I have just taken up the piano after 30 years of playing guitar. I love your teaching style. It would be awesome if you showed us the 5 chords you play in the opening. What a beautiful and smooth sound.
1:54 Your first point relates really to one instrument's *part* in a combo -- the chord still has its root thanks to the bass line. 6:17 I indeed prefer the second version, but that was because of the ninth-chords. But not a single chord you played was really a rootless chord. It is possible to have chords which are rootless in the sense of having the function of a chord whose root isn't sounded. For example in the context of d minor,
i think the coolest parts about rootless voicings are: (1) your hands basically "shift", so the left now plays chords & the right is now free to do whatever it wants like, further extensions, doubles, play a solo, etc. & (2) it opens the door to playing "extended arpeggios", which are basically arpeggios that start off notes other than the root. So over a "rootless CMaj9" chord, the arpeggio could be that of an [em7] chord (E-G-B-D, starting off the 3rd of the CMaj9. to further this concept, you can apply "parallel" scales, such as the [em blues], [em dorian], etc. so no matter what scale or arpeggio you play in the upper chord/solo instrument, the overall chord will still be "rooted" by the bassist. there are also tunes that play true rootless, which gives a very ambiguous & "up in the air" sound.
Cruella Deville arranged by Johnny May for piano uses rootless voicings. It essentially switches between C7 and F7 in the beginning. They are voiced like this: (E, A, Bb, D)→(Eb, G, A, C). Like piano pig said, these voicings include the thirds and sevenths. And I think because the sevenths are nondiatonic, but also standard to include in blues progressions, they really help imply the chords' roots. In other words, hearing Bb in the bass in this song tells me this is a C7 bc it's unlikely it's anything else (except maybe a Bb or Eb, but the tritone of Bb, E, Is in the chord, so they're still unlikely) Thanks for coming to my TED talk
Great video :) I have seen many of your videos and I'm now a subscriber. I've been playing (around with) piano for about 30 years. Never received any lessons, and never learned techniques, so I'm not very skilled. But your videos and way of showing it has made me sit down with my keyboard and practice progressions and finger placement almost daily :) So thank you for that. In the end you play normal progression followed by rootless. You ask which is nicer. I actually think that the two sets work very nice together. But agreed, rootless have a smoother feeling to it.
What a lovely comment! I'm so glad my videos have motivated you to get stuck in with the piano, that's the aim of the game :) And yes I agree, I combination of the two (with & without roots) tends to work the best!
The following is a simple yet a little .complicated walkup In the overall chromatic bass line..then I switch to slash chords. In my.lifetime.Ive done this progression thousands of times but never wrote it out in such detail...Kinda of a Andre Crouch move. LH Will play F G Ab A Bb B C C# D.. In the bass two octaves down... Now some of this or.all of this can be rootless . .The chords will be AC F. Bb D F nest chord is called.a G7b9..it is (Ab B D F)..Play the .ACF again play the G7b9 again then the A C F. again am doing this with no piano.. so this will have C in the base here..I think. notice the A C F is just a 1st inversion F... or In slash chords. ACF/C. Next the left hand base keeps.coming up chromatically. I think I play a (C# Dim7) here with the afore mentioned. C# base..btw this can be done very fast or extremely slow. and can be repeated a few notes back.and forth. Any ways in slash chords you are on. C# dim/C# . or better called A7b9/ C#. Now here are some choices you have. The Cycle or 4ths or 5ths says you.can go to D or.Dmin etc.from a. A..so play the base A as mentioned in the the first paragraph.. So Go to D7 or Dmin.7..lets stick with Dmin 7. At thine you land on D.base play the A C F again. It is rootless Dmin 7...or you could go to D.base and play dominant D7....I. usually just play. an inversion of D7. ACD F#/D..Then an option would be play a Gmin7...
we could play the first chord sequence without the root oh, then play the sequence again with the root changing the section from a 4 chord progression to 8 chord progression which adds a sense of building to the song. just a thought.
