Actually the Note on Bottom on the Type B Voicing for the C Maj 7 is the 6th, not the 7th, since it's A and not B. Thanks for the vid, really good content
Thanks again for your generosity sharing your wisdom and love for jazz music. One doubt. When I study and play rootless voicings, in the case of half dimished chords, I don't discard the root, I remember been told that for dimished chords there are no rootless form, but I see in your great video, that altering the Dm7, you get Dm7b5 as F Ab C E, that would be a rootless Dm9b5. In this case I use Dm7b5 as D F Ab C or any other voicing of the notes. Could you bring me some light on that? thanks in advance. Carlos
I've been looking for something like this. I'm a trumpet player who also likes to play piano. I know all the chord theory, but my chord voicings usually sound too obvious. These are very helpful videos!
Tl;dr: Why the rootless C69 (E G A D) instead of just rootless C9 (E G B D)? Awesome video! I've read through the comments, and perhaps I am missing something because apparently this question has not been asked yet. If I'm just missing something, my bad. You point out how we can alter the root and 5th without changing the overall function of the chord, but altering the 3rd and 7th notes will, so we wouldn't normally alter those. However, in the "Rootless Left Hand Voicings" table you have E G A D.... Even when the sheet reads Cmaj7, you play the C69, which has no 7th (so doesn't even have the same guide notes). Will C69 still sound like (or have the same function as) a Cmaj7? Is there a completely different theoretical basis? Personal preference? Thank you!
Thank you for the tutorial.If you have created a full tutorial on two handed chord voicings or comping a soloist as you mentioned, could you please share the link as comment? Thanks in advance
Hi guys, I've been a beginner self taught pianist for two years now, and I'm still trying to get my head around what is Jazz Piano. I've only watched a lot of TH-cam guides. Can you tell me if I'm in the ball park? Jazz piano is: Mostly 2 5 1 chords. Mostly played around C3 octave and up. Makes copius use of 7, 9, 11, 13 degrees. Inversions mean moving the bottom two notes to the top or vice versa. Makes use of 'scale movements' based the bass note of which chord or inversion is being played? Better said: the melody or improv notes are derived from the bass note of the current chord or inversion serving as a sort of temporary scale. Which means a large repertoire of scales and chords are required. Am I right? Is there more? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
For the bit about alterations, why is it that you are able to play a rootless Dm7b9 when the b9 is an unavailable tension over a Dm7 chord? I can see that we are not playing the root, so the flat 9th no longer clashes with it, but doesn’t it imply that the chord isn’t a Dm7 chord (it is some other chord)?
How often do you pay C6/9 instead of Cmaj9 for a major rootless chord? In the video it sounds like you mostly go with the C6/9 but write about "for major or minor use 3 5 7 9" and on your website article about this you write 3 5 7 9 in the type A voicing only
Thanks for this great intro to lefthand chords! A question, if I have for example one bar in a song with a tritonesubstitution. is it more common to play it with a rootless voicing or just as fine to play it as a blockchord with root? in this bar the right hand generally should also play in the key of the tritone substiution, right?
+J. Charles Hey, J Charles. So that's a really good question. I might cover it in a future more advanced video. So you have two questions: 1. It's generally more common to play a tritone substitution with a rootless voicing, and there's a really easy way to do it. Say you have a G7, and you want to tritone substitute in a Db7. Then you simply a G7#9b13 rootless voicing. Rootless voicing: G7#9b13: F A# B Eb Db7: F Bb Cb Eb So Type A G7#9b13 = Type B Db7 and vice versa 2. It's up to you. I generally stay in the same key (i.e. don't change to the tritone substitute key). Say you have a II-V-I in CMaj: Dm7-G7-CMaj7 - You play over this whole progression with the C Major scale. Then if you play: Dm7-Db7-CMaj7 - I would still play over the whole progression using the C Major scale. You can change to Gb Major for the one Db7 chord if you like, but I find this ruins the II-V-I feel of the progression because it sound like you've changed key for a bar rather than just substituted a chord. Hope that helped!
