You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Adam's Magic Voicings System

Episode Date: July 13, 2020

Peter and Adam break down Adam's Magic Voicings System, proving there's an easy way to play beautiful voicings no matter what the chord or note is.Links From Today's Episode:Check out the latest course from Open Studio - the Magic Voicing System. Learn from Adam Maness in this entirely Guided Practice Session-based course as he shows you an easy way to always play great sounding voicings that never clash.Today's Open Studio Live Events (All times in EDT):1:00 PM - Adam's Daily Guided Practice Session (for Members Only)For the rest of this week's calendar, follow this linkInterested 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 Facebook | Twitter | Instagram See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Peter. Hey, what do you know about this? Ooh, that sounds like magic. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Music advice coming at you when we wanted to come at you, which is right now. It's coming at you hard. It's coming at you right at this second.

Hey, what's up to YouTube today, too? That's right. Hey, YouTube. We're up on YouTube. Why are we talking about magic today, though? Well, because there's some exciting magical things happen around here at Open Studio. There is the magic voicing system that is the brainchild that you have cooked up in your cauldron of jazz education over on the south side. And this course just came out. And I thought it would be the appropriate time for us to get together and talk about this because

I don't really understand it. So I figure if you can explain it to me, that'll be the first step. And then folks can see what they think and check it out. Yeah. So I'll drop this knowledge on you. I mean, this is one of those things too. It's really funny to me because you do this already. Like I kind of got some of this from transcribing you, but it's a system that we put together over on the daily guide of practice session. By the way, you can go to Open StudioJadz.com, become a piano access past member, check out the daily guide of practice session.

Yes. But this is a, it's a journey that I've been on for like five years. Like, okay, let me tell you a story about about 26-year-old. No, 36-year-old. Were you still listening to Journey when you were 36? Don't stop believing, but I was, no, no, no, I was kind of at a wall. I hit a wall with my comping. Let's give you a little background.

Thank you. With my chords. I'll love those. where I wasn't really happy with like my top note options for all the chords. Yeah, you're great at it. I was not. And I was clashing with horn players. I was clashing with singers. I wasn't able to play melodically with my chords. And I was like, I need to fix this big time. So I kind of went on this journey to find a system that I can play any chord with any note on top.

And one of the first things I discovered was this pentatonic system that we're calling in a very corny way, the magic voicing system. but I developed this and we started working on it in the Daily Got a practice session and that's what we'll talk about. Now, it's a super simple way to think about voicing and to get so many options on the top notes. You can play melodically.

Like that. Awesome. Yeah. All right. Well, let's break it down now. Let's make it down. Let's systematize it. So I'm going to do two different voicing

for you. Abercadabra. Okay, go. We're going to do the one, kind of the main one, which is the pentatonic five-note voicing. Okay. And then I'll do a little diminished voicing,

which will be kind of a bonus bob voicing. But this is based off. of the major pentatonic scale. So if we're in the key of B-flat, and we have a B-flat major pentatonic, that's B-flat, C, D, D, and G, right? So we have this pentatonic scale. Now, if we want to form a chord

with just these five notes, we can. If we start from B-flat, and we skip a note going down, so we skip the G, then we skip the D, and then to right-hand, then we skip B-flat, and we hit G, and we skip F, we hit D. We have this chord for the top-down,

because that's how we're going to think about these. B-flat, F, C, G, D. Now, this is a B-flat major 6-9 chord, right? And what's so cool is this is all the notes, again, of that B-flat major pentatonic scale. Now, this isn't even the magic part. That's a pretty bog-standard voicing, correct? Yes, it is, but already what you've done and you went through it because you understand it so well, I think there's a lot of nuance to how we get there, as opposed to say we're going to build up or down perfect fourth,

which is, of course, what it is. but this concept of taking and skipping the notes as you go down, that starts to speak to the symmetry and the system of what this is. And it's going to play an important factor as we move on here. And the reason why I spell these out from the top down is because we want to think about these as melodic options, right? We want to be able to play things and not clash when, you know, if a singer is singing a B-flat here

and we have a B-flat major chord, yeah, we could do this, but it's going to cause some issues right there, right? It's going to call some interpersonal, inter-band, inter-singer issues right there. That's right. So having a voicing that has a B-flat on top is very crucial. Okay, so here's our B-flat-major, six-nine chord, six-nine, you know, B-flat-major, made up of all the notes of the B-flat-major pentat-tonic scale. Here's where the magic comes in, right?