Hey Simon, I think I understand the concept but I can never tell if a progression I am trying to play...is using rootless voicings...if that makes sense? Like how are you supposed to know? Do you have to look at the other instruments like the bass? What if the root note of the bass guitar is playing the lowest note of the piano's ROOTLESS voicing....does it then just become which ever chord the bass is hitting?
the notes of a chord, such as a type of 7th, contain the notes of a "relative" chord, for example: [dm7] is D-F-A-C, but if the root is omitted, you have an [FMaj] triad. so to your question if the bass guitar plays the lowest note of the piano's rootless voicing, the harmony would then become [FMaj]. even if the chord player used the note "D" in their voicing, it would still be some type of F chord, like an FMaj6 or add13 (F in the bass, A-C-E-D in the upper voices) the bass determines the chord overall. so whatever the chord player think he or she is playing, the bassist is ultimately having the final say in what the chord really is. (ie; the chord player is jamming away thinking of an FMaj7 chord, but if the bassist says "i'm gonna play the note D" underneath all that, the chord becomes a dm9 chord.
Ok so after watching the “sexiest minor chord voicing” video, i was confused how you could call the chords the way you did. After watching this I now understand the reasoning for rootless voicing. Still strange to me to name a chord based on a root note thats not in the chord. I suppose if your playing with a bass player it makes sense, but on its own i’d still call it by another name. Also i’m curious, are bass notes on piano not included in the term “voicing”? I would assume that bass notes on the piano in a chord are just a wider voicing, no? I’m not a piano player, so i honestly don’t know. Anyway great content, you earned a sub!
hi great tutorial' but i have a few questions - what scale is this? iv'e watched your jazz scale tutorial - and that's what i do not get: when you play a chorde progression, do they all share a regular scale? (like C maj, F# min...) or they are all based on these jazz scales? (like the lydian scale for example) - are the jazz scales ment for a whole chorde progression / melody to be based on? on you use each one for every specific chorde?
It sounds like you are referring to the modes. Modes are sometimes used to write entire songs but more commonly, it's just a major or minor scale which the chord progressions are built from and the modes can be used to 'improvise' over the top of the chords.
I have a similar question regarding chords and scales- I have noticed each chord in the progression fits into the Dminor scale apart from the A7 which includes a Dflat- what factors lead to choosing to incorporate this chord into the progression and break out of D minor? (if that is what is even happening at all) And is it a jump into D major? Thanks for your super helpful videos by the way it's appreciated :)
Trey B I’m still learning myself but I believe it’s in D minor. The Dm is a I9, Bbmaj7 the VI7, the Fmaj9 is a III9, and the A7b9 the V. My notation isn’t probably correct, but hopefully you get the gist.
i was messing around with a major 2-5-1 and tried playing the iii(em7) instead of the ii(dm7) i noticed when i tried to make it a rootless voicing that i couldnt. because of the f sharp in the eminor scale wouldnt work with the c major scale. and when i tried to flat the f sharp it sounded like a dominant chord which its not suppose to. please help.
@@fartenthusiast-zl2qv old comment, but hopefully someone sees this & it helps them. rootless chords often do have 4x notes, but they don't have to be "in order" according to the scale. you can throw in a 13 & forget the 11. you can also throw in "available" tensions such as b9, #9, #11, b13, etc. Pretty much any note works, as long as they don't clash against the guide-tone 3rd or 7ths.
What if there’s no root in the bass? I tried rootless voicings with my left hand while soloing with my right hand, but it doesn’t sound right because there’s no root in the bass
Hello, Id like to ask what ,made ypu decide to use A7b9 chord instead of A9, is there an appropriate situation in which you can utilize 7b9 chords? Thanks for the great videos Simon 😊
Hello, I was just replying to your other comment and it disappeared haha! The answer to the other comment was: Yes, exactly that! A major 7 chord has a natural 7th, and a minor 7 has a flattened 7th. The reason for this is that the major 7 is built from the major scale (which has a natural 7). And a minor 7 is built from the natural minor scale (which has a flattened 7th).