Please bear with me as I'm just a guy with some informal music background who loves trying to understand how all this works...it's an amazing puzzle for me. When you removed the root from the Dm7 and added the 9 so the chord was composed of F A C E, it is called a Dm9 chord. My question is why is this not an Fmaj7? If I were to guess, the reason this would be considered a Dm9 rather than Fmaj7 has to do with what key we are operating within? Is that correct? My follow up question is, if my guess is correct, when in the tutorial was a key established that makes F A C E a Dm9 rather than a Fmaj7? I hope this makes sense and isn't too elementary of a question...
Not sure if this is still a relevant question for you, but usually a bassist will play the root of the chord to stabilize the chords being played. As a comping instrument you usually leave out the bass of the note for this reason, because it can be redundant to play the root if the bassist is already playing it. Additionally, see 10:13 in the video for further explanation. A CM7, C7, and CmM7 all share the root and 5th (The notes C and G, or scale degrees 1 and 5), therefore, it doesn't really add anything to the chord quality. This allows you to omit them without much difference in the sound of the chord being played.
I noticed that the progressions for the 2-5-1 and for "All the Things You Are" are circle of fifths progressions. Can you only use these voicing for circle of fifths progressions?
Hi. You can use these voicings in any chord progression. They just work especially well in a 2-5-1 progression because you only have to move one note to get from the 2 to the 5 - so the voice leading is very smooth. But you can certainly use these voicings in any song.
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but when reading from a lead sheet, when you see a seventh chord, how do you know which tensions you can add without messing up how the melody sounds? I know that all of the tensions are technically available, but I find that adding, for example, a sharp eleventh on a maj7 changes the sound of the melody
So you're right in saying all the available tensions are technically available. The simple answer is that it's really up to you. If you don't like the sound of the #11 over a particular melody line, don't use it. This is partially subjective. The longer answer is that you need to pay attention to the important melody notes that are being played over that chord and make sure the tension you use does not create a dissonant interval against the melody note. You'll find that 95% of the time the most important melody notes (longest, on the beat, loudest) are chord tones or available tensions of the harmony (especially guide tones). So you generally won't have a problem. But say we have the: Chord = C7 Melody note = Ab So the melody is a b13 against the C7. As such, I wouldn't play a C13 chord, because the nat13 would clash with the b13 (obviously, as they are a semitone apart, which is a dissonant interval). But again, this ultimately comes down to personal preference.
Okay! Thanks for the quick reply! So, is the goal essentially to add as many tensions as possible without creating unpleasant dissonance, or getting muddy? I really appreciate these tutorials, and your commitment to passing on your knowledge.
Not quite. Using rootless voicings can give you Maj9, min9 and Dominant13 chords. For a Major9 chord you play the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th. So a rootless CMaj9 would be E, G, B, D (so you don't play the root note C) For a minor9 chord you play the b3rd, 5th, b7th, and 9th. So a rootless Cm9 would be Eb, G, Bb, D (so you don't play the root note C) For a Dominant13 chord you play the 3rd, 7th, 9th, and 13th. So a rootless C7 would be E, A, Bb, D (so you don't play the root note C or the 5th G or the 11th F) Incidentally, you would never play a natural 11 over a dominant 7 chord because it is not an 'available tension'. I've got a separate video on available tensions if you're interested. Does that make sense?
No worries, Zeph. This is how we all learn. By asking. What specifically is confusing you? Do you understand the difference between Major7, minor7 and Dominant7 chords? A Major7 chord has a major 3rd and major 7th. So CMaj7 would be C E G B A minor7 chord has a minor 3rd and minor 7th. So Cm7 would be C Eb G Bb A Dominant7 chord has a major 3rd and minor 7th. So C7 would be C E G Bb Now we can take the CMaj7 and Cm7 chords above and we can extend them by one note by adding a 9th to create a CMaj9 and a Cm9 respectively. This would give us: CMaj9 = C E G B D Cm9 = C Eb G Bb D Now because these are 'rootless' chord voicings, we get rid of the root. So we are left with: CMaj9 = E G B D Cm9 = Eb G Bb D Does that make sense? So we have the full chord and then remove a note. We are allowed to do this because the root isn't a harmonically important note. I have two videos on 'Shell Chords' and 'Guide Tones' which explain why we can do this, but just take my word for it here. Something similar happens with the dominant7 chord but we extend the chord up to it's 13th tension. So we have: G13 = (G) B (D) F A (C) E The notes in the brackets we do not play in this chord voicing.
