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I was not sure if I would ever post here again after the encounters I had previously. Anyway I still receive emails from time to time. Well I just saw one called 'Drop 3 Chords' and thought to myself, what on Earth is that? I went to Google and the first page I found was this:
Drop 3 Voicings - Guitarist Camilo Velandia
Looking at the first example, I instantly notice it is incorrect (it was incorrect online music theory that brought me here to ask questions in the first place). On the page I linked to there are four versions of the chord C^7, but none of them are correctly named. The first chord is in the root position, the second chord is the first inversion etc...
Anyway I carried on down the page and discovered what this strange terminology 'Drop 3' actually means. What I don't understand is the advantage of using this terminology. If you drop 3 on a root position tetrad, it produces what I call the second inversion (with the 5th in the base). The rest of the notes (above) can be arranged in various ways. What I don't understand is what special significance this particular set of voicings (produced using the Drop 3 approach) might have, and why the miriads of other possilbe arrangements might be considered any less special.Last edited by czardas; 08-05-2015 at 02:20 PM.
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08-05-2015 02:17 PM
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The page makes a hash of what is an nth inversion. I think you already know what it means:
root position: lowest note in voicing is root.
1st inversion: lowest note in voicing is 3rd.
2nd inversion: lowest note in voicing is 5th.
3st inversion: lowest note in voicing is 7th.
The categorization "drop 3 voicing" identifies a class of voicings. I find the categorizations drop 2 and drop 3 useful. Others may not.
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A little confusing for the dude to teach about theory for drop voicings, and then, to name them based on the root. Drop voicings are talked about in relationship to the top note of the chord. His first close-position example chord has almost zero relationship to the first drop chord. That site is just confusing if you don't already know what you're looking at. I'd use another reference which teaches the concept with relation to the one note which actually changes when you "drop" a voice.
Drop 3 Chords & Inversions - The Jazz Guitar Blog
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There's nothing "special" anout them, aside from that they're playable.
All the terminology is just for organization. Tou'll never be on the bandstand and the leader will say, "can you play a second inversion Cmaj7, please?"
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Okay good, that's what I thought. Thanks for confirming. It's just a method of categorisation typically used in Jazz. Interesting approach, but it still seems a bit of an odd way to do things because of it seeming unduly complicated. Although perhaps it is not so complicated, but rather limited instead. Allow me to elaborate:
Drop 2 (2va) on a root position hexad produces the fourth inversion and ... then what?
Oh forget it! I just type everything into Sibelius and drag and drop the voices wherever it sounds good LOL.
I appreciate your responces and I learned something new.Last edited by czardas; 08-05-2015 at 06:58 PM. Reason: spelling typo
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Hexads?
Drop 2 and 3, in a jazz guitar application, are referring to tetrads...maj7, 7, m7, m7b5...
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Which was why I thought the concept may be somewhat limited. I have got the whole picture now. Thanks once more. It's good to know about it if someone asks me what it means.
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I hear you man. I sort of feel like I'm walking around in the wild west on here sometimes. Things can get a little out of hand. But overall I find most people are quite friendly and open. Definitely took me a while to figure out how to find my feet.
Originally Posted by czardas
As far as drop 3s go. It looks like you've figured out what's going on there already?
I just wanted to add my 2 cents from a different perspective as to WHY they exist and are talked about.
Guitar players tend to talk about these voicings a lot and sometimes it seems they can become dogmatic about it, or it can get confusing and mixed up.
As far as I know, these did not stem from the guitar world itself. We simply adopted it and they can potentially be helpful in organizing our instrument since we often times lack the physical ability to play closed position chords the way a piano player does.
But to me, these ideas are about way more than just where to find the most physically comfortable positions for the guitar. It's about arranging. If we're working with a 5-piece horn section, and we know our trumpet it going to take the highest pitch voice, then all the other horns have to fall underneath that. As the trumpet goes lower, we have less and less room for the other horns, and usually will try and voice them in a closed position chord. But as the trumpet goes higher, the range within which we can voice out the chord gets much bigger. And the tenor sax, trombone, bari sax, bass clarinet, and any other lower pitched chords we're dealing with can no longer go high enough to reach the notes needed for a close position voicing. So what do we do? We drop notes down an octave. Whether we drop the 2nd to highest note, the 3rd to highest, the 2nd and 4th, or any other combination will all depend on the range of the instruments, the previous notes where the horns are coming from and headed (for good voice leading), etc.
The notion of putting these ideas onto the fretboard can be helpful. But really, we're just copying an idea that comes from somewhere else at that point. It's just about helping create moving harmony in a way that makes sense to each individual instrument.
Comparing it to inversions can get a little sticky since some people think the inversion has to be an 'exact' inversion, with the same note order, just everything rotated. And others feel an inversion is based ONLY on which note is in the bass and the rest don't matter. I don't really take a stance either way on that conversation because it doesn't matter much to me. But if you ever do any significant amount of medium-large horn section arranging, you'll find GREAT value in the 'drop' techniques. Saves a lot of time and energy and thinking. You just spell out the chord, figure out which 'drop' will give the best voice leading, drop the right notes an octave and move on knowing ALMOST 100% that it'll sound great.