Maybe my musical ears are undeveloped, but I thought they sounded almost the same, except that the second sounded what I would describe as tighter and cleaner. I use words like that because I'm an audio engineer/producer so I have good ears when it comes to certain aspects of sound, but some jazz where the player just mashes half the piano keys to form some crazy chord, then pianopug suggests swapping one of the notes for 'effect'. I ain't gonna hear that change!
Haha this comment made me laugh! Just keep listening to jazz and maybe spend some more time focusing on the harmonic side of things rather than just the production side of it? Just a suggestion but I hope you have fun developing your ears 😀
PianoPig Hey man, I am loving your videos! I'm moving house next week and will be setting up a mini setup away from my main studio so I can mess around and practice my piano. I miss it! I've had it in storage for almost a year. I'll be working my way through your entire catalogue. Seriously, best piano videos in the internet. So many are pointless waffle or metaphors or too slow.. you say what it does, how to do it and why and give examples of where it can be used. Perfection! I'm in Brighton, where abouts are you Mr Pig?
PianoPig PianoPig I have all my exams up to Grade 6, I'm looking to brush up this year and get the last few certificates. I've been playing a long time, but I only wanted to get really serious recently and now I work for myself and I have the time to practice. My ears aren't too bad, I can tell you what chords are and I can play melodies back Ive heard on TV/radio after a few seconds finding the root.
That's sounds perfect! Having a separate place just for your practice time is ideal. It's good to know you find the channel useful man! Brighton is a lovely place! I live in Fareham, down south near Portsmouth! But I'm moving to Spain for 4 months in about 6 weeks :)
you are the FIRST teacher to show me this technique! And I have been taking lessons both on line and in person for over two years! THANK YOU!!!
You're welcome, glad to be able to help 🙂
I have just taken up the piano after 30 years of playing guitar. I love your teaching style. It would be awesome if you showed us the 5 chords you play in the opening. What a beautiful and smooth sound.
This has been highly requested! I will definitely be making a video explaining and teaching the intro chords in the future :)
1:54 Your first point relates really to one instrument's *part* in a combo -- the chord still has its root thanks to the bass line.
6:17 I indeed prefer the second version, but that was because of the ninth-chords. But not a single chord you played was really a rootless chord. It is possible to have chords which are rootless in the sense of having the function of a chord whose root isn't sounded. For example in the context of d minor,
i think the coolest parts about rootless voicings are:
(1) your hands basically "shift", so the left now plays chords & the right is now free to do whatever it wants like, further extensions, doubles, play a solo, etc. &
(2) it opens the door to playing "extended arpeggios", which are basically arpeggios that start off notes other than the root. So over a "rootless CMaj9" chord, the arpeggio could be that of an [em7] chord (E-G-B-D, starting off the 3rd of the CMaj9. to further this concept, you can apply "parallel" scales, such as the [em blues], [em dorian], etc.
so no matter what scale or arpeggio you play in the upper chord/solo instrument, the overall chord will still be "rooted" by the bassist.
there are also tunes that play true rootless, which gives a very ambiguous & "up in the air" sound.
Did anyone see the little piggy move? @0:05 😂
Love the way it sound it gave more color to the sounds. Thank You great video.
Glad you enjoyed it :)
Cruella Deville arranged by Johnny May for piano uses rootless voicings. It essentially switches between C7 and F7 in the beginning. They are voiced like this: (E, A, Bb, D)→(Eb, G, A, C).
Like piano pig said, these voicings include the thirds and sevenths. And I think because the sevenths are nondiatonic, but also standard to include in blues progressions, they really help imply the chords' roots. In other words, hearing Bb in the bass in this song tells me this is a C7 bc it's unlikely it's anything else (except maybe a Bb or Eb, but the tritone of Bb, E, Is in the chord, so they're still unlikely)
Thanks for coming to my TED talk
Thank you sir, for clarity! God bless you!
