Drop 2 voicings for jazz piano pdf

Drop 2 chords are the most popular chord voicings in jazz guitar, and serve a wide variety of purposes, including comping, soloing, and chord melody. The following lessons introduce some of the basics of jazz guitar chords. First, he comps for, and interacts with, other players as they solo. Inside premium jazz lessons, you can learn 3 full arrangement levels of every song. Applying drop 2 voicing techniques to cycle of 5ths. Some altered dominants have been used, but voice leading remains the same.

An arranging technique used when voicing for four horns. Drop 2 voicings part 1 jazz chord essentials jens larsen. One of them drop 2 is the key to playing chord scales and melodies in a way that doesnt induce hand cramps. Basic onehand voicings created by adding color tones to the guide tones in the previous example. This is because these are the most commonly used drop 2 chords. Step 3 figure out voicings for the 3 chords of the basic blues progression. In certain subgenres of jazz and gospel music, you can hardly listen to the chorus of a. What musicians mean when they say drop voicings is that one or more of the. In this coursethe second in a series focusing on learning how to play jazz piano learn concepts that can provide you with a solid foundation as a pianist. Although pianists and arrangers are free to use their own voicings and by doing so. Part of that lesson was using a diminished approach technique which i discuss in depth in the lesson. Harmonising every melody note with a chord is a great sounding jazz piano technique. Can someone please explain drop 2 and drop 3 voicings to. Drop 2 exercises, cycle of 5ths, jazz piano tutorial youtube.

Jazz pianists in the decades prior to the 1950s generally played more block chords andor shell voicings like roots and 7ths and put the root in their voicings most of the time. Construction of drop ii voicings university of surrey blogs. To explain why drop2 voicings are very handy on guitar try to play the first half of example 1. Encyclopedia of lefthand jazz piano voicings learn jazz.

Drop 2 voicings are similar to the four way close but instead of doubling the melody note an octave down in your left, instead we drop the second note from the top and play this in out left hand. Would you like to learn a fast and easy way to use drop 2 voicings. Many guitarists are already familiar with the sound of these voicings as many of the basic seventh chord grips on guitar are drop 2. Theyve been used by players from all time eras, from duke ellington, to wes montgomery, to george benson, to joe pass, to modern players like jonathan kreisberg and kurt rosenwinkel. Each line below contains four drop 2 chords for a string set. The drop 2 piano chord voicing jazz piano voicings. Lots of wes montgomery solos use drop2 voicings and it is also a huge part of bebop piano and bigband arranging. It is a very easy voicing to understand and implement.

The book starts off by presenting all the voicings in each key. With these twohanded drop 2 chord voicings, youll sound really hip, especially in jazz and blues. The m6 is a very useful voicing for three types of chords. Complete guide to drop 2 chords jamie holroyd guitar. Use the general voicing guidelines from page 7, the left hand voicings reference sheet, and the included blues sheets to help. Jazz chord essentials drop 2 voicings part 2 so now you have an overview of the basic drop2 voicings from the previous lesson. Lets have fun with the drop 2 piano chord voicing a favorite among pro piano stylists is the drop 2 piano chord voicing. Two handed chords are great for comping behind a soloist. The drop 2 book is the first and only publication to explore the 4note, blockchord approach to jazz piano playing as used by piano masters like kenny barron, mccoy tyner, barry harris, cedar walton and bill evans in this book, worldrenowned educator and pianist mark levine gives the reader a comprehensive, stepbystep, beginning to advanced masterclass on this fascinating approach to. Three voicing techniques from the beautiful solo piano introduction to taylor eigstis tune midnight after noon from his 2010 concord records release, daylight at midnight, are examined in this lesson. Basic rootless piano voicings chris fitzgerald jazz. There are three main types of drop voicings playable on the guitar. We have already discussed jazz chords in a previous module.

These voicings mark an evolution in the lefthand comping style of many jazz pianists from the 1950s on. Drop 2 is a great way to voice chords and has been used in classical and jazz music for hundreds of years. Common jazz chord voicings fundamental changes music. I will talk about why we use some voicings and explain it from a music theory point of view, but also a more visual description that really helps understanding and remembering the voicings. Drop 2 literally means you drop the second highest note. So, i figured lets do an article to explain the concept. That said, in order to maximize the benefit from learning it, like any voicing, using it over and over again will lead continue reading the drop 2 piano chord voicing. Drop 2 is drop the second voice an octave 315 and drop 3 is drop the third an octave 5 from a closed or 5 voicing. Coole klavierakkorde drop 2 voicings fur piano pianoo.

While lefthand voicings are suited to righthand soloing or melody, the jazz pianist needs to know how to comp in other words, accompany other soloists. This handout is the second in a twopart series of reference voicings for the jazz pianist. You might have heard the term drop2 voicings before, and it is more or less considered basic voicing knowledge for mainstream jazz guitar. Drop 2 voicings can be heard in the recordings of almost all of the great jazz pianists and they are an extremely useful tool for harmonizing the melody of jazz standards. The word voicings refers to the way in which a chord is spread out. Drop 2 chords are very effective voicings for jazz pianists and arrangers. Start with the dm7 voicing in root position on the 12th fret and descend down the neck, while making as little change possible between chord changes. This post is dedicated to the understanding of the drop 2 voicing technique.

