You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Voicings You Needed Yesterday

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

Adam and Peter talk all about chord voicings and which ones you must have in your playing yesterday. Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open StudioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel.Follow us on Twitter | Instagram

Hey Adam, are you ready for this? I don't think so. Okay, let me explain this to you. We are going to trade some of our favorite voicings, a la carte style, improvisational style. One at a time. Top of our head. Yeah, we're going to do seven. Okay. I'm going to start.

Let's do this. Okay, here we go. It's trying to think of them. You're getting ahead of yourself. Hey, that's a good one. I'm Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Martin. You'll listen to the You'll hear at podcast.

This is two pianists talking music. I mean, it's really all it is at this point. We're just talking voicing. So we hope you like it. I mean, how many times have we talked about voicings on the podcast? I mean, hundreds at this point, we're about it, a thousand, you know. I know, we're coming up on a thousand episodes. But we didn't talk about voicing all the time, but we do it a lot because we love them.

We love voicing. It's a kind of particular and peculiar thing to piano playing. Why would you put those two words together on a podcast? Particular, like you have to talk. This is like the sure microphone test. That's a steep learning curve. But I mean, it's not exclusive to pianists. Yeah.

But it is something that we're responsible for. It's fun. We get a lot of questions about it. Everyone's always trying to find, like, good voicing, you know, and you know, one of my big things. What? You probably get sick of hearing. Everybody probably does, but it's so true. It's like, there's no such thing as just A grade voicing, although today we're going to give you seven great voicing.

But we're going to put them in context. Okay. When we talk about context, we're talking about where are we coming from and where are we going. So for me, and I'll just kick it off. Can we go right into number one? Do we have any housekeeping we need to do? No, you're all good. Okay.

So this is going to be my first one, but I'm going to be my first one. I'm going to tell you, we either need to talk about where it's coming from, where it's going, or perhaps even both. Because the most successful discussion and I think assimilation of any kind of voicing needs to be in that kind of a context. It's like vocabulary, right? When you're learning a word, if you don't know when to use it, how to use it at the right place, then a new word is not going to be very interesting. And if it's kind of a lesser known word or a little bit unusual, we'll certainly get into some kind of unusual. usual voicings, if you can't place it in a place that is listenable and edifying to the, our dear listener, then it's not going to matter.

It's just going to sound like a jumbled mess. It's up to us to put these things together, whether that means you're coming from somewhere a little bit more digestible to somewhere a little bit more tension filled or whatever or, you know, so let me let me just show you the first one, I think, because I think it kind of exemplifies this. You ready? Yeah. This is voicing number one.

And then this is where it's going. This is an A, we got A, G. Then we got an F sharp try it. Beautiful, yeah. But then where can it go? We can go down to A flat major. Yeah. We could also go check this out.

We could go to like a G flat 7 with the third and the suspended fourth. Beautiful. We could go up to a B flat sauce. Yeah. Okay, but this is the main voicing. And it's, you know, like a lot of these voicing, it's very much a shape. Yeah. We've got the left hand, root in seventh, root and dominant seventh.

And this is an A chord, A7, 13 flat 9 is all it is. But we've got these structures that are split between the hands. We've got G.C. Sharp, F, which is that great fourth voice in McCory Tyner, diminished fifth and perfect fourth. But they're split between the hands. So I think that the real thing there is that we latch on to is that F sharp triad, second inversion. Yeah. Right?

That's beautiful. I love it. Peter Martin knows all the spacey, airy voicings. And if you think about it from where it's coming or where it could come from and where it could go to, we could think about B-flat A-flat. Yeah. Like a 2-5-1 with this. So we got B-flat Suss 13 and then our new voicing. Nice.

Got some nice and new voice thing in there. Beautiful. Yeah. I'll throw out one. Okay. This would be number two. Number two. So I love a regular old dominant seven chord.

Literally one, three, five, seven. Hold on I got to turn my, I got to turn my tremolo down. Yep. So C, E, G, and B flat. And I love a drop three voicing. So we take the third note from the top, which is E. Right. So if you have C, E, G, and B flat, take that E, drop it down to the left hand.

It's like this beautiful dominant chord. And you can do this all in the number. conversions too. It's just so beautiful. So like that's all these C7 inversions using that drop three. Nice. It gets you some really cool contrary motion. Like from here, you know, the bottom note moves up. From here, everything moves up. From here, the bottom note moves down, the top note moves up. Like, it's really great for getting some contrary motion, the drop threes. I've been really into that. It's so good. And it's so foundational. You've got to be confident with that. Absolutely.