Nice, i would alternate between them to keep it interesting.
Great video :) I have seen many of your videos and I'm now a subscriber. I've been playing (around with) piano for about 30 years. Never received any lessons, and never learned techniques, so I'm not very skilled. But your videos and way of showing it has made me sit down with my keyboard and practice progressions and finger placement almost daily :) So thank you for that. In the end you play normal progression followed by rootless. You ask which is nicer. I actually think that the two sets work very nice together. But agreed, rootless have a smoother feeling to it.
What a lovely comment! I'm so glad my videos have motivated you to get stuck in with the piano, that's the aim of the game :) And yes I agree, I combination of the two (with & without roots) tends to work the best!
Hey, could you do a video on Gospel related stuff? It could be a really useful addition to your jazz and blues related stuff that you teach.
I've actually had a few people ask me to some videos on Gospel stuff, it's on my to-do list :)
The following is a simple yet a little .complicated walkup In the overall chromatic bass line..then I switch to slash chords. In my.lifetime.Ive done this progression thousands of times but never wrote it out in such detail...Kinda of a Andre Crouch move. LH Will play F G Ab A Bb B C C# D.. In the bass two octaves down...
Now some of this or.all of this can be rootless . .The chords will be AC F. Bb D F nest chord is called.a G7b9..it is (Ab B D F)..Play the .ACF again play the G7b9 again
then the A C F. again am doing this with no piano.. so this will have C in the base here..I think.
notice the A C F is just a 1st inversion F... or In slash chords.
ACF/C. Next the left hand base keeps.coming up chromatically.
I think I play a (C# Dim7) here with the afore mentioned. C# base..btw this can be done very fast or extremely slow. and can be repeated a few notes back.and forth. Any ways in slash chords you are on. C# dim/C# . or better called A7b9/ C#. Now here are some choices you have. The Cycle or 4ths or 5ths says you.can go to D or.Dmin etc.from a. A..so play the base A as mentioned in the the first paragraph.. So Go to D7 or Dmin.7..lets stick with Dmin 7. At thine you land on D.base play the A C F again. It is rootless Dmin 7...or you could go to D.base and play dominant D7....I. usually just play. an inversion of D7. ACD F#/D..Then an option would be play a
Gmin7...
Do you have rootless voicing in left hand and licks in the right hand in all 12 keys exercise?
Yes! I am for that.
very good explanation the way you do ... I do this every day with my students specialy thos who playing in band and I see very good results.
Thank you, very enjoyable and well explained lesson!
Love the way he explains it.
Nice video, I was confused as a guitar player learning Ableton why the roots were gone. Being careful with velocities is tricky too. Good stuff.
In many of these examples, you're keeping the root in the left hand? 4:48, 4:57 for example. So is that still technically rootless?
Good stuff man 👍I play electric bass, but I still watch ur videos cuz they're well done I always learn something, cheers mate
ohh my god this guys such a sweetheart, bless ur soul
many thanks.................... so simple & clear!
Good job of teaching.thank you
The best youtube video yet on this topic!
I'm glad you think so :)
The rootless, second version you played sounds lighter and clearer, to me :)
Awesome! Rootless voicings are great :)
I don't know what is rootless voicing. Thank you
The way you teach is excellent
Great explanation!
Pig on the shelf at 0:05 👀
That's a very good explanation... Thanks
I tried my hand at rootless voicings for a while, and they sounded excellent!
Good job! Yes, they always produce such a great sound :)
Thanks 🙏
I prefer the second one
Nice one sir
Love your Tutorials 👌🔥💯💪
you are A good teacher
Nicely explained. Thank you.
My pleasure Brian, glad you enjoyed the video :)
Excelent tutorial!
Thanks!
Fmaj9 rootless voicing is written in the bass clef. You might want to check it out
Thanks from México city fantastic
Great Video. Thanks for posting it. Cheers.
