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Also I don't think the fifth sounds bad if it's the top voice (or alto), even bass. It is a bit muddying if it's the tenor voice with a root in the bass.
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07-14-2025 11:05 AM
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What? That is the only relationship any drop 2 chord has with the concept of drop 2 voicing. That they are consistent with the definition of the drop 2 concept. One may not name them or arrive at them differently. But one one calls a chord a drop 2 voicing, they imply that the voicings construction conforms to the definition.
Originally Posted by pamosmusic
Drop 2 is a way of arranging a closed voiced 4 note chord that spans less than an octave. For example you can arrange the Gminor 11 chord (G Bb C F) in drop 2.
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Sure but you’re the one invested in your term being concrete and descriptive of the end result and mine being squishy and descriptive of a process. Originally Posted by Tal_175
Just pointing out that there’s not all that much difference.
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I was invested in understanding what you're talking about whey you say "shell voicings", especially as a way to characterize Ed Bickert's comping. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
It's very hard to reverse engineer the thought process of a great player when their years of development was likely non-linear.
Many of the voicings above appear to me like they are common guitar jazz grips. Mostly drops and rootless drops. You can find all these voicings in any experienced players vocabulary. The secret is in the application. Sure you can call them shell voicings in they way you personally define them, but it's not something that just goes without saying. To me he is just beautifully voice leading common guitar grips.
A lot of people talk about shell voicings and adding upper extensions but nobody sounds like Ed Bickert. Fareed Haque has a course on this stuff, yet his comping sounds very different. Let's just say, I don't think "shell derivative thinking is required to sound like Ed" is an obvious truth.
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There's the slight issue of the fact that the original close voicing that you 'drop' is often not playable on the guitar by non Ben Monder humans. Again you add it to the list of 'things that are completely trivial on piano that can make your brain hurt on guitar.'
Again none of this to say any of this stuff is wrong or useless, but when someone knows a lot of theory, there's a decision to be made about what the easiest, most helpful and most straightforward ways of labelling a chord might be. (Sometimes if you are lucky, those three things might be the same thing, but usually not.)
In a very simple case, when I'm teaching 'We are Never Ever Getting Back Together' what is the value of labelling the first chord as 'Cadd9' even? Could it be 'cool version of C'? I don't deny that knowing it's a Cadd9 might be useful somewhere along the line, but when you are getting started, it maybe more use to know this is another way to play a basic C sound. So, yeah, decisions all the time.
(That basic voicing is not an obvious drop voicing either)
In terms of my own playing, my labelling tends to be application based. So my missus thinks it hilarious when I say I'm playing a 'B flat chord' when it has a bunch of stuff added to it. Or all my II V I's which aren't in fact, II V Is. Anyway....
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Yeah, it implies that you might invert that structure. Inverting that structure is something I would put in the 'advanced' and 'optional' category for those who can already play jazz gigs. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
If they can't do that, probably more important stuff to prioritise.
But info comes up without context these days.
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first inversion is pure evil Originally Posted by Christian Miller
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For what it's worth, I like to think of myself as sort of Costco Ed Bickert. Y'know ... low budget but quality. Also probably too much of one thing for anyone to reasonably use. Maybe I'm more like dollar store bargain bin Ed Bickert. But these sorts of chords are literally all I practice anymore. It's been most or all of what I practice for probably fifteen years now. To the point where I'd be comfortable calling it a limitation. But I do work on these chords a ton and it does reliably produce that sound. Originally Posted by Tal_175
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Something I have been thinking about recently is inversions vs. rotations. An inversion of a close voicing which remains close is also a rotation of that voicing (BassTenorAltoSoprano->TASB = root pos.->1st inv.), but by rotating root position drop 2, you get 1st inversion "raise 2." In fact, every inversion of drop 2 is formed by a unique "replication strand!" Here's a table! Columns rotate, rows contain inversions. Basic close & spread (rows 1&6) are independent from the other rows because their rotations are their inversions.