So we can take this voicing and move each one of these notes up that B-flat-major pentatonic scale. So our B-flat becomes C, our F becomes G, our C becomes D, our G becomes B-flat, and our D becomes F, we have this. Yes. Right? So even just now, if we see B-flat-6-9, right, on a lead sheet, we have two options instead of just one. Yeah.

And they're part of a scale tone. So we're just moving up the B-flat major pentatonic scale and check it out. We can do it again. From here. Yeah. So this is D, B-flat, F, C, and G, also known as So-what voicings. Yes. Right?

Again, this is all B-flat-6-9. B-flat major 6-9. And I just want to note that we're already kind of moving in a different direction that what many folks might be used to, an equally useful but different kind of movement, which would be straight diatonic up there. And that's why it's so important what you mentioned at the beginning in terms of the pentatonic scale building down on the pentatonic scale,

to be able to hear that and to think about that both melodically and harmonically as we put these voicing together. It's a different mindset. It's a whole different thing. It's a different sound set. In practice, we will use them together sometime, but you want to learn them separately, right? 100%. And there's nothing wrong with the way of just moving things diatonically, like up a B flat major

scale. Totally cool. But this is because we're only using notes from that B flat major pentatonic scale, you know, an A is not going to be in there, right? So we just have the notes that we have, an E flat is not going to be in this, in any of these voicings. Okay, so here we are in our third one. And now already, just with three.

You know, if we have a B-flat major 6-9, we have so many. And then, you know, you throw in things like chromaticism, you know. Yeah. I mean, you really have some cool stuff. But that's, but wait, there's more. There's more. So again, we can move. Gensu knife, coming at you.

We have five notes here, right? These are essentially five inversions. We move it up again. Check this one. This is my favorite. From the top down, F, C, G, D, and B-flat. That's a great. That's a great voicing.

And, you know, this is kind of with the force, which is useful sometimes, but it's a lot of, in the context of how you'd be probably moving around melodically with these voicings. Exactly. This is so much better symmetry coming off of this. And again, but if you're playing with a tenor saxophone player, they're about to land on B flat because it's the end of the melody and you do that. And again, you're clashing.

It's a little bit of a no-boino situation. It's not the end of the world, but it's kind of cleaner to do that. And then we have one more, the last of these five voicings, G, D, B, flat, F, and C. Also a beautiful voicing. Yeah. So you might notice the top notes of, all these is that because we're only using the notes from the b flat major pentatonic scale they're all

notes from the b flat pentatonic scale okay so now we have all these options do you remember them could you play yeah but before we get there let me just say let me play this yeah yeah the thing I love about this too the reason that I for me there's a couple different levels of magic or magic as they say in France perhaps but to me the the one that's that's really great they kind of forces it in your ears if you already kind of know the sound. If you don't, it actually can teach you that you're training to this kind of voicing. But that aspect is that when you move around the pentatonic scale with these voicings, your voice leading is actually locked in and not only correct, but it's just at a very high level. So that anything that you do additive,

chromatic, maybe even throw in a little bit of diatonic movement or whatever is generally going to work. Of course, you always have to listen. Certainly moving around, you know, all these that are actually within the flow are all going to work nicely. Very nicely. You know, you have parallel movement, but you're going from thirds to force kind of automatically within it.

They move within the voice. No parallel fists or anything like that. It's because of the mixing of the third within here, just naturally there's always going to be one. You get a lot of cool, except for ones where they're all fourths, but then it goes from fourths to there's a third in there. And force and there's a third in there,

you know, things like that. Yeah, and I think, you know, if you look at, what is it? So that one, from the second and third, like you did it, we see the triad, the B-flap major triad second inversion on the bottom. Yeah, yeah. And then it jumps up to the top. That's right.