![Jean-Baptiste Robin - 12 Etudes Op.45 [B Berrut, G Dehaene, R Descharmes, JP Gasparian, .]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RSy3qq5Io3Q/mqdefault.jpg)
![[#2024MAMA] G-DRAGON - 무제(Untitled, 2014)+POWER+HOME SWEET HOME+뱅뱅뱅+FANTASTIC BABY | Mnet 241123 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ox29z5Nf1Uk/mqdefault.jpg)
Bro that C69 sounds amazing
Wow. You are a phenomenal teacher; I am very grateful for your videos!
Thanks, mate :)
Very nice of you to say.
@@WalkThatBass please y have you hidden u r subscribers
Actually the Note on Bottom on the Type B Voicing for the C Maj 7 is the 6th, not the 7th, since it's A and not B. Thanks for the vid, really good content
I was about to ask the same question
Hello teacher!!!! Porque não faz uns tutoriais de standards de jazz???
Sua aula é ótima, parabéns!
Hugs from Brazil.
Awesome straightforward lesson
Thanks again for your generosity sharing your wisdom and love for jazz music.
One doubt. When I study and play rootless voicings, in the case of half dimished chords, I don't discard the root, I remember been told that for dimished chords there are no rootless form, but I see in your great video, that altering the Dm7, you get Dm7b5 as F Ab C E, that would be a rootless Dm9b5. In this case I use Dm7b5 as D F Ab C or any other voicing of the notes. Could you bring me some light on that? thanks in advance.
Carlos
Outstanding video and explanations! Thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into it.
This channel is awesome
Excellent tutorial! Thanks for your help!
No worries. Cheers :)
Thank you. You’ve unlocked some great things for me 🙏🏾🙏🏾
Really great teacher, i learn a lot.
Excellent information...thanks much!
This is incredibly helpful!
I've been looking for something like this. I'm a trumpet player who also likes to play piano. I know all the chord theory, but my chord voicings usually sound too obvious. These are very helpful videos!
Glad to hear it. Enjoy :)
Brilliant- so helpful tx
Amazing video! Appreciate all that you do!
Great lesson!
+elmimba Thanks.
thanks for your content!
can you do a video on right hand triad voicing, like the bill evans style chords?
+David Reynolds No worries. Might take a bit of time as I'm working on a few other lessons at the moment, but I'll see what I can do.
Very good!
Tl;dr: Why the rootless C69 (E G A D) instead of just rootless C9 (E G B D)?
Awesome video!
I've read through the comments, and perhaps I am missing something because apparently this question has not been asked yet. If I'm just missing something, my bad.
You point out how we can alter the root and 5th without changing the overall function of the chord, but altering the 3rd and 7th notes will, so we wouldn't normally alter those. However, in the "Rootless Left Hand Voicings" table you have E G A D.... Even when the sheet reads Cmaj7, you play the C69, which has no 7th (so doesn't even have the same guide notes). Will C69 still sound like (or have the same function as) a Cmaj7? Is there a completely different theoretical basis? Personal preference?
Thank you!
well explained. thx!
Hey man, great lessons.. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Out of curiosity, where are you from?
Can 13 and #5 be the rootless voicing
Great lesson! Exactly what i was looking for :D
Thanks, 28yesman.
Thank you for the tutorial.If you have created a full tutorial on two handed chord voicings or comping a soloist as you mentioned, could you please share the link as comment? Thanks in advance
Yep, no worries.
Voicings playlist: th-cam.com/video/5uoD6LfaDoE/w-d-xo.html
Comping: th-cam.com/video/XOiWWuuNh-4/w-d-xo.html
So the basics are 3.5.7.9 for Major and minor, and 3.7.9.13 for dominant chords?