1. Close: BTAS TASB ASBT SBTA
2. Raise 2: BTSA TABS ASTB SBAT (= Spread D3)
3. Spread Drop 2: TSAB ABST STBA BATS (= Spread R3)
4. Drop 3: SABT BSTA TBAS ATSB (= Spread R2)
5. Drop 2: ABTS STAB BAST TSBA (= R3)
6. Spread: SATB ATBS TBSA BSAT
Sorted by wideness of the outer voices, I consider the actual ordering of this table/list to be: C, D2, R2, D3, S-D2, S. Of course each of these could be made rootless or 5th-less and have alterations/extensions, but since the 6 rows contain all 24 unique permutations of a tetrachord, I'm quite certain that any voicing you could think of could be derived from one of these. Voicing modality! Lots of fun patterns in here.Last edited by MinToyTot; 07-14-2025 at 01:24 PM.
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That's too intellectual and abstract for me. Can you apply it to rhythm changes as an example?
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He's a master of jazz guitar. If you are transcribing his lines you are doing a good thing. Originally Posted by pamosmusic
I would tend to agree with you here, these are the same common grips that most experienced players would use. He's leaving off the roots sometimes. His voice leading, style, and sense of swing are exemplary though. Originally Posted by Tal_175
I was invested in understanding what you're talking about whey you say "shell voicings", especially as a way to characterize Ed Bickert's comping.
It's very hard to reverse engineer the thought process of a great player when their years of development was likely non-linear.
Many of the voicings above appear to me like they are common guitar jazz grips. Mostly drops and rootless drops. You can find all these voicings in any experienced players vocabulary. The secret is in the application. Sure you can call them shell voicings in they way you personally define them, but it's not something that just goes without saying. To me he is just beautifully voice leading common guitar grips.
A lot of people talk about shell voicings and adding upper extensions but nobody sounds like Ed Bickert. Fareed Haque has a course on this stuff, yet his comping sounds very different. Let's just say, I don't think "shell derivative thinking is required to sound like Ed" is an obvious truth.Last edited by AdroitMage; 07-14-2025 at 06:47 PM.
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Been looking at this lately...
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It's entirely possible that there's a world of harmonic possibilities that I'm missing, so take this accordingly. And, this is probably a rant, so there's a good argument for not reading any further.
Whenever I look at a bunch of 4 note chord diagrams on a page I know most of them. I'd need a pencil, paper and a week in a quiet room to tell you which are drop anything or which inversion.
I also work on knowing the notes in the chords I use. I know what the grips sound like. That allows me to pick the notes I want depending on what I think of as the melodic content of my comping.
So, I find the notes I want and I never think about Drop-n, because I don't know those labels anyway.
I learned those voicings mostly from learning others' chord melodies and by figuring out my own, trial and error. I learned some from Almir Chediak's books.
So, learning in the context of applications. Not isolated combinatorics. That extends to learning chord sequences from various sources, always in the context of tunes.
If I was arranging big band horns it might be different, although, the few times I've done that, I found the voicings I wanted on the piano, never thinking about drop-n.
But, many players seem to find drop-n thinking helpful. I recall one post pointing out that it's an organized approach to learning all possible voicings. I'm not sure how you get them on the guitar in all possible ways using an organized approach, but it sounds like a lot of work. There are a lot of possible string groups. And, you might be better off learning fewer voicings but knowing how to apply them in multiple ways.
My impression is that most players (intermediate and on) would be better off working on rhythmic content and learning a bunch of chord sequences - from tunes. Also, learning the notes in the chords you're playing and, of course, where they are on the fingerboard.
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Preach Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
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For what it’s worth this has been the biggest advantage of learning chords built off those little rootless shells. It’s two voicings for everything and the extensions are kind of an afterthought. Whatever melody you want, you just throw it on top. Originally Posted by AllanAllen
Gives you way more time to work on rhythm, melody and voiceleading, sideslipping and other things like that without worrying about other chord voicings.