It can work so well. You play it with confidence. Inspired by Larry Goldings, we had a master class with it, but he's like a master of all this stuff, like using basic triads, basic seventh chords to really like have this really cool, grounded, earthy sound. I'm into it, man. Nice.

Okay. So another one I think of, and I like to play, and this is very much how it sounds and how it feels, especially in certain keys, is this. Mine or 11, right? So this is nice, too, because for some people, this is kind of the widest they can stretch for a lot of hands, which is nice. So you've got a ninth as opposed to a tenth, which is a challenge, especially, you know, going major.

So we're just going, the stretch is from F and then a G in the left hand. And then we're stacking up the same stacked fifths with just a half step separating. So we got G and A flat, and then we got A flat, E flat, B flat. So it's the same thing, just a minor third up from this. but you've got that tension there because of the night and then it starts to half step above it. Beautiful, yeah. I love it on the piano, even though we're on the keyboard here.

On in D. In fact, I wrote a tune, La Pregunta years ago, and it was sort of based upon that shape and that style. Yeah, gorgeous. And then talking about where you're coming from and going, you might go, these are all the same voices that way I did it, just going up a minor third, but you might think about

same voicing F, E, and then and then sub it in like a dominant sharp 11 there to go back to that minor 11. Yeah, that's nice. And it's minor 11 because you've got the 11th on top. You're omitting some really, you know, not important notes, but I think

like you're not doubling the 5th, you've got the 11th, and you've got those open 5th, really open sound except that minor second right in the middle of it. It's beautiful. Vibe. Vibe is hell. A vibe. Yeah. Here's a good one that I've been playing with a lot. This is number four.

So this is a diminished voicing. We've got some construction going on. You've got a good time. So usually a diminished seventh voicing, right? And C, like a C diminished seven is just minor thirds. But I've been really into this C diminished and we'll call it add B. Yeah. Oh, I love it.

Right? So it's this shape, C, E, flat, G flat, and then a B natural on top. Yeah. Right? It's great for like a little delineered. play. In fact, Caleb and I play this tune I wrote that uses this going like resolving onto itself, right? The C diminished ad be resolving to like a C6. But it also can be used really effectively. This is like the king of diminished chords. This tonic diminished like key of C. So if you're

doing like a three six, just just burn the six. Yeah. And use it flat three diminished. How much prettier is that? Very good. You know what I mean? I'm not prettier. But it's just a juicy sound. So this is like E minor 7 and then the same C diminished 7 voicing with that B, with the E flat in the base going to the 2. So pretty. That's great. Now, and another thing about this, Peter, is you can use this same shape C, E flat, G flat, or F sharp and B as like a D7 flat 9.

In the root. Yeah, so put a D in the root. And then you have the third, seventh, 13th, and flat 9. Isn't that a great shape? And then it's also a fantastic shape to like do a little fake out on a G major. So if you have like a melody note of the third of G major, which is B, so. Right? Instead of playing the G major, you could play this shape and then resolve it to the G major.

Right? It's a little Barry Harris' six diminished thing there too. Yeah. And I mean, I think you're really driving home the point. nicely of like where is it resolved to where is it coming from where is it going how we thinking about these voicing's in terms of like i used to worry a lot like i would play something and be like i didn't like that and then try to find something else and then when i started to well part of it is you start to kind of know what things are going to sound like um not to say that you're restricted

you shouldn't be i mean you know some people that have a lot of experienced pianists they are kind of close-minded with their voicing vocabulary from a young age so they never develop that, you know, impetus to kind of learn new things. Oh, big shout out to our sponsor here. They're going to have to pay for that. That's like a billboard here.

Yeah, if you're on the pod, the audio pod, you've got to come over to the YouTube. Yeah, FedEx. Hit us up. You don't just get to use our podcast as you know, personal. Yeah.

Okay, so we're going to move on to number five. Actually, I'm going to play a couple of voicing. I'm going to give this will be dealer's choice. You can kind of tell me to stop if you if and when you hear something you like. Okay. Sounds true.

Yeah, I mean, obviously that one. You like that one. Yeah. Okay. So this is something that you can actually use in a lot of different things. This is an F sharp minor with a major seventh, which is kind of a basic thing, but it's a nice sound and it's a very particular sound.

And it's got a couple of places that it can go, especially if you have a moment to linger. So it could be like you play the F sharp minor and then go down to the dominant seventh, 6-9, you know. Because to me, the minor with the major seventh is both stationary and unstable at the same time. You're like, you can't just sit there, but you can also be like, oh, it wants to go somewhere.

