Drop 2 voicings for jazz piano pdf

Bill evans, barry harris, oscar peterson, kenny barron. Drop 2 was originally used in arranging for orchestras and big bands as it provided a way for 4 horn instruments to produce a very rich texture over a single chord. Two handed chords are great for comping behind a soloist. Four way close, locked hands and drop two voicings the. Some altered dominants have been used, but voice leading remains the same. Several of mick goodricks books really get into the drop 2 voicing in depth while this short exercise just looks at one simple major and minor voicing in isolation. Introduction to jazz guitar chords and comping styles. With these twohanded drop 2 chord voicings, youll sound really hip, especially in jazz and blues.

Coole klavierakkorde drop 2 voicings fur piano pianoo. Chord voicings choosing the best voicing although you can use any of these voicings in any situation, we are going to take the following chords and supply you with 4 voicings of these chords so that you can plugandplay them when we get heavy into the strumming exercises. The book starts off by presenting all the voicings in each key. It is a very easy voicing to understand and implement. Drop 2 voicings tutorial block chords tutorial jazz piano. Jazz chord essentials drop 2 voicings part 2 jens larsen. Drop 2 voicings can be heard in the recordings of almost all of the great jazz pianists and they are an extremely useful tool for harmonizing the melody of jazz standards.

The drop 2 book is the first and only publication to explore the 4note, blockchord approach to jazz piano playing as used by piano masters like kenny barron, mccoy tyner, barry harris, cedar walton and bill evans in this book, worldrenowned educator and pianist mark levine gives the reader a comprehensive, stepbystep, beginning to advanced masterclass on this fascinating approach to. Here well examine this technique in a couple jazz standards. These voicings mark an evolution in the lefthand comping style of many jazz pianists from the 1950s on. There are three main types of drop voicings playable on the guitar. Construction of drop ii voicings university of surrey blogs. In this coursethe second in a series focusing on learning how to play jazz piano learn concepts that can provide you with a solid foundation as a pianist. The newest jazz piano chords pdf that i recently made available features those piano chords and voicings that i used during an eight bar segment of a piano video tutorial i created which focuses on the classic harold arlen tune paper moon. Drop 2 voicings part 1 jazz chord essentials jens larsen. Basic onehand voicings created by adding color tones to the guide tones in the previous example. Here are 4 voicings for the caged chords, both major and minor.

For our purposes, all voicings built up from the 3rd will be referred to as type i voicings, and those built up from the 7th will be called type ii. Closed voicings where all the chordtones are within an octave can be tricky to play on the guitar. While lefthand voicings are suited to righthand soloing or melody, the jazz pianist needs to know how to comp in other words, accompany other soloists. We have already discussed jazz chords in a previous module.

Then, for each individual voicing, say a major chord voiced as 3569, theres a twopage exercise which does two measures of the voicing, just as a whole note, with a bass line under it which is 1585, and then repeat this in all twelve keys. Four way close, locked hands and drop two voicings the jazz. While working on major 7th and minor 7th drop 2 chord voicings, i found a nice. Drop 2 is drop the second voice an octave 315 and drop 3 is drop the third an octave 5 from a closed or 5 voicing. Common jazz chord voicings fundamental changes music.

Memorize these voicings and get used to playing them from seeing. First we need a m6 voicing, that will also work as a m7b5 and a. A thorough look at how to play full, chordal melodies in the style of joe pass, jim hall, wes montgomery, using drop 2 voicings. Drop 2 voicings are similar to the four way close but instead of doubling the melody note an octave down in your left, instead we drop the second note from the top and play this in out left hand. First, he comps for, and interacts with, other players as they solo.

Grammywinning keyboardist george whitty helps you get started with twohanded harmony, and helps to bolster your jazz vocabulary by. The next step is to harmonize this passage in closedposition voicings using dm7 and d7 harmonies, such as this. This pdf serves as a compliment to a free lesson that i created emphasizing the rewards of smooth voice leading. Therefore, he needs two different types of voicings. One of them drop 2 is the key to playing chord scales and melodies in a way that doesnt induce hand cramps. Drop 2 voicings for prelude to a kiss pianowithwillie.

Playing scales in chords the basics of drop 2 jason. Drop 2 literally means you drop the second highest note. While any isolated chord might be in drop 2 a lot of the fournote voicings most natural on the guitar neck are in drop 2, it can be more useful to think in terms of harmonising a line in drop 2. Starting with 3note voicings, then venturing into 4note, and finally constructing a line from scratch. Many guitarists are already familiar with the sound of these voicings as many of the basic seventh chord grips on guitar are drop 2. Drop 2 chords are very effective voicings for jazz pianists and arrangers. Voicings free jazz originals for varioussized bands by.

So, i figured lets do an article to explain the concept. Each line below contains four drop 2 chords for a string set. When youre dealing with any chord beyond 7ths chords, including any voicings with extentions, 99% of the time guitarists in all styles of music not just jazz and not just people playing chord melody arrangements are using drop 2 and drop 3 voicings to. This post is dedicated to the understanding of the drop 2 voicing technique. You might have heard the term drop2 voicings before, and it is more or less considered basic voicing knowledge for mainstream jazz guitar. The drop 2 piano chord voicing jazz piano voicings. Heres a short video on how i might use chords in a solo on a blues in c. In certain subgenres of jazz and gospel music, you can hardly listen to the chorus of a. The word voicings refers to the way in which a chord is spread out. Twohand piano voicings are essential for jazz pianists when comping behind melodists and soloists. An arranging technique used when voicing for four horns.

