Hey friends ….. I have a new skill share course that I have just released. It’s all about chords and is part one … part two coming later next week.
You can try out skill share for free for a month and try my course out or others.
If you sign up using this link you will get a month free and I get $10. So it’s a great way to help me keep doing what I’m doing for you guys.
The skill share course is all about jazz piano chords and this is just part one which includes 15 lessons.
The course also is accompanied with a workbook, which you can download below.
There are 7 voicings that I believe every jazz pianist should know. Of course there are many more, and many wonderful voicings like drop 2 and quartals, but I think these 7 voicings are the most basic and useful jazz chords there are to know.
The voicings are AXIS OF 3rd and 7th, Open and Closed Voicing, A and B voicing and a special 3 note voicing towards the end of the video.
Axis of a 3rd and 7th Voicings
These two voicings are wonderful two handed voicings with a simple 5th in the Left hand and the 3rd and 7th in the right.
The Axis of a 3rd is Left Hand 1 and 5 and Right Hand 7 and 3.
The Axis of a 7th is Left Hand 1 and 5 and Right Hand 3 and 7.
They swap beautifully between the two when doing 2 5 1’s or going around the cycle of 4ths. More info
Open and Closed Voicings
These two voicings are also two handed. One has a very open sound and the other closed.
The Open Voicing is Left Hand 1 and 7 and Right Hand 3 and 5 (or 13).
The Closed Voicing is Left 1 and 3 and Right Hand 7 and 9.
They also swap well between the two. More info
A and B voicings
A and B Voicings are one handed. You could play in the right hand and play a bass note or use in the left hand when soloing for example.
Even though they do not have the 1 (root note) they still have everything the listener needs to ‘hear’ the changes.
The A voicing is 3 5(or 13) 7 9 and the B voicing is 7 9 3 and 5 (13). Here’s some more info.
Special 3 note voicing
In the tutorial I talk about a 3 note voicing that I use all the time. In reality it’s multiple voicings that use the one concept.
The concept is to use make sure you have 3 and 7 in the voicing, which are the guide tones and then add some colour (flavour). For example 3 7 and 9 to make it a bit tastier. Or 7 3 and 13 or 3 7 and #9. The options are many.
Using the guide tones you can create awesome sounding 3 note chords
Transcribing is listening to a recording or live performance and working it out (usually writing it down).
It is such a vital skill for the jazz musician. There have been many gigs that I’ve played where there has been no charts and I have not known the songs and I was expected to play along. Transcribing helped me greatly with that.
Transcribing will help your ear, your reading (if you right it down), help you to know what your favourite musician is playing and give you ideas that you can use in your own playing.
A few tips :
1. Transcribe lines or solos that you like the sound of and you would like to be able to play. Don’t bother working out a solo you can’t stand. There’s an unlimited amount of music that out there that you probably love, so transcribe that instead.
2. Use youtube or other digital media players to slow down the piece if you can’t work it out at the speed.
3. You can also transcribe something that you know someone else has already. That way you can check it later. Though don’t go to it just because it’s getting a bit tough to work it out. Keep trying and listen hard. Train your ear!
Here’s a video that I did on transcribing. It was a one minute tip, so it’s a bit rushed, but hopefully it helps.
Recently I stumbled across this great video where Barry Harris shows some students some ideas on a scale he calls the diminished 6th scale. It contains the same notes as a major bebop scale but he’s approach to is a little different to how most people would generally approach the bebop scale, so it’s kind of fitting.
I’ll try and do a video on this sometime later, as I personally found it fascinating, but I really wanted to do a quick post on it now (even though it really is a quite advanced jazz technique). I’ve also included a quick chart of the scale and also the voicing of the chords that the students were playing in the video.
I just love the voice leading and chord combinations that are created when using this scale. The chords when formed naturally over this scale are so interesting. From the humble C major 7 to altered dominant chords and quartels (think kind of ‘so what’ chords).
Enough from me, I’ll let Barry do the teaching today.
