You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Voicings That We Love

Episode Date: October 8, 2021

With such a plethora to choose from, how do you know what voicings to use? Peter and Adam list some of their favorites.* Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipe at https://link.youllhearit.com/speakpipe* Support the pod by spreading the word with the link openstudiojazz.link/yhi* Learn more about Open Studio Pro: openstudiojazz.com/proInterested in more music advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase. And be sure to check out our All Access Pass - every course from Open Studio on every instrument.Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey, Adam. Yeah. How many takes of this? What are we going to do? We're going to do at least seven, buddy. Just buckle up. Buckle up. All right.

I'm Adamannis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast. Music, advice, and inspiration. Coming at you. Coming at you today. Sponsored by Open Studio. Got Open StudioJazz.com.

Can we talk about something, Adam? Okay. Why? Well, I'll cop to the last one. Why is this take number four? Or is it take number five of this episode? Because we rarely do more than one take. You know what happened?

We started a little later today. We did. You know what I mean? Like later in the week and later in the day. I honestly think there's something to that. There's like a biological rhythm that we get into. We've done this, I don't know. I don't know.

How many hundreds of recording sessions have we done for the You'll Hear Podcast? I mean, eight or nine hundred or seven? I mean, I liked them best when we were doing them in the morning and now we're doing them in the afternoon. Today, we started particularly late. We started on a Tuesday instead of a Monday. I feel all thrown off. We didn't do coffee. There's no coffee.

There's no, we messed up. Dude. And we're on a tight time crunch. The whole thing feels a little off. So we apologize. guys, dear listener, please don't let us affect your... We just lost all our listeners.

They're like, I'm not gonna stay for this. It's gonna be horrible. I mean, I'll accept six. Now we gotta bring it. Six and a half stars. Today, we might dip down to six and a half stars. Although, we are talking about seven voicings we love. Is this something that would interest you?

Would that be something you might be interested? Now, and if I know Peter, if I know our listeners and I don't want to. But if I do, I know that Poodles. Poodles is here. I know that they're such huge nerds. They're ridiculous voices. So they're going to love this episode. I do.

I do like that a lot. A little spread voicing for you? We got seven of those. Each one better than last. Well, shall we? Let's get right into it. Our first voicing that we love is Oh, what is that?

So this is A, G. This is left hand. Route 7th. This is an A13 flat 9. C sharp, F sharp, B flat. Simple little voicing, right?

A13 flat 9. Oh, it's beautiful. Because just, you know, you got your A13, you got your weed on the bottom, and then you got your just one alteration. Yeah. That's all you need, flat 9. Oh, it's great, too. And so you get a great F-sharp triad.

I was going to say, that's kind of like the star of the show on this voicing is the F-sharp triad. I do like that. Yeah. That's something that would interest you? It is. Oh, man, is that ever? You know what this reminds me of? Resolved many different places nicely.

If that's so good with the seventh in there. Because it's got tension, but it's pretty. Pretty, too. Like, it wants to resolve, but it's not one of those, like... Yeah. It's not too crunchy. Yeah. We'll have the crunch. We're going to bring the crunch, but this one is nice and clear. This is like, this is like Captain Crunch. This is like Lieutenant Crunk. Oh, wait, though. It's Lieutenant Above the Captain. You know what reminds me of you are the sunshine of my life? Yeah. Six. That one. That one. The A flat. Yeah, yeah. Similar thing, but there's no G flat in it.

Oh. So it's without, yeah. It's just that F-3. It's Sons 7. So that's our number one. A little... A13, flat 9, A, G in the left hand, C sharp, F sharp, and B flat. Yeah. And that's, look, on all these piano players, what's wrong with the little chromatic? Can we learn about all keys? Just slap, slap your hands at it. Just slap with the hands.

It's a little crunchy when you get down there. Cool. It's pretty crunch. All right, what's number two? Number two is the spread tenth. Now, this is a voicing, oh, who did I rip this off from? Oh, that's right, you. I rip this off from you.

I love this one. I was about to say, I don't know this one. No, you know this one. So this is a little minor A little minor 9 voicing Here in my left hand I have a spread 10th Actually, sorry, a spread 9 So why'd you call it the spread 10th?

Well, because it's got this crunchy thing right up the 10th So my left hand is F, C, and G And my right hand is A flat, E flat, and A flat Right, and you're doubling, but it works Like normally we are anti-dubling Normally we are, but we like singles We don't like doubles If there's a better way

date, single date. Double tennis, single tennis. We're very particular about this. If there's a better way to start all the things you are than this, I'd like to know about it. I've heard other players do this since I copped it from you. I love this voicing. Just because of that cluster,

and the thumbs are doing this cluster, which is so great. Yeah, and I think two, one. I was trying with the fifth. It is better with the seven. But, you know, one thing with this, too, a kind of variation on this. Wait, are we going? Did you go, I'm sorry, spell it again the way you're playing it?

