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Thought I'd start explaining how chords are built, but explain the concepts rather than show all examples. There were some great insights from BDLH. John400 and ChuckC on thread "What Voicings should I use".
Most concepts tend to be mechanical... you start with a single pitch or note and fill in the rest of notes of desired chord. Chords can be built from top to bottom, bottom to top or from inside out, it doesn't matter. I'm going to explain dropped style voicings. Dropped style chords work from Top Down. Lets take a Cmaj7 built on top 4 strings, built;
X X 10 9 8 7. From top down, B, G, E, C. Again when we are talking about dropped voicings, were talking from the top note down, and since the top note is what were voicing, there would be no Drop 1. Anyway... You would simple take the 2nd note, starting from top, and "drop" down 1 octave. In our example; the 2nd note is "G", drop it down 1 octave and you would have;
Original... X X 10 9 8 7
Drop 2 ... X 10 10 9 X 7
If we want drop 3, we drop the 3rd note down 8vb
Original... X X 10 9 8 7
Drop 3 ... X 7 10 X 8 7
If we want drop 4, we drop the 4th note down 8vb
Original... X X 10 9 8 7
Drop 4 ... 8 X X 9 8 7
The same "concept" of dropping a note down an octave, in the existing chord can be used on any voicing as long as it's possible to finger.
Here's another example;
Original... X X 7 7 8 7 I'll call it a Cmaj13, I know, no root etc...
Drop 2... X 10 7 7 X 7.. I dropped 2nd note, G down 8vb.
So we now understand the concept of creating a series of the same guitar chord... built by re-arranging the notes below the "lead" note, in this example we used Dropped style voicings to create the chords. So in theory you could start from bottom... keep the lowest note the same and rather than "drop"... "raise" the 2nd note of chord an octave etc... and create a series of voicings. You usually run into fingering problems...
Original... 8 X 9 9 8 X ... C, B, E, G, Cmaj7
Lets raise the 2nd note, from bottom...
Original... 8 X 9 9 8 X
Raised 2.. 8 X X 9 8 7 a little hard to finger...
I only brought up the idea of "raise chords" to stress the point that the process or creating chord or voicings is based on a concept or technique, as are most chords....What happens in the real world of playing guitar is you go through a process of learning a concept or method, as in our example, dropped style voicings make changes, add or double notes to make playable or simple make more musical rather than mechanical and build from there ...I added a PDF showing 1st examples... To be continues. Reg
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10-03-2010 02:03 PM
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Thank you Reg! I found this to be very helpful!
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Great. Thanks!
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If anyone want to get more into Drop-2 check out the book.... Drop-2 Concept for Guitar by Charles Chapman. Covers the chords and application of them.
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Reg, do ou ever use Bill Evans/Lenny Breau's method of rootless voicings, using the sixth often instead of the fifth? The two categories: A and B.
One starts with third in the bass, the other seventh?
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Originally Posted by Jazzyteach65
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Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
The system works like this: There are two categories, "A" and "B."
"A" has the third in the bass and "B" has the seventh in the bass. these chords allow for great voice-leading.
Category "A" is voiced:
3,7,9
3,6,9
3,6,7,9
3,5,6,7
ect.
Category B goes:
7,3,6
7,9,3,5 or 6
ect.
with a ii-V-I, always alternate the category for each change.
ex: let's say you have a-7,D7, G.
I would take a voicing from Cat A for the a-7 and connect it to category B of D7, connect that to Category A for G.
A-7=(low to high) c, g, b (3,7,9) D7=c,f#.b (7,3, 6) to G-b, f#, a (3,7,9)
Now, this can be applied to every kind of progression. If you think about it, there are only three intervals one can harmonically progress-a 5th/4th,
a 7th/9th (major or minor) and a third/6th.
progression of a fifth/4th. change category-a to b, b to a
progressions of a 7th/2nd-always keep same cat
progression of a third-change or keep.