Drop2 voicings are very practical for playing chords with extensions, both on guitar and piano. Jazz chord essentials drop 2 voicings part 2 so now you have an overview of the basic drop2 voicings from the previous lesson. Drop 2 voicings bebop, hard bop, contemporary jazz. Specifically practice techniques and application to melodies of standards.

Step 3 figure out voicings for the 3 chords of the basic blues progression. This is because these are the most commonly used drop 2 chords. Drop 2 is a technique that many arrangers use to spread out chords played by an ensemble. The above example is a perfectly legitimate way to voice a cmaj7 chord, however, a much more common way to voice chords on the guitar is to use drop voicings. If you are advanced enough you can even play melodies with two hands by making the melody note the same as the top note of your chord. Drop 2 is a great way to voice chords and has been used in classical and jazz music for hundreds of years. Twohanded voicings we now move on to an oftenneglected aspect of jazz piano, and that is comping. Its worth mentioning a few of points about drop 2 voicings. Encyclopedia of lefthand jazz piano voicings learn jazz. Example drop 2nd voice root inversion drop ii g7 chord r,5,7,3. The drop 2 chord voicing creates a more textured and sophisticated sound that the four way close and can be heard extensively in the recordings. In that module we learned that chords are built up in thirds. Personally, the only time ive really used this knowledge is occasionally when i have written horn charts.

Piano chord voicings for jazz combo the pianist has a few functions in a jazz combo. In this article, i am using duke ellingtons prelude to a kiss to demonstrate drop 2 voicing techniques. The following lessons introduce some of the basics of jazz guitar chords. In order to create drop 2 chords, we simply take the second highest note in each chord and drop it down one octave i. Using drop 2 techniques in a 4 measure chord progression. Theyve been used by players from all time eras, from duke ellington, to wes montgomery, to george benson, to joe pass, to modern players like jonathan kreisberg and kurt rosenwinkel. Lets have fun with the drop 2 piano chord voicing a favorite among pro piano stylists is the drop 2 piano chord voicing. For example, you could play a cmaj7 chord as c e g b with each note a third above the previous called tertian harmony and all the notes within the range of an octave called close harmony or block chords. The m6 is a very useful voicing for three types of chords. Encyclopedia of twohand jazz piano voicings learn jazz. Drop 2 chords are the most popular chord voicings in jazz guitar, and serve a wide variety of purposes, including comping, soloing, and chord melody. Lots of wes montgomery solos use drop2 voicings and it is also a huge part of bebop piano and bigband arranging.

Drop 2 ii v i exercise heres a good exercise that will help you memorize the drop 2 voicings. Each note is sometimes called a voice, especially when talking about the movement of the inner voices of a chord progression. Applying drop 2 voicing techniques to cycle of 5ths. I had ruslan sirota in the studio to talk about his approach to drop 2 voicings. Each of the drop 2 chords we have looked at so far have been on strings 1234.

Start with the dm7 voicing in root position on the 12th fret and descend down the neck, while making as little change possible between chord changes. This is an short encyclopedia with 12 voicings for most of the chords jazz pianists are likely to encounter. Use the general voicing guidelines from page 7, the left hand voicings reference sheet, and the included blues sheets to help. Harmonising every melody note with a chord is a great sounding jazz piano technique. This important, iconic sound is actually very simple to understand and play. I will talk about why we use some voicings and explain it from a music theory point of view, but also a more visual description that really helps understanding and remembering the voicings. I also covered drop 2 voicings which generated some questions from our students.

Drop 2 exercises, cycle of 5ths, jazz piano tutorial youtube. For example, measure 3 of line 2 is the 2nd inversion drop 2 c major 7 chord on strings 2 5. Would you like to learn a fast and easy way to use drop 2 voicings. What musicians mean when they say drop voicings is that one or more of the. How to learn drop 2 jazz chords the right way leave a reply. By understanding how drop 2 chords are built you can quickly learn to play them over the entire neck. That said, in order to maximize the benefit from learning it, like any voicing, using it over and over again will lead continue reading the drop 2 piano chord voicing. The four chords are derived in order from the root position, 1st inversion, 2nd inversion, and 3rd inversion. To explain why drop2 voicings are very handy on guitar try to play the first half of example 1. The basic approach is to take the third and sixth voicings aka fourway close and drop the second from top tone down an octave. The easiest way to play two handed chords is through the use of upper structure triads.

Think of drop 2 as a lateral process, rather than a vertical event. On the other hand jazz guitar voicings is crystal clear about a profoundly fundamental idea. Complete guide to drop 2 chords jamie holroyd guitar. Can someone please explain drop 2 and drop 3 voicings to. Part of that lesson was using a diminished approach technique which i discuss in depth in the lesson. I recommend that you study the comping etudes and learn these thoroughly first. They have been used by many of the great jazz guitarists including joe pass and wes montgomery. Three voicing techniques from the beautiful solo piano introduction to taylor eigstis tune midnight after noon from his 2010 concord records release, daylight at midnight, are examined in this lesson. This handout is the second in a twopart series of reference voicings for the jazz pianist.

Jazz pianists in the decades prior to the 1950s generally played more block chords andor shell voicings like roots and 7ths and put the root in their voicings most of the time. Play drop 2 voicings in each of the three groups of four adjacent strings. Inside premium jazz lessons, you can learn 3 full arrangement levels of every song. An approach borrowed from jazz arranging is to drop the 2nd voice from the top down an octave, to create an open voicing that is readily playable on the guitar.