F, C, G. Oh, you did do it with the fifth. Yeah, and you know what? This is, oh, this isn't the spread tenth. Sorry, this is the wide cluster. Very similar, actually, but this is called the wide cluster. Oh, okay. I was going to say, wait, spread tent, no, the wide cluster.

Why close, because it's wide, right? Right. F, C, T, A, yeah. Okay, hopefully you guys can get totally confused by that. The wide cluster. All the way, I should just say, we're just making this stuff up. We're not big on titles, right? Yeah, we just literally just made this up for this,

but this voicing we use all the time. Yeah, a nice variation on this. If I could do it, be... Yeah, absolutely. Going up to the 11th and the 9. What's cool about that is you have 159, 159. Exactly, two shapes separated by minor second. And its cousin, separated by a major second.

Yep, that's great. All fits. Whoa. A little classy cow. Classic hell. So good. Nice. Cool.

That was number two. Here's number three of our seven voicings that we love. At least one of us loves. That's great. Yeah, yeah. There's actually several voices I love,

but I'm particularly to this first one that repeats again. This is really simple stuff, and it's almost the same as the first one we did. Yeah, what is it? The flat-eyed. This is just 13 with the ninth on top. So we got G, F, B,

G and F in the left-hand. Yeah. B, third, E, 13th, and 9, not flat, 9 or sharp. So, but what made this is where you go from here. Exactly. And, I mean, can we overstate this enough? Because we haven't stated it yet today. Voicing's, good voicing, great voicings,

are all about where they're coming from and where they're going. Well, you can't overstate it if you've not said it here. Can I understate it? So where's it going? It's going to C major, of course. But look at that. You're going from two perfect force, the right hand to that second aversion triad.

So D, G, and B. Exactly. And what's in the left hand? Route 5-3, baby. Oh, that's so nice. And that's great because... Right. And you don't really have to play the fath, but you can.

Little Ellis Marcellus. Oops. And that's up a... Yeah, so this is the same voice in here, up a minor third. M. That's so nice. And then this is another nice one.

I mean, that's a great example of a... Two very basic voices. Like, there's nothing like, uh, it's a Jacob Collier style, whatever. Double demonic diminished, dude. But it's so sophisticated. It's so sophisticated.

It sounds so good. You know, it's so much fun to play. It's like just some beautiful, fresh pick, farm to table, brazed vegetables clearly presented in the middle of the plate. Wow, you had that in the chamber. You had that ready to go. With a ham hot.

That's right. Oh, wow. Okay, so next up for me, I've been hearing a lot of people play this voicing. So I actually saw a couple of pianists in a row. I was watching a video of Bill Charlap. He played a voicing similar to this. Bill Charlott, man, Bill Charlap, what a pianist.

Like a pianist's pianist. You know what I mean? Amazing. And then on our new chorus from Fred Hirsch, thoughts and experiments in solo piano, I saw Fred Hirsch play a similar voicing to this. This is the spread 10th. So there's not like a specific voicing,

but the concept is simple. It's a regular spread voicing, two-handed spread. And by spread, we mean, you know, we have this like three or four-note voicing in the left hand and a big spread in the right hand. So typically you might see a spread as an octave with a fifth in the middle. Right? So here I have an E-flat minor-nine voicing. I have G-flat, B-flat, D-flat, and F here. And then above that I have a spread of E-flat, B-flat, and E-F-Fat.

Maybe a red garland style. Now, I've been seeing a lot of pianists and hearing a lot of pianists lately and just notice that a crunchier version of this is to do a ninth in the right hand. So maybe D-flat, A-flat and E-flat. So you still get that E-flat on top, and it can be anywhere. Maybe it's... Oh, I do like that. It's really nice, right? So, like, fifths up top.

It works on dominant voicings, too, obviously. Works on major seven voicings. Yeah. Isn't that great? So nice. A little crunchy ninth. If you can reach a ninth with your right hand, works, you know, like,

this is a C major seven voicing, literally just the E, G, B, and D in my left hand, and D, A, and D. But there's something about not doubling at the top. It makes it a little more, I mean, I hate to say a little more modern. That's just too overused, but it's a little bit,

it's like at a different altitude right a little bit of a different altitude a little bit better altitude just different just a little different let's fly up here a little bit so that's the spread

10th that's right I like it we like you that's four we've given them four should we go for seven well we have to we have put in the title

okay so number five several times this is just a simple little oh wait a second it's like a little diminished voicing Diminished voice and a little fully diminished a lot of times we struggle with the fully diminished right?

Ooh, that's so nice. And I mean, you know me, I love me some symmetry. Assume me because I love symmetry. So we've got these two minor thirds separated by a perfect four. So that's, this is the right hand. E flat, G flat, B natural D. So that's your minor third, your diminished fifth, your major seventh, and your ninth. And then in the left hand, C and an A.

