of decisions you've already made.
How do you practice this? The diatonic circle-of-fifths sequence
Run shell voicings through the diatonic circle of fifths in C — Cmaj7, Fmaj7, Bm7♭5, Em7, Am7, Dm7, G7, back to Cmaj7 — then repeat with roots removed. Now convert each to its upper-structure drop 2: Em7 replaces Cmaj7, Am7 replaces Fmaj7; Bm7♭5 stays as itself (its natural 9 falls out of the key, so no substitution), and Em7 gets the same treatment. One caution flag: whenever the tension you'd add leaves the scale, keep the plain chord — the sequence teaches you where color is free and where it costs. This is the same rootless logic explored in How Shell Voicings Become Rootless Upper-Structure Voicings and Upper Structure Triads and Superimposition. And since these shapes sit exactly where Wes Montgomery's lines live — Junewon demonstrates the two home positions for A♭maj/Fm and B♭m before soloing — the natural next step is Wes' Insight, where that diagonal line logic is broken down lesson by lesson.
About the Author
Junewon Choi is a Berklee-trained jazz guitarist and the founder of VoiceLid Jazz Guitar, an online education platform teaching jazz harmony and improvisation through the Functional Diagonal Approach (FDA) — a chord-first method built on voice-leading rather than scale boxes.
Wes' Insight — Wes Montgomery's fretboard logic, in lesson form
Fundamental 1: Wes Diagonal System — the FDA from the ground up