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Interesting. Are you assuming the bass is taking care of the root and fifth, or are you letting it float without them? When I think of comping solo, I tend to be boring and stick with roots on the bottom. I need to work on that.
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Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
certain rootless voicings are good for comping solo, some are not.
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Originally Posted by Jazzyteach65
As you said does work great for voicing melodies, I like the spacing, Now days, most guitarist are more interested in much more dissonant intervallic voicings. I tend to simply voice under lead lines according to context.
If you use... would be great example for all of us to learn from... Best Reg
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Originally Posted by Reg
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Try this for a ii-V-I:
D- (low to high): C, E,F,B to V7-B,Eb,F,Bb to the I-B,C,E,A
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Originally Posted by Jazzyteach65
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Originally Posted by Reg
This is what I gathered from Ted Greene forums (I did not figure these out):
Ted Greene Voicing Groups (name, root position, description):
V-1 1,3,5,7 Closed voicing
V-2 1,5,7,3 Drop the 2nd voice of V1
V-3 1,3,7,5 Drop the 2nd voice of V2
V-4 1,7,3,5 Raise the 3rd voice of V3
V-5 1,5,3,7 Raise the 2nd voice of V2
V-8 1,7,5,3 Raise the 2nd voice from V4
In the following voicings the bottom note is an octave down
V-6 1,3,5,7 Raise the 3rd voice of V4
V-7 1,5,7,3 Raise the 3rd voice of V6
In the following voicings the top note is an octave up:
V-9 1,5,7,3 Raise the 1st(highest) voice from V2
In the following voicings there is an octave between the second and third voices:
V-10 1,5,7,3 Raise the 2nd voice from V5
As you can see, V-2 (drop 2) and V-4 are standard guitar voicings for guitar.
There is a lot of cool and amazing stuff in www.Tedgreene.com and Ted Greene forums --check it out if haven't already!!
Thanks,
Sampo
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Great post Sampo... you went through the process, that's what every guitarist needs to do... all these techniques of voicing have been around for along time. There all mechanical organizational methodologies for deriving voicings. Reg
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I use the 5 family method ofv "dropped" chords-
each family is a string group-4321, 5321, 5432, 6543, 6432.
Reg, don't you find playing those widely-spaced voicings in which you play two notes on the 6th and 5th strings, then skip and have two notes on the 3rd and 2nd or 2nd and 1st too spaced for comping? It feels like playing a quintally-voiced chord
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Hey Jazzteach... yes totally, the louder the gig the less options I have...I do like the process of learning methods of chord construction and voicings, and believe the concept of understanding these things is as important as the actual voicings one chooses to use. Reg
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Originally Posted by Jazzyteach65
Now an example of why one should learn the voicings located on 6-5- 2-1
[CHORD] F ma7
||---|---|---|---|-4-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|-4-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|x
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|x
||---|---|-3-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||-1-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[/CHORD]
[CHORD] Fma7 (double the 3rd)
||---|---|---|---|-4-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|-4-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|-2-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|-3-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||-1-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[/CHORD]
[CHORD]Fma9
||---|---|---|---|-4-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|-4-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|-3-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|-2-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||-1-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[/CHORD]
[CHORD] Fma7#11
||---|---|---|---|-4-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|-4-|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|-3-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||---|---|-2-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||-1-|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[/CHORD]
I added 1 note and look what happened. If I hadn't studied the voicings on strings 6521 how would I have found these other voicings?
Note: Try them higher up the fingerboard if the stretch is too much.
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Originally Posted by JohnW400
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Cool John... I never used the first one ... but I use that spread, with inner voices for intro's , interludes or quite sections. Usually the 5th on bottom as pedal and move upper voices around... again very quite gigs, or tunes with lots of space. On the lower register, on jazz boxes that spread will beat up the left hand after too much time... Thanks man... Reg
How many guitars and amps have you owned?
Today, 11:04 AM in Guitar, Amps & Gizmos