Which is unusual because usually we're like, it's like the root and the 6th, but that's actually not the 6th. Did you know that, sir? It's the double flat 7th. That's right. You're diminished 7th. We don't use that in jazz a lot because it's confusing. So, yeah, so this is a C-diminish 7 chord with a bunch of extensions.

And I love it because the lowest four notes are just literally a C-diminished 7 chord and a spread voicing. But these top two notes, the B and the D, those are borrowed from that D-diminished chord. Scale. The scale from the whole half diminished. And they lead a lot of different cool places. That's so good. And I think too, you know, one thing, even if you take away those upper extensions,

the seventh and the ninth, like that's a very like... Yeah. So all that is is that root, diminished seventh, minor third, perfect fifth, as you said, that's the actual full diminished seventh. Just spread out a little bit. This would be a great one.

to take through chromatically and just get it in your fingers chromatically. Awesome stuff. So number six is the add to minor 11. Ever heard of it? No. Yeah, because I just made it up. Okay. No, I've been playing this voicing.

This is a left-handed voicing and a left-hand voicing. And it's something that I play over like a minor 11 chord, maybe a two on a two-five-one. It's a very simple voicing. I call it the ad-2 because say we have an F-minus because you add the two. You do. Well, kind of. It's an add-to shape. So if we're having F minor 7 chord, like again, maybe it's all the things you are,

but you're blowing and you want a left-handed rootless voicing. It's just an A-flat add-2 shape, A-flat, B-flat, C, and E-flat. It's a great little F-minor 7 voicing. And then you can get all shoegazey and clustering. You know what I mean? Right. Because it's like a major triad with the second. It's like a two chord kind of.

Like an A-flat-2 chord. Like an A-flat-2. But we're using it as like an F-minor 11. Really simple. shape, but I think I ripped this from Brad Meldow years and years ago. Brad Meldow, Shugay's King. So it's a lovely little cluster on a two shape. He's already going back to the haven, going to the haven.

That works. Yeah. So again, that's the ad minor two. This is so easy to play too, right? Because it's just a little, it's a triad. You know, with a little add two on it. And what if you, just for a variety, could you take away the fifth? Yeah.

That's very different, very different sound, though. Yeah, that's the low cluster. Yeah. It's great. Yeah, I mean, look, I was talking for triads, super implanted, superimposed. Sumi. I like a triad. Sue me, I love triads.

But when they're hip, one of my voice, I was going to confuse you and be like, this is my favorite. Oh, we can do it. This is number seven. Here it is. You know, you're joking. That's not bad. Keith Jar makes it work. Yeah, that's right.

See, he's setting up giant steps. Have you been to a Methodist church in the Upper Midwest? Yes, I have many times. Don't put any seventh in that church. You'll go to hell. Only on the five chords. Only on the five chords. That's right.

And only... Hold on, hold on. Let's not get crazy. Okay, sorry. Okay, no, here's the real number. Big shout out to all the Methodists in the Midwest. Actually, I'm part Methodist. Me too.

Oh, nice. One of my four grandparents... I don't know if the Methodist is part of our bloodline here. No, but fun fact. My grandparents are my paternal grandparents. Yeah. Who always approached me with a very paternalistic vibe for some reason. No, they, my grandmother was Baptist and my grandfather was Methodist, or maybe the other one.

So a mixed marriage. It was, I mean, in North Carolina, in the 30s, it was a mixed marriage. Because the manuses are from North Carolina too, right? Right. So I wonder if, you know, there's a lot of Methodists up there. Mixed marriage as well. No, we were all Methodist, buddy. Oh, purebred.

Look at you. Well, we're not. No, yeah, we were, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, I have Methodist like pastors still in Oklahoma in my family today. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. Music directors, that kind of thing. Nice.

Yeah. Okay, so number seven, but I digress. Is this mine? I don't remember this one. The hell is this. Oh, yeah. Why did I do that one? I like it, though.

So we got C sharp and D in the left hand. Oh, it's like a D major 7 over C sharp. That's right. Again, where it's going really matters here. Yeah, so this is, yeah. So D sharp major over C. I don't know why I did that one, but I like it. You know,

feeling that one, are you? No. Full disclosure. I think I messed up in what meant to put something else. I was going to say this is, I like it. Come on, man. Seems pretty basic Bob for piano P. No, it's D major seven over C sharp. It's not over D. Yeah. You know what my favorite minor seven voicing is? What? Love that one. Oh, that's great. Dominant 7. So good. Peter, let's do Dominant 7 over C sharp. Oh, that's great. What about a G over G? Not to be confused with the G over C. The bread, our bread is bread.

It's mana for my heart. All right, well, there's six great voices that we love it, and one that we got a little confused on. Hey, man, you know what? Why not? Okay, see, you're just making it sound bad on purpose. That's not fair. I'm just trying to figure out what's going on.

Because then you can, like, roll up on. It works on that.