+elmimba In a nutshell, yes. I just took 16 mins to explain that :|
Hi guys, I've been a beginner self taught pianist for two years now, and I'm still trying to get my head around what is Jazz Piano. I've only watched a lot of TH-cam guides. Can you tell me if I'm in the ball park?
Jazz piano is: Mostly 2 5 1 chords.
Mostly played around C3 octave and up.
Makes copius use of 7, 9, 11, 13 degrees.
Inversions mean moving the bottom two notes to the top or vice versa.
Makes use of 'scale movements' based the bass note of which chord or inversion is being played?
Better said: the melody or improv notes are derived from the bass note of the current chord or inversion serving as a sort of temporary scale. Which means a large repertoire of scales and chords are required.
Am I right? Is there more?
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
To play the type 'B' voicing, wouldn't it be more practical to play your melody up 1 octave to avoid the muddiness or transpose it a 4th or 5th?
Buenisimo !!! gracias
For the bit about alterations, why is it that you are able to play a rootless Dm7b9 when the b9 is an unavailable tension over a Dm7 chord? I can see that we are not playing the root, so the flat 9th no longer clashes with it, but doesn’t it imply that the chord isn’t a Dm7 chord (it is some other chord)?
The bass player would be playing the root
@@ryanfoley_ yeah but then the b9 clashes with the root. It is an unavailable tension over a m7 chord.
How often do you pay C6/9 instead of Cmaj9 for a major rootless chord? In the video it sounds like you mostly go with the C6/9 but write about "for major or minor use 3 5 7 9" and on your website article about this you write 3 5 7 9 in the type A voicing only
Thanks for this great intro to lefthand chords!
A question, if I have for example one bar in a song with a tritonesubstitution. is it more common to play it with a rootless voicing or just as fine to play it as a blockchord with root? in this bar the right hand generally should also play in the key of the tritone substiution, right?
+J. Charles Hey, J Charles.
So that's a really good question. I might cover it in a future more advanced video. So you have two questions:
1. It's generally more common to play a tritone substitution with a rootless voicing, and there's a really easy way to do it. Say you have a G7, and you want to tritone substitute in a Db7. Then you simply a G7#9b13 rootless voicing.
Rootless voicing:
G7#9b13: F A# B Eb
Db7: F Bb Cb Eb
So Type A G7#9b13 = Type B Db7 and vice versa
2. It's up to you. I generally stay in the same key (i.e. don't change to the tritone substitute key).
Say you have a II-V-I in CMaj:
Dm7-G7-CMaj7 - You play over this whole progression with the C Major scale.
Then if you play:
Dm7-Db7-CMaj7 - I would still play over the whole progression using the C Major scale. You can change to Gb Major for the one Db7 chord if you like, but I find this ruins the II-V-I feel of the progression because it sound like you've changed key for a bar rather than just substituted a chord.
Hope that helped!
+Walk That Bass Thanks for taking the time and answer this question!! Helps me a lot!
Please bear with me as I'm just a guy with some informal music background who loves trying to understand how all this works...it's an amazing puzzle for me. When you removed the root from the Dm7 and added the 9 so the chord was composed of F A C E, it is called a Dm9 chord. My question is why is this not an Fmaj7?
If I were to guess, the reason this would be considered a Dm9 rather than Fmaj7 has to do with what key we are operating within? Is that correct?
My follow up question is, if my guess is correct, when in the tutorial was a key established that makes F A C E a Dm9 rather than a Fmaj7?
I hope this makes sense and isn't too elementary of a question...
Not sure if this is still a relevant question for you, but usually a bassist will play the root of the chord to stabilize the chords being played. As a comping instrument you usually leave out the bass of the note for this reason, because it can be redundant to play the root if the bassist is already playing it.
Additionally, see 10:13 in the video for further explanation. A CM7, C7, and CmM7 all share the root and 5th (The notes C and G, or scale degrees 1 and 5), therefore, it doesn't really add anything to the chord quality. This allows you to omit them without much difference in the sound of the chord being played.