No worries, John! Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
I love searching for "the licc" in tutorials from jazz musicians
Amazing
I just realized that the right hand for the Cm9 chord in your intro is a rootless voicing without the bass!
Pianopig made me understand why music theory is so important
we could play the first chord sequence without the root oh, then play the sequence again with the root changing the section from a 4 chord progression to 8 chord progression which adds a sense of building to the song. just a thought.
thank you
My pleasure bro
Great!
Great video.
And in this lesson I want to talk about..... (the pig in the left teletransports).... "rootless voicings". That´s the magic of music!
Haha I thought I was imagining the moving pigs.. I subbed after your video on the Pianotv Convention
nice video
First. My reward, a free piano lesson.
Thank you, Simon... beautiful sonority, is this voicing which Bill Evans often used to play?
Ohhh yes, Bill Evans was a master of rootless voicings! :)
I LOVE YOU
Does it mean that, I can either play the root note with the left hand, or I just play the rootless chord with the left hand?
excellent!!!
Glad you enjoyed it :)
Hi Simon
Thanks 🎹 🐷
Hey Simon, I think I understand the concept but I can never tell if a progression I am trying to play...is using rootless voicings...if that makes sense?
Like how are you supposed to know?
Do you have to look at the other instruments like the bass?
What if the root note of the bass guitar is playing the lowest note of the piano's ROOTLESS voicing....does it then just become which ever chord the bass is hitting?
the notes of a chord, such as a type of 7th, contain the notes of a "relative" chord, for example: [dm7] is D-F-A-C, but if the root is omitted, you have an [FMaj] triad. so to your question if the bass guitar plays the lowest note of the piano's rootless voicing, the harmony would then become [FMaj]. even if the chord player used the note "D" in their voicing, it would still be some type of F chord, like an FMaj6 or add13 (F in the bass, A-C-E-D in the upper voices)
the bass determines the chord overall. so whatever the chord player think he or she is playing, the bassist is ultimately having the final say in what the chord really is. (ie; the chord player is jamming away thinking of an FMaj7 chord, but if the bassist says "i'm gonna play the note D" underneath all that, the chord becomes a dm9 chord.
What if they are just triads?
Ok so after watching the “sexiest minor chord voicing” video, i was confused how you could call the chords the way you did. After watching this I now understand the reasoning for rootless voicing. Still strange to me to name a chord based on a root note thats not in the chord. I suppose if your playing with a bass player it makes sense, but on its own i’d still call it by another name. Also i’m curious, are bass notes on piano not included in the term “voicing”? I would assume that bass notes on the piano in a chord are just a wider voicing, no? I’m not a piano player, so i honestly don’t know. Anyway great content, you earned a sub!
Yes, I did prefer the after version.
Can we get a tutorial on how to play the intro music?
Already done! th-cam.com/video/x8J9CzSXrUE/w-d-xo.html
0:48
*PANIC*
Every da-
Did anyone else notice the pig on the keys at 0:12 for a few seconds?
hi great tutorial' but i have a few questions - what scale is this?
iv'e watched your jazz scale tutorial - and that's what i do not get:
when you play a chorde progression, do they all share a regular scale? (like C maj, F# min...) or they are all based on these jazz scales? (like the lydian scale for example) - are the jazz scales ment for a whole chorde progression / melody to be based on? on you use each one for every specific chorde?
It sounds like you are referring to the modes. Modes are sometimes used to write entire songs but more commonly, it's just a major or minor scale which the chord progressions are built from and the modes can be used to 'improvise' over the top of the chords.
I have a similar question regarding chords and scales- I have noticed each chord in the progression fits into the Dminor scale apart from the A7 which includes a Dflat- what factors lead to choosing to incorporate this chord into the progression and break out of D minor? (if that is what is even happening at all) And is it a jump into D major? Thanks for your super helpful videos by the way it's appreciated :)
Ok I have just seen you already answered this question below, so never mind!!
What key did you build the progression in?
