Best Chord voicings

[gggomez]

A fun path I just went down, well I guess will be for the next 20 years as I thought is was so illuminating.

Just did my first chord melody arrangement thingy. Process involved coming up with my own chords so that the melody would sit on the strings I wanted and so my fingers could reach the bits of the chords comfortably. I also employed the, just change one note a semitone to make it jazzy. This really worked, I think. Also employed they add whatever note you can reach that sounds good. This combination took me on a super journey. I now have some of my own go to chords for fills etc, no idea what they are called but I think they sound good.

[Binyomin]

Thanks, the fast was reasonably easy. It feels good to eat again. Beautiful version of "Can't Get Started." The A triad you are talking about is the very last thing way up the neck? You're right, why play anything other than a plain triad there.

[jordanklemons]

Glad it was an easy one. I'm sure it's nice to be back to the dining table.

Thanks for checking out the video, glad you enjoyed it. I just watched it myself to remember exactly what I was playing. The A triad was the last chord I played, down on the lower part of the fretboard. Then I followed that with an arpeggio run up the fretboard into the higher part of the register. Pretty sure it was just an Aadd2 arpeggio.

[Steven Herron]

Out of all the various jazz chord voicing books I've seen over the decades my favorite is still Advanced Concepts For Rhythm Guitar by Steven Crowell. I know Steven and can tell you that this guy has been playing jazz guitar full time for a living for almost 50 years - talk about authority! He's played in Vegas for several decades backing up lots of famous stars and has played on the sound tracks of several famous Hollywood movies.

What I like about his book/CD is that he gives you ALL the jazz chord voicings you will ever need to play authentic jazz guitar, whether comping or chord melody. These are all great sounding chord voicings and he builds your vocabulary throughout the book using famous songs as examples. He also shows you chord passages and substitutions that you can use to fill up empty spaces where the song has you playing the same chord for several measures in a row.

I think you'll find that his book really holds your interest and gets you excited about advancing on to each new section.

[Groyniad]

i would just like to say that jordan k's contribution to this thread is amazing

its hard to understand - fresh - advanced - and promises to help us all towards a much more creative approach to harmonization than the ones we're all used to

i wish i understood it a bit better -

it seems to me that jordan is presenting - with real clarity and generosity - ideas which are right at the heart of the development that takes the music from e.g. bud powell to bill evans

and there is no transition in the music that i am more interested in than that

he presents the basic bud powell approach - which is the one i have used from the beginning - and then explains how to move on from here so that you can harmonize melodies in a more harmonically open and modern way (to my ear - this means bill evans)

is it just a question - after finding the upper voice triad that includes the melody note you're harmonizing - of finding some way on the guitar to stick the 3/7 shell underneath the triad?

i just can't imagine that i'm going to be able to cope with the physical problems this presents. certainly jordan seems to be pulling off some pretty scary fingerings in that fantastic video

and i get intimidated by those sorts of finger-challenges - but the sounds are just so appealing....

thank you so much jordan

[Groyniad]

chord construction using upper voices first - a la J.k.:

work out what triads have the melody note as their top voice (it is only the top voice we're thinking of isn't it?)

try them out using a 3/7 shell underneath them...

-----------------

if we're in C which groups of three notes in thirds are we going to count as C triads?

just C-E-G

or that one AND

E-G-B
G-B-D
B-D-F

?

just trying to get my head around what is an entirely new idea for me.

[jordanklemons]

i would just like to say that jordan k's contribution to this thread is amazing

its hard to understand - fresh - advanced - and promises to help us all towards a much more creative approach to harmonization than the ones we're all used to

i wish i understood it a bit better -

it seems to me that jordan is presenting - with real clarity and generosity - ideas which are right at the heart of the development that takes the music from e.g. bud powell to bill evans

and there is no transition in the music that i am more interested in than that

he presents the basic bud powell approach - which is the one i have used from the beginning - and then explains how to move on from here so that you can harmonize melodies in a more harmonically open and modern way (to my ear - this means bill evans)

is it just a question - after finding the upper voice triad that includes the melody note you're harmonizing - of finding some way on the guitar to stick the 3/7 shell underneath the triad?

i just can't imagine that i'm going to be able to cope with the physical problems this presents. certainly jordan seems to be pulling off some pretty scary fingerings in that fantastic video

and i get intimidated by those sorts of finger-challenges - but the sounds are just so appealing....

thank you so much jordan

You're welcome Groy... and thank YOU... you summed up the idea and context of this approach really nicely. I was definitely brought up in more of a bop focus. And I can tell you, as someone who still loves bop, this stuff can be VERY powerful for learning to play bop... especially the melodic implications for composition and improvisation.