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Thanks jordanklemons. The issue I had on this forum was a few years ago, but it left me feeling quite ill. I know there are some decent folk here and the responces in this thread demonstrate the good will that many of you have.
Of course I know to play these chord voicings - I'm just not familiar with the jazz terminology. Your post is very interesting. I have actually arranged for a small brass section (tuba, trumpet and trombone only), but it was quite a while ago and really just a very simple flamenco rumba and colombianas.
I'm sure (as you say) these spacings will always sound good. I often space chords with closer note proximity in the higher register, but not always. Your description of the squeezed available range is very clear and sheds light on the origin of the terminology. Great post - thank you!
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Yeah, its one of those "jazzspeak" phrases you gotta know. Originally Posted by czardas
They're useful in the sense that notes like roots and fifths can easily be dropped out and color tones plugged in...generally, jazz pkayers are ysually "implying" harmony beyond the 7th...you rarely see jazz players bashing out 5 and 6 string chords.
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Got that one covered. I say you should not omit the 7th or any altered notes, unless another instrument plays them. That's my rule of thumb. Omitting the 3rd is a little more complex and not always a good idea. Missing notes can often be implied by context - a fascinating, and little understood, consequence of listner brain activity. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
Last edited by czardas; 08-05-2015 at 07:00 PM.
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Right...reading my post back, it sounds weird...basically we're saying the same thing...
Guitar player wants say, 13b9...i might be only playing 3 or 4 notes, but still getting the sound i want.
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Really? That must have been tough to voice your chords with close note proximity with that instrumentation, no? Was the trumpet written really low? Or the other two really high? Originally Posted by czardas
The close voicing thing is cool, very beautiful and effective. I love using it on fast moving passages, especially if it's in the right range for everyone. Just gives such a tight and compact quality. The open and drop voicings I love for slower pieces and longer held chords as they bring an expansive quality that's too clunky in my ear for fast melodies, but just stunning for slower pieces. And then mixing and matching them to allow for the ranges of the instruments if the melody is moving drastically up or down is just such a fun way to give each individual instrument its own little life...sort of creates like an accordion effect with the voicings.
Anyways...glad you got your stuff figured out. And glad you decided to come back. Always nice to have more friendly people around to converse with...welcome back!
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mr. beaumont
Yeah it amounts to the same thing. I just said omit what you want with certain exceptions: which seems to me to be a concise way to approach the subject of omissions. I have left out several details here though. With omissions, certain chords will always remain unambiguous while other chords will become ambiguous when outside of context.
I have a list of exceptions, based on an unambiguous system of chord construction. There isn't much room to add new stuff. There are only a couple of thousand ways you can actually arrange 12 notes harmonically. The work I did on this subject is on another computer, but I might write an article about it in the future.
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Hey man, I'm actually writing my master's thesis right now on harmony...and more specifically, on taking a pianistic approach to upper structure triads to imply specific chords not starting from the root and building up, but rather starting at the top and building down. Which inevitably means leaving out many notes that most of us feel are essential. Originally Posted by czardas
I would love to hear more about your rules, exceptions, and system of chord construction. If you ever right out an article I would LOVE to read it. Or if there's anything online you can link to? Or just maybe start a thread.
I find a lot of resistance when I share 'out of the norm' harmonic ideas here. Would be great to hear someone else's way of thinking!
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jordanklemons
I can't remember much about the arrangement now: it was so long ago. All I remember is that it was a mad rush to get some music together for a performance while I was visiting home for christmas. I stayed awake a whole night writing parts, even though I was only used to writing on the treble cleff at the time. We rehearsed once on the day of the show. The players were invited to play as guests at the end of my solo guitar recital and produced a very professional performance.
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I would be happy to discuss it further with you. It will have to wait a short while though. I have a lot on my plate at the minute. The system of chord construction is not significantly different from standard chord construction, but it is purely formula based and follows what I think are a concise set of rules which can form the basis of an algorithm. The consequence is that 'superfluous duplicate' or meaningless chord names such as C11sus4 do not ever occur etc... Originally Posted by jordanklemons
Good to be back!
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Look forward to hearing more CZ
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myriads and possible. not miriads and possilbe. Jesus. Originally Posted by czardas
Here's a straightforward answer if you can handle it. close position seventh chords are difficult to play on the guitar. that's true of other stringed instruments as well, isn't it? so what do we do about that? we play open position voicings, that's what we do about that.
so:
Q. are all open voicings the same to us guitarists? are we as flexible as keyboard players with regards to voicing choices?
A. No.
Drop 3 voicings enable guitarists to play a nice open voicing with a decent bass (not base) voice on the bottom, and other tones played well above the bass voice. drop 2's can be comparatively muddy, when played from the sixth string.