Yeah. And so those are the kind of connections if you can make, if you can hear those, that can really lead to some really cool stuff. That's totally true. All right. So we have five here. So watch what can happen. Peter, you kind of, you know them just a little bit, but you're good enough. You'll be able to hang.

So, you know, sometimes we see a B-flat major 6-9 chord for four bars. And you're like, oh, what the hell do I do with this? I guess I just do No So watch what happens When you're in stage band you do But later on Watch what happens when you have this

Two, three And Thought you went to that B flat F7 I was cool with that Because it's magic Oh we'll get there We'll get there

Hold on Check this out Stay with So okay So here's the second magical part Before we get to the second Very magical part

Of these magic voicings Why don't you hit a little Like and subscribe here If you're learning something If you already know this like and subscribe because you're co-signing it you know what I'm saying yeah we're going to do a bonus later but right now just hit that old uh like and subscribe if you're learning hits the like if you're learning hit yeah yeah we want to encourage the learning okay that's care way no so so what i just ended on was a g right

so the second super magic thing about these voicing is not only are we moving these up and we have all these amazing options for that top note we can play melodically yes there's no repeated notes we're all in the same five notes it works on a b flat major six nine go ahead and play a chord or any chord, right? It also works as a G minor seven. It also works as an E flat major seven. I love that one. Remember the major seven wasn't in the B flat

because it's in E flat. These voicings, all five of these work really well as an E flat major seven voice. And then you're getting a little major seven action happening with you, you had the major six nine on the B flat. That's right. Yeah, yeah. So the B flat is more of a major six chord,

this E flat with these same voicings, right? Just thinking about it differently is an E flat, really an E flat major line, right? Yep. And then one more, one more good one. F7? No. Oh, C7.

C7 Suss, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, one more that's kind of cheeky. A flat, major, seven, sharp 11. Oh, sharp 11, nice. No, I like that. That works good. That works good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's really five different chords that this one set of voicing's work over. So, I mean, there's, it's really infinite, like the possibilities of this when you start going through all these different keys and the way that it can work, it's so, so super cool. So we have it here for our B-flat major seven.

So like if we were doing a 2-5 and F, right, it could be the G7 voicing. Right? So speaking of two-fives, we maybe want to play a 2-5 and B-flat with this B-flat major 6-9 is our one chord. We need a C-minor 7, right? So we know that the relative major 6-9 voicing's work.

So we can use this same thing just from E-flat. Yes. That is our... C minor 7 voicing on a 25 to be flat. Now we need something for the dominant chord. This is our bonus. Okay. Our bonus voicing.

So why don't you go ahead and put the bonus bell on? Bam! We're trying to make the bonus bell a thing. Put that bell on. You're talking about the notification. Yeah, get some notifications. Yeah, we're going to hit you up in the middle of the night if you use that bell. We're live all the time with voicing stuff like this.

So go ahead and put the bonus bell on for this bonus voicing. So on our five chords. Bonus Jonas! What? We want something a little more interesting than maybe just a straight, unaltered, dominant, you know, F7. chord, right? We want maybe an F-13 flat-9. This is a very typical, you know, alter dominant that you would use to go to a B-flat major-6-9, right? So check it out. This is the voicing that we have for this. This works so well. It's a diminished voicing, actually, from the top-down,

C, G-flat, D, A, E-flat. You kind of have that F on the bottom. So here is a E-flat diminished chord, right? And we're borrowing from that, from that E-flat, whole half-de-minish scale with that D in there. Again, C, G-flat, D, A, and E-flat. Bam. So if we're playing, you know, our, our C-minor 7 voicing, which is from the E-flat 6-9, right, the E-flat pentat scale, we play that, and then we play our E-flat dominant voicing, who. And then we can go right to a B-flat major-6-9. Right there. The cool thing about these dominant voicings, right, is that because it's part of the E flat diminished scale, we can move it up in minor thirds.