But yes, I definitely agree, it's a very Bill Evans-esque approach. It yields harmony that can come off as rich and deep as the types of chords he was utilizing. And that's very much in the artistic aesthetic of what my ear loves these days.

It really can overlap with bop's melodic phrasing... but the harmonic aspects and applications are more of a post-bop/modern type of thing.

Sorry if it seems intimidating or confusing. Feel free to poke and prod and I'll try and answer some questions the best I can. Some of the voicings are a little tricky and require some creative approaches... but really, most of them aren't that hard to pull off. It just takes some time and focus and attention. It could take MANY years, if not a lifetime, to master the entire topic and all of it's harmonic and melodic applications... but in just 5 or 10 minutes, it's possible to find 1 or 2 new usable voicings and melodic ideas that can be applied to a ii V I or a standard.

[wanderingchords]

Thanks everyone for your amazing input and advice on this topic... Ive barely gotten to get into any of the suggestions so this thread will keep me busy for a very long time!

Sent from my LG-D850 using Tapatalk

[jordanklemons]

chord construction using upper voices first - a la J.k.:

work out what triads have the melody note as their top voice (it is only the top voice we're thinking of isn't it?)

try them out using a 3/7 shell underneath them...

-----------------

if we're in C which groups of three notes in thirds are we going to count as C triads?

just C-E-G

or that one AND

E-G-B
G-B-D
B-D-F

?

just trying to get my head around what is an entirely new idea for me.

Yeah, so at the risk of making things seem more complex... there are different categories of major chords that all behave a little differently and can accept different major triads in their upper structure. To answer your specific question, I'm going to try and keep this simple by sticking to a Maj7 chord category.

Over a CMaj7 (C-E-B in the left hand if sitting at a piano... the G note is optional and not 100% essential)... the major triads that work (in my ear) are

D major (D-F#-A)
E major (E-G#-B)
G major (G-B-D)
B major (B-D#-F#)

There are minor triads that fit too, and that can create some gorgeous tonalities... but to keep this more simple, let's stick with these four major triads.

There are TONS of voicings, inversions, and applications of all of these... but here's one or two simple voicing for each of these.

DMaj/CMaj7 - this triad doesn't have the R, 3rd, or 7th of the C chord in it... so ideally, we want to add as many of the notes underneath it as possible.

CMaj13#11(9)
X22(232)

The D triad in parenthesis and the 3rd and 7th underneath it. The problem with this voicing is that it's basically a min7 chord... with the 11. By putting the Maj7th of a maj7 chord in the bass... it can make this a very vague chord if used with no bass player. It just sounds like a Bmin chord. If you have a bass player playing a C note under the voicing, it can work... if playing solo, I prefer to throw the 7th away and replace it with the root

X32(232)

Much more clear that it's a CMaj chord then. To get an idea of what it would sound like with a bass player, change it to an EMaj13#11(9)
066(676)

Emaj/CMaj7 - this triad has both the 3rd, #5th, and 7th of CMaj7 built into it. So we don't need to repeat it. All that's left that we need to add is the R.

C+Maj7
X3X(454)

Gmaj/CMaj7 - This has the 7th and 5th already in it. All that's needed to complete it (if there's a bass player) is the 3rd. If playing solo and we want the full chord with the root, that's a little tougher... but still possible if we use our thumb.

CMaj9
(without root) XX2(433)
(with root - using thumb to play lowest 2 strings) [33]2(433)

Bmaj/CMaj7- has the 7th already in it... just needs the 3rd... and the root if not bass player.

CMaj7#11#9
X32(442)



Here's a couple voicings for G7 using this approach. Try any of these resolved to any of the CMaj7 voicings to get an idea for how to use these during harmonic movement.

G13b9 (EMaj/G7)
3X3(454) or 3X3(100)

G7#9 (Bbmaj/G7)
X2X(331)

G7b9b5 (Dbmaj/G7)
X2(3)(121)

I know that was a lot. Hope it makes sense though. And these are just the major triads. There are so many harmonic and melodic possibilities in this stuff. It's easy to get lost in the theory of it all. Seeing on the piano yields a much more clear view of why this stuff works. I would recommend starting there if possible. Putting this stuff onto the fretboard does take a bit of translating. Hope these voicings help though. Hopefully just hearing some of the voicings will get things to make sense. These are really dense voicings and fantastic for ballads and slower mid tempo tunes. Give them a shot and let me know what you think. I'll be really curious to hear your thoughts.