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So I did have a chance to look at this one ... this is one of my favorite albums but I've never transcribed anything off of this. I won't go through the whole thing, but it's worth noting that the chord symbols are not the prevailing harmony of the tune, but the transcriber's best guess at the actual chord Ed is playing. So this is Alone Together in Gm and we have ... Originally Posted by Tal_175
First measure after the intro ...
Gm -- just a rooted shell 1 7 3
Am7b5 D7 -- rootless shells
Gm -- a Bbmaj7 regular rooted shell 1 7 3 relative to the Bb, then a Gm triad.
Am7b5 D7 -- 7 3 shell with G on top to a 3 7 shell with #9 and #5 on top
Gm -- standard Gm6/9 thing, no shell
G7 -- 7 3 shell with tensions on top
Cm -- cool open chord thing that Ed likes to do
Cm again -- I have no idea why the guy calles this a Bbmaj7, but it's a pretty standard Cm/F7 voicing built off 3 and 6 of the Cm
The next chord he calls D11, but it should be an Em7 in the prevailing harmony -- from that point of view it's a 3 7 shell with 9 and 11 up top. then he goes to Dmaj7 over G, which should be the A7 following. From that point of view it's a 7 3 shell with 13 and root up top.
That Ab7 to Gm move is a killer backdoor from what would normally be written as F7 to Bb --- the Ab7 voicings are 7 3 shells with 13 and then 5 on top and the Gm voicings are a Dm 3 7 with the root on top and a Gm 7 3 shell with the 5 on top. Then you just have some descending two note shells for two measures.
The next chorus goes on like this. I could write that one up, but I feel like this is probably enough.
Are there other ways to conceptualize these chords? Sure. But the number of them that are two or three notes and contain the 3 and 7, and the way the voice-leading, even in the larger voicings, really leans very very heavily on 3 and 7 is pretty clear, I think.
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For what it's worth, Tal has said that as well and I'm not why this precludes them being derived from those shell voicings. Originally Posted by AdroitMage
I would point to what Tal said in the post you quoted:
And I would ask -- where is most of that beautiful voiceleading coming from? Hint ... it's not root to fifth.To me he is just beautifully voice leading common guitar grips.
Okay spoiler, it's third to seventh.
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Yes; 3rd and 7th are important to the function of a chord and they are pravelant in most common guitar chord grips. Voice leading 101 commonly involves these as the active voices regardless of the voicing type or number of voices. Every experienced jazz guitarists use their chord voicings this way rather than randomly jumping around the fretboard.
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Well okay ... but having a voicing that relies on the presence and arrangement of the other voices also requires you to voice-lead those voices or you end up in a pickle pretty quickly. Originally Posted by Tal_175
C G Bb and Eb means you obviously voice-lead Bb to A and Eb is a common tone. But C is a common tone and G goes to F. Those notes could do other things (C# and Gb or something maybe) but they have to be accounted for too. So when you're focusing on the location and movement of the 3 and 7, then you end up with a lot more flexibility in the kind of voicing you're using, but also the texture -- in that Alone Together, he pretty routinely switches between 2, 3, and 4-note textures, root on the bottom or rootless, keeping the voice-leading intact the whole time.
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Different ways to look at it.
The way I relate to it is fairly standard building blocks, assembled beautifully.
He seems to be leaving most of the roots for the bassist or the imagination if there is no bassist. The rest has a nice set of alterations of the vanilla harmony using, extensions I - V - I, tritone subs, and a tendency to try to put some nearby notes together on different strings. So, for example, where he could have played xxx355, instead, plays xx8755 which gets a D in there rubbing nicely against the E. I may be overlooking some of his devices.
I get there by thinking about the fuller grips, omitting a lot of roots, omitting a lot of 5ths and trying to get some notes rubbing (a sound I really like).