I noticed that the progressions for the 2-5-1 and for "All the Things You Are" are circle of fifths progressions. Can you only use these voicing for circle of fifths progressions?
Hi. You can use these voicings in any chord progression. They just work especially well in a 2-5-1 progression because you only have to move one note to get from the 2 to the 5 - so the voice leading is very smooth. But you can certainly use these voicings in any song.
7:13 I think on the bass we have 7, 3, 13 (6) instead of 7,3,7...
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but when reading from a lead sheet, when you see a seventh chord, how do you know which tensions you can add without messing up how the melody sounds? I know that all of the tensions are technically available, but I find that adding, for example, a sharp eleventh on a maj7 changes the sound of the melody
So you're right in saying all the available tensions are technically available. The simple answer is that it's really up to you. If you don't like the sound of the #11 over a particular melody line, don't use it. This is partially subjective.
The longer answer is that you need to pay attention to the important melody notes that are being played over that chord and make sure the tension you use does not create a dissonant interval against the melody note.
You'll find that 95% of the time the most important melody notes (longest, on the beat, loudest) are chord tones or available tensions of the harmony (especially guide tones). So you generally won't have a problem. But say we have the:
Chord = C7
Melody note = Ab
So the melody is a b13 against the C7. As such, I wouldn't play a C13 chord, because the nat13 would clash with the b13 (obviously, as they are a semitone apart, which is a dissonant interval).
But again, this ultimately comes down to personal preference.
Okay! Thanks for the quick reply! So, is the goal essentially to add as many tensions as possible without creating unpleasant dissonance, or getting muddy? I really appreciate these tutorials, and your commitment to passing on your knowledge.
When u say Dominant chords, are u speaking of the 5th scale degree, or speaking about a chord with the 7th included???? Please explain. Thanx
Hi Zeph. When I refer to dominant chords I'm talking about the full 7th Chord.
So like a G7 (G B D F).
Now go and memorize all 72 of them (6 in each key)
so all left hand chords can be considered dominant chords??? but I can also add the 9,11, and 13???
Not quite.
Using rootless voicings can give you Maj9, min9 and Dominant13 chords.
For a Major9 chord you play the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th. So a rootless CMaj9 would be E, G, B, D (so you don't play the root note C)
For a minor9 chord you play the b3rd, 5th, b7th, and 9th. So a rootless Cm9 would be Eb, G, Bb, D (so you don't play the root note C)
For a Dominant13 chord you play the 3rd, 7th, 9th, and 13th. So a rootless C7 would be E, A, Bb, D (so you don't play the root note C or the 5th G or the 11th F)
Incidentally, you would never play a natural 11 over a dominant 7 chord because it is not an 'available tension'. I've got a separate video on available tensions if you're interested.
Does that make sense?
What are guide tones?
3rd and 7th of a chord.
Not really making sense, I'm sorry on be a bother to you. It's just confusing to me!!!
No worries, Zeph. This is how we all learn. By asking. What specifically is confusing you?
Do you understand the difference between Major7, minor7 and Dominant7 chords?
A Major7 chord has a major 3rd and major 7th. So CMaj7 would be C E G B
A minor7 chord has a minor 3rd and minor 7th. So Cm7 would be C Eb G Bb
A Dominant7 chord has a major 3rd and minor 7th. So C7 would be C E G Bb
Now we can take the CMaj7 and Cm7 chords above and we can extend them by one note by adding a 9th to create a CMaj9 and a Cm9 respectively. This would give us:
CMaj9 = C E G B D
Cm9 = C Eb G Bb D
Now because these are 'rootless' chord voicings, we get rid of the root. So we are left with:
CMaj9 = E G B D
Cm9 = Eb G Bb D
Does that make sense? So we have the full chord and then remove a note. We are allowed to do this because the root isn't a harmonically important note. I have two videos on 'Shell Chords' and 'Guide Tones' which explain why we can do this, but just take my word for it here.
Something similar happens with the dominant7 chord but we extend the chord up to it's 13th tension. So we have:
G13 = (G) B (D) F A (C) E
The notes in the brackets we do not play in this chord voicing.
wow, I sure don't like your piano sound.