Check this one out. And they all... Voiceleading, nice. Voicing. They all work really well towards that... Remember those B-flat major 6-9 chords? Yes. So this first one.

How about the second one? If we take the diminished chord up a minor third, resolves great to there. Results great to there. results great to there. So now we have, I mean, just beautiful voicings. Well, I mean, I'm literally thinking about da-da-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-a-d-d-d-map-a-d-d-d- I'm thinking about a melody as I'm comping,

and I'm able to do it. And the system is locked in beneath. Systems locked in. It's clean. There's no clunky, repeated notes. And I really think that this is the easiest entry point into five-note voice. leading basically. For sure. I mean, you talk about a saxophone section. That would be for another episode, but big band writing with this, some of the most coolest stuff that you can do with this,

but in terms of very solid voice leading, that's not diatonic based. That's right. This is just the basic version of that. There's a ton of nuance that we can get into. But for just the basic braytown of the magic voicing system, that's it. And you could check it out. You know, we have the magic voicing system course right here at open studio. Check out the link below. I just want to say one thing. Yeah, one thing on your your bonus diminished dominant there that F7. My bonus Jonas. A little bonus Jonas.

So you've got, the way I like to think about this, and you know, this, for me, it doesn't necessarily come from a theoretical standpoint. It's going to sound like that. But it comes from a place of another way to hear something and maybe lead your ears to something else is five, no voice. But if we throw in that root to F, so coming from the bottom, F, E, flat, A, D, F, F, F, F, A, D, F, F, D, C. You've got root.

root shell for the F7. For sure. D7. That's right. You know, which is going to move around as you did your different cycle. That's right.

Through the diminished cycle, but those are all root and shells for other domicores. It's almost like a D7 over F7. It's exactly right. When you have exactly. And I mean, this is how we think...

And that's how at least the melodic improvisation. I was going to say, that's how we think about it when we're blowing, right? Yeah. It's the first thing you do when you learn the diminished harmony stuff is you do annoying stuff like that.

Yeah. But it works so well for being able to pull stuff out. And there's always overlap because if you look at just the straight voicing as you laid it out, you've got that D triad second inversion. Same like before we were talking over the E flat, you know, second inversion triads being, you know, layered into there. You're talking about in the middle. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that gives it a lot of its symmetry and really interesting places for it to resolve as well. I mean, it just goes to show you how concrete and predictable that diminished harmony is, right, that we're able to spot these triads within, you know, the F7 or if it's A4, flat, it's F triad, if it's B, it's the A flat triad, you know, they're reliable. And once you sort of get those in your brain, they're easy to do. Yeah. And I think that, you know, what's important, especially for as pianists, but really, we're all pianists. If you're a horn player and you're trying to figure this stuff out and you sit down at the piano and play through some of these chords,

you will be able to take that to your horn or to vocals or to or to bass or anything. And the beauty of is that we can play it at the same time. But I think that we understand the theory, but from the standpoint of what it can do for us to really set off some kind of great improvisation, because if everybody knows these voicing and all good players do and use them at different time, it's not about just playing them. It's taking them, understanding them, being able to hear them, and then being able to see when you start to make alterations to them what it does to change that. But mainly, you know, to your point of being able to play melodically, this is a great jumping off point. I mean, there's a number of different layers, but that's probably the most important.

Would you say it's the most magical aspect? aspect. It's magic. Magic. We could have some twirlies. Ooh, it's magic. Magic. Magic. I like that. Whoa. I feel like a David Copperfield style Vegas magician. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in. Thank you, YouTube. Again, check out open studio jazz.com. The magic voicing system. Brand new course lays out this whole thing in a very structured way. There's guide of practice sessions. You go through all of it. And we link below. You can even just watch Adam going into a little bit more depth on a free sample lesson if you sign up below, which is always fun. brought you by Open Studio. Heck that's what's happening here.

That's what's keeping this whole thing going. Go to Open Studio Jazz in general. The sponsors of the You'll Hear a podcast here. And until next time, you'll hear it.