If you get there thinking about shells, that's great. I've been thinking about that more lately -- to try to get more movement into my big band comping. Need more chord sequences played in shells. OTOH, it feels like thinking in shells is a whole new thing - that is, I'm not easily able to use my grip knowledge to pare down to shells. Seems like it would be easier than it has been.
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As far as leaving the root off of chords goes, that's a pretty standard thing when playing with a bass player or piano player who's handling the bass parts in his comping. The guitarist will usually leave off the roots in his comping so that he doesn't interfere with (AKA clash with, or 'step on') the bass player or piano player. Joe Pass talks about this in one of his instructional videos. He said he would try to stay out of the way of the piano player when the piano player was comping because "he's bigger than me" LOL and he has 88 keys while my guitar only has 6 strings.
Leaving the root off of a chord doesn't change its function or quality in the tune. If the root note happens to be repeated in a higher octave that's typically okay because up there it isn't perceived as a root, but rather just another color tone in the chord.
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For any beginners reading this thread, you only need to learn these three simple 3 note chords (shown below) and you will be able to play most Jazz songs when in a guitar duo.
Below: 3 note chords with the 'Root' on the low string.
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The fifth string root too. Without those, you can’t voicelead. Originally Posted by GuyBoden
For any beginners reading this thread, you only need to learn these three simple 3 note chords (shown below) and you will be able to play most Jazz songs when in a guitar duo.
Below: 3 note chords with the 'Root' on the low string.
This sheet has dim, 6, and mM too, but it’s only those first three on each string that you really need.
jazz_basic-shell-voicings-dg.pdf - Google Drive
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If you know your grips for the 4 note chord voicings without any extensions or alterations added,your basic 7th chords, you've got your 1 3 5 & 7 of the chord right there. If your fretboard knowledge is where it should be for a jazz musician, you should also easily be able to see which notes of the chord are the 1 3 5 or 7. Those are your "meat and potatoes" tones right there. If you want to leave out the root, okay, just play 5 3 7 or just 3 7, done, or if you want to be creative and hear something different play 5 3 or 5 7. So what I'm not understanding is, since you have them right there (and your fretboard knowledge is where it should be so you can easily identify the intervals) why would one then need a whole seperate area of study to practice to get to those tones when you already have them right there in your unaltered and unextended 4 note grips? Seems to me that instead of all that, one should work on increasing your fretboard knowledge so that you know where the intervals are within the grips and then you can use the ones you want at will. Seems to me that approach would also pay dividends in other areas of your playing too, because fretboard knowledge IMO is huge, or am I missing something?
If you're just seeking more inversions of the chords, then okay invert away, there are hundreds to thousands to choose from, but the same logic described above should still apply.
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Yeah, four note chords are hard to play. Originally Posted by AdroitMage
C G B E … easy on any string set.
E B C G … not bad on the top, really really hard on the middle and bottom
G C E B … easy on top, tough in the middle, easy on the bottom
B E G C … easy everywhere but not a popular voicing for the m9 in the outer voices (I don’t care, but I’m a heathen).
So fretboard knowledge aside … I can play all those voicings, but there are many that I’m not jumping to on the fly. If I want to voicelead them well, I *am 100% going to* run into voicings that just don’t lay well on guitar.
If I want extensions, it’s a whole other ball of wax. I could play some of those same voicings rootless to get 9ths, but 11ths and 13s are going to sub out the fifth and give me a whole other set of voicings that are often harder to play and that need to be voicelead too etc etc
3rd 7th and color as a framework means I have the bedrock of 3-7 voiceleading and can just slap whatever color I want on top to make a strong melody. On top of which, if I’m adding two notes, I’m going to land on some of those drop (mostly drop 2) voicings anyway when they lay well on guitar.
So I might flip the question on you:
If you can find your 3rds and 7ths, and your fretboard knowledge is where it should be, then why do you need this whole elaborate system of drop 2 and drop 3 and drop 2/4 and double drop voicings and upper structures and substitutions to get a harmonic vocabulary happening?
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