Trey B I’m still learning myself but I believe it’s in D minor. The Dm is a I9, Bbmaj7 the VI7, the Fmaj9 is a III9, and the A7b9 the V. My notation isn’t probably correct, but hopefully you get the gist.
Gotcha thank you!
Woah
i was messing around with a major 2-5-1 and tried playing the iii(em7) instead of the ii(dm7) i noticed when i tried to make it a rootless voicing that i couldnt. because of the f sharp in the eminor scale wouldnt work with the c major scale. and when i tried to flat the f sharp it sounded like a dominant chord which its not suppose to. please help.
I'd just leave the 9th out of the iii chord so it doesn't clash with the key
@@Piano_Pig ok thanks i thought rootless voicing had to have 4 notes atleast but that makes sense thank you.
@@fartenthusiast-zl2qv old comment, but hopefully someone sees this & it helps them. rootless chords often do have 4x notes, but they don't have to be "in order" according to the scale. you can throw in a 13 & forget the 11. you can also throw in "available" tensions such as b9, #9, #11, b13, etc. Pretty much any note works, as long as they don't clash against the guide-tone 3rd or 7ths.
What if there’s no root in the bass? I tried rootless voicings with my left hand while soloing with my right hand, but it doesn’t sound right because there’s no root in the bass
I think that the point is to use them when you have a bass note, otherwise they will become other chords.
Hello, Id like to ask what ,made ypu decide to use A7b9 chord instead of A9, is there an appropriate situation in which you can utilize 7b9 chords? Thanks for the great videos Simon 😊
Hello, I was just replying to your other comment and it disappeared haha! The answer to the other comment was: Yes, exactly that! A major 7 chord has a natural 7th, and a minor 7 has a flattened 7th. The reason for this is that the major 7 is built from the major scale (which has a natural 7). And a minor 7 is built from the natural minor scale (which has a flattened 7th).
As for this comment, A7(b9) chords are awesome when the chord is acting as a dominant 7, resolving back to the 1 chord as was the case with this A7 :)
And another one, what rootless voicing did you use at the end of the video?
I see now, thanks for giving me an idea about 7b9 chords 😁
No worries! And the one at the end is was a minor 6/9. It's called a 6/9 because it doesn't have the 7th, such a lovely voicing :)
Maybe my musical ears are undeveloped, but I thought they sounded almost the same, except that the second sounded what I would describe as tighter and cleaner. I use words like that because I'm an audio engineer/producer so I have good ears when it comes to certain aspects of sound, but some jazz where the player just mashes half the piano keys to form some crazy chord, then pianopug suggests swapping one of the notes for 'effect'. I ain't gonna hear that change!
Haha this comment made me laugh! Just keep listening to jazz and maybe spend some more time focusing on the harmonic side of things rather than just the production side of it? Just a suggestion but I hope you have fun developing your ears 😀
PianoPig Hey man, I am loving your videos!
I'm moving house next week and will be setting up a mini setup away from my main studio so I can mess around and practice my piano. I miss it! I've had it in storage for almost a year. I'll be working my way through your entire catalogue. Seriously, best piano videos in the internet.
So many are pointless waffle or metaphors or too slow.. you say what it does, how to do it and why and give examples of where it can be used. Perfection!
I'm in Brighton, where abouts are you Mr Pig?
PianoPig PianoPig I have all my exams up to Grade 6, I'm looking to brush up this year and get the last few certificates. I've been playing a long time, but I only wanted to get really serious recently and now I work for myself and I have the time to practice.
My ears aren't too bad, I can tell you what chords are and I can play melodies back Ive heard on TV/radio after a few seconds finding the root.
That's sounds perfect! Having a separate place just for your practice time is ideal. It's good to know you find the channel useful man!
Brighton is a lovely place! I live in Fareham, down south near Portsmouth! But I'm moving to Spain for 4 months in about 6 weeks :)
A pig appear on your tv at the beggining of the video! I saw it!!!!
Oh yeah! How did he get there?!
Less is more
In fact no difference between after and before