Yeah. But then it can still be there also, or it can move up there. And a lot of times, like, if you think about it resolving down. I mean, you're traditionally, the major seven is resolving up. Right? Yeah. But a lot of times we don't want it to be that, like, rooted. So if we go down to the dominant seven, but then it's like a deceptive kind of,

now it really wants to sit, unless you. It's nice. Right? But I think part of the reason you might like it. an interesting thing in terms of usage. I was kind of playing around. I can't remember what I played, but it was like... And like, I didn't play the root.

Like, a lot of times when we play, especially a kind of mysterious or vibey kind of chord, you can think about not hitting the root right away and then using the root as an atmospheric thing. So, you know, and then it's just got like another. And then that also gives you a little bit of an interesting melodic turn.

You know, a little bit of a counter melody kind of thing too. That's beautiful. Oh, there it is. Well, okay. That was five. All right, I have one more. This is really like a more of a structure than it is a specific voicing. But I've been really into this structure here.

Again, we've been working in Open Studio Pro, we've been working with 1357 voicings and all the things you can build off of them. It's a way richer than you might think. Like if you start from this place and you start just like adjusting each one, like adding to it, it then becomes all of this stuff, right? But keeping it grounded with this and how you're adjusting these things can be important. So one of the structures that I've been working with with this is again, so here's the C major 7-1357, right? As simple as it gets.

But this structure of having the outside notes be an octave below the inside notes. Right? And then going through the inversions. So beautiful. And then kind of taking it through a chord progression like this. And then like here on a diminished, right, on a diminished or a flat 7 of any kind, any of these notes can be dipped a half step. And it sounds really good to do like two at a time. Right?

And it can be, I mean, it's so much fun. It's really endless. And then you can also, you can flip this. Right? Yeah, so you inverted it. So now the outside notes, C and B are on the top octave in the right hand. And the inside notes E and G are on the bottom. And then you can do the same thing.

Yeah, exactly. You know what I'm saying? But getting it, like, all of those options, I mean, that's the thing. It's like, oh, that's just one, three, five, seven. But do you actually know it in all of these different inversions and flipping it and in every key? That's just C major. It's 1625 and C major. You know what I mean?

So, like, that kind of work, I find really, really rewarding because it kind of frees your musical mind up from just, like, just throwing shapes at the keyboard. And, like, thinking in this, like, almost like your. you're writing for a corral in real time. Each voice can be this independent little line. And then you can start subbing out things, you know, subbing out like specific notes. This is where it starts to just become like playing,

you know, four-note harmony live. Yeah. You're very, very cool. That's great. Yeah, yeah. One more, Peter, number seven. You got it. So I was thinking about a voicing that could have like some little additions to it.

So I think this is what. what you called. Now, you know, how often do I talk about a drop two or a drop three? You almost never. Right, because my understanding of it, my pay is so it's a little bit above my pay grade, but sometimes I'm able to jump in there. So this voicing, would we call this a drop three? What is it?

So we've got B, A, D, G. But I'm thinking about it like coming off of like a two chord. 100%. 100%. That's a drop three. Yeah. That's a drop three, right? Yeah.

That's classic. Classic move chord. Right. So, but then where can that, like, where can that go? Well,

where are you taking it here? What do you? You want to get on the bandwagon or no? Yeah. But, but like thinking about these voicing as not just moving them chromatically. So it's not just,

although that's nice, but like, like, like what's the one note that we add in to make the next voicing where it kind of diverges? So we're going, and so like,

take this, keep your G the same on top, and then just go up chromatically with the other notes, right? But I'm adding one note in a flat. And that changed things? Yeah, it does. So this is just chromatic up with the G staying the same. This is with adding chromatic up, G staying the same, adding in A flat.

Like the idea on this conceptually is that you're picking a note instead of no-no-na-na-no-no. You're going do-la-la-da-na-no. And you're splitting it. splitting it. Yeah, yeah. Divergence. Yeah, that's good.

And that's something that you see in scores of voices. Like, you'll see the strings diverge. Davisi is what it's called. Right. You'll see choirs do the same thing where, like, you know, the tenors will split on things. It happens all the time. Yeah, I mean, I always think about Shirley Horn, maybe not with that particular voicing, but with the concept of, you know, that kind of starting the middle diverging out,

adding a few notes as you go can lead to some interesting voicing. This is fun. We should do this for melodical. content at some point. Maybe next episode. Why am I so sloppy? That was fun. Until next time, you'll hear it. Noodles.