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I think the appeal of drop 2 or drop 3 for guitarists is that they generally lay out pretty well on the fretboard. Pianists, for example, have a lot more options for voicing types that will work. As a guitarist, having a class of voicings which generally works enables you to systematically work through inversions across the fretboard. Originally Posted by czardas
As to the complicated thinking, you generally would work this type of thing out in practice and not think about forming them by dropping a voice on the fly while playing. And learning your drop twos or threes across the fretboard in inversions and working them out probably isn't much more complicated than otherwise working inversions across the fretboard in some other arbitrary manner.
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No it's very simple because it is limited to only a small subset of chords. If the principle were extended to cover any type of chord, the complexity would increase. I posted an example of the complexity that would arise above. Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
The above statement is true if you follow this way of thinking to it's natural conclusion. I look at that statement and think to myself that this is rather too complicated. Since the drop voicing (we are discussing) is limited to tetrads, the concept is instead very simple. It's this limitation that makes me lose interest to a degree. If I were to think in terms of dropped voices, I would not limit myself to tetrads. Doing so doesn't make much sense. Otherwise; the concept is sound in principle and (from a practical players point of view) produces a few good left hand exercises which I would also recommend.Drop 2 (2va) on a root position hexad produces the fourth inversion.
Edit
Please understand that the terminology used in Jazz is often alien to many virtuoso musicians on this planet - not that I'm one of them. It is becomming more interesting to me as I take on a wider range of guitar students. I reserve the right to judge the merit of each idea based on its strengths and weaknesses as I see them.
Edit2: To all those who were around at the time.
I am happy to be corrected if I'm wrong about something, but I won't accept amateurs telling me I know nothing, that I stole the identity of another player and that I make theory up just because you never heard of it. I hope that those who joined in the abuse will be able to let bygones be bygones. If someone reopens that can of worms, I'll simply vanish.Last edited by czardas; 08-06-2015 at 03:20 AM.
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Hold on. You're right that that site has the initial chord names all wrong. Originally Posted by czardas
But "drop 3" means the 3rd voice down from the top of the chord. In a root position (close-voiced) tetrad, therefore, that would be the 3rd of the chord, so you'd end up with (what you and I would call) a 1st inversion.
But I've always been confused about the naming conventions with drop voicings.
Ie, "root position drop 2" = 5th in bass = 2nd inversion. So do we call the result 2nd inversion or not?
Or maybe more to the point, which name do we use in which context?
AFAIK, the idea is to help defining certain kinds of open voicing. Eg, this shape:
-3--
-1--
-3--
-2--
----
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In one sense, that's a C7 in 1st inversion. But there could be many ways to voice a C7 in 1st inversion, right? This particular voicing would (or could anyway) be described as "3rd inversion drop 2" (Bb-C-E-G with the E lowered).
Meanwhile this:
-6-
-8-
-5-
---
-7-
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...which is also 1st inversion C7 of course, would be described as "root position drop 3" (C-E-G-Bb with E lowered).
Well, we obviously can't trust anything that site says! Originally Posted by czardas
But the idea of different voicings in general is to achieve certain sounds in harmonic progressions. The various kinds of open voicings each have different sounds from close voicings (in whatever inversion). So it makes sense to be able to name all those voicing choices.
Drop 2, eg, leaves the top voice detached from the lower voices, which helps it stand out melodically. Drop 3 opens up the lower part of the chord, leaving 2 close voices on top.
It's somewhat academic with guitar, where the tuning doesn't permit all the voicing options - and the standard 7th chord shapes we get used to playing are commonly drop 2 or drop 3 voicings anyway, with various notes doubled (or even omitted) - and we're not in the habit of caring!
-2-
-1-
-2-
-0-
---
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= "Normal D7, root position" says guitarist. "Yes, but also 2nd inversion drop 2 voicing", says arranger (A-C-D-F# with D lowered). Guitarist's response: "huh? so what?"
Last edited by JonR; 08-06-2015 at 05:22 AM.
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08-06-2015, 05:59 AM #23destinytot GuestOuch! Originally Posted by fumblefingers
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I never did get all that 'drop this and that' stuff. As guitarists we tend to learn a whole bunch of chord shapes that have been tried and tested for decades already on the instrument. Then you get into jazz and you have to learn some slightly more fancy ones. I basically got all my jazz chords out of the Joe Pass chord book and that's still 80% of what I use probably. Over the years I've adapted them a bit so that I can play them with or without roots.
Then I've added a few more modern sounding ones (out of Steve Khan's chord concept book for example).
But I couldn't tell you what kind of 'drop' any of them are!
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guys - it's simply one type of open position chord voicing. Berklee refers to these voicings in their harmony and arranging courses, it's not just a guitar thing.
so how many approaches do we guitarists know for open voicings for: piano, horns, strings, vocal ensembles anyway?
to repeat - yes this particular type of open voicing works well on the guitar for seventh chords, but it's not just about the guitar.Last edited by fumblefingers; 08-06-2015 at 08:03 PM.
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