Closed chords

[Jazzstdnt]

This is mostly to see if I have it straight, and to open up things a little bit, hopefully for the benefit of others.

For the pianist with a lead sheet, the chord types are indicated above the single clef staff which shows melody line notes. If the pianist is playing a head with a band, or playing alone, or otherwise wants to play the melody with chords, the "go to" mechanism is to employ drop 2.

The way this works is from the top down. The top note is the melody note, the chord is placed immediately below it, the right hand ring finger (second from the top - AKA "2") is raised off of what would be that note of the chord, and that missing note is played by the thumb (top finger) of the left hand. This does a couple of things:

- places the melody note on top
- places a gap between the melody note and the chord below
- frees the ring finger of the right hand to join the pinky finger in playing the melody line
- depending on the complexity of the chord, it shifts playing fingers toward the extensions end of the right hand chord
- likewise, by setting the dropped 2 note as the top of the left hand, a similar up shift occurs
- both shifts (inversions) naturally help avoid putting roots on the bottom

Drop 3 and 4 are similar, used when the melody line is self harmonized (double stops and triad stabs for guitarists) or to increase the separation of the single note melody from the chord below, or to invoke additional voicing in the chords below.

I guess drop 1 would mean playing chords avoiding a melody note altogether, maybe good for comping.

For the guitarist, the the drop numbers mean notes, not fingers... the pianist lifts his right ring finger to play drop 2, but the guitarist's fingers don't live in the linear space of those of the pianist. Typical guitar chords routinely tend to have missing tones, so I suspect a lot of drop 2 on the guitar is really "in the spirit" of drop 2... just the top of the chord in strict compliance.

Ultimately, both pianist and guitarist approach these things conceptually rather than mechanically... glancing at the lead sheet, hearing the music, and instinctively feeling their fingers desire to take those positions.

Jazz pianists have used/do use a variety of two and one hand voicing conventions. No offense but it goes way beyond what you have described here.

[Jazzstdnt]

Right. My point is that I wasn't talking really talking about close voicings as much as using that open/close terminology to describe things like drop2. Not saying that people don't use "close"on other contexts.

But I don't think of a drop 2 as being an "open" or "close" voicing.

Why? No offense but the semantics may be leading to overthinking this.

So-called "Drop" voicings are indeed examples of an approach to arranging/orchestrating with open voicings. There are other approaches as well.