The drop 2 chord voicing creates a more textured and sophisticated sound that the four way close and can be heard extensively in the recordings. Drop 2 voicings tutorial block chords tutorial jazz piano. I also covered drop 2 voicings which generated some questions from our students. Introduction to jazz guitar chords and comping styles. The next step is to harmonize this passage in closedposition voicings using dm7 and d7 harmonies, such as this. Drop 2 voicings for prelude to a kiss pianowithwillie. In order to create drop 2 chords, we simply take the second highest note in each chord and drop it down one octave i. A thorough look at how to play full, chordal melodies in the style of joe pass, jim hall, wes montgomery, using drop 2 voicings. Jazz chord essentials drop 2 voicings part 2 jens larsen. The four chords are derived in order from the root position, 1st inversion, 2nd inversion, and 3rd inversion. Each note is sometimes called a voice, especially when talking about the movement of the inner voices of a chord progression. While working on major 7th and minor 7th drop 2 chord voicings, i found a nice. Starting with 3note voicings, then venturing into 4note, and finally constructing a line from scratch.

Using drop 2 techniques in a 4 measure chord progression. Drop2 voicings are very practical for playing chords with extensions, both on guitar and piano. They have been used by many of the great jazz guitarists including joe pass and wes montgomery. Heres a short video on how i might use chords in a solo on a blues in c. First we need a m6 voicing, that will also work as a m7b5 and a.

Specifically practice techniques and application to melodies of standards. Example drop 2nd voice root inversion drop ii g7 chord r,5,7,3. Its worth mentioning a few of points about drop 2 voicings. Voicings free jazz originals for varioussized bands by. Here are 4 voicings for the caged chords, both major and minor. Memorize these voicings and get used to playing them from seeing. I had ruslan sirota in the studio to talk about his approach to drop 2 voicings. When youre dealing with any chord beyond 7ths chords, including any voicings with extentions, 99% of the time guitarists in all styles of music not just jazz and not just people playing chord melody arrangements are using drop 2 and drop 3 voicings to. Closed voicings where all the chordtones are within an octave can be tricky to play on the guitar. On the other hand jazz guitar voicings is crystal clear about a profoundly fundamental idea. This is an short encyclopedia with 12 voicings for most of the chords jazz pianists are likely to encounter. While any isolated chord might be in drop 2 a lot of the fournote voicings most natural on the guitar neck are in drop 2, it can be more useful to think in terms of harmonising a line in drop 2. This pdf serves as a compliment to a free lesson that i created emphasizing the rewards of smooth voice leading.

Personally, the only time ive really used this knowledge is occasionally when i have written horn charts. Playing scales in chords the basics of drop 2 jason. If you are advanced enough you can even play melodies with two hands by making the melody note the same as the top note of your chord. Twohanded voicings we now move on to an oftenneglected aspect of jazz piano, and that is comping. The newest jazz piano chords pdf that i recently made available features those piano chords and voicings that i used during an eight bar segment of a piano video tutorial i created which focuses on the classic harold arlen tune paper moon. For our purposes, all voicings built up from the 3rd will be referred to as type i voicings, and those built up from the 7th will be called type ii. Think of drop 2 as a lateral process, rather than a vertical event. Drop 2 voicings bebop, hard bop, contemporary jazz. Bill evans, barry harris, oscar peterson, kenny barron. Play drop 2 voicings in each of the three groups of four adjacent strings.

Drop 2 is a technique that many arrangers use to spread out chords played by an ensemble. Then, for each individual voicing, say a major chord voiced as 3569, theres a twopage exercise which does two measures of the voicing, just as a whole note, with a bass line under it which is 1585, and then repeat this in all twelve keys. Piano chord voicings for jazz combo the pianist has a few functions in a jazz combo. By understanding how drop 2 chords are built you can quickly learn to play them over the entire neck. Chord voicings choosing the best voicing although you can use any of these voicings in any situation, we are going to take the following chords and supply you with 4 voicings of these chords so that you can plugandplay them when we get heavy into the strumming exercises. Grammywinning keyboardist george whitty helps you get started with twohanded harmony, and helps to bolster your jazz vocabulary by. Therefore, he needs two different types of voicings. Each of the drop 2 chords we have looked at so far have been on strings 1234. Four way close, locked hands and drop two voicings the jazz.

This important, iconic sound is actually very simple to understand and play. Drop 2 ii v i exercise heres a good exercise that will help you memorize the drop 2 voicings. Four way close, locked hands and drop two voicings the. I recommend that you study the comping etudes and learn these thoroughly first. Drop 2 was originally used in arranging for orchestras and big bands as it provided a way for 4 horn instruments to produce a very rich texture over a single chord. The above example is a perfectly legitimate way to voice a cmaj7 chord, however, a much more common way to voice chords on the guitar is to use drop voicings. Encyclopedia of twohand jazz piano voicings learn jazz. An approach borrowed from jazz arranging is to drop the 2nd voice from the top down an octave, to create an open voicing that is readily playable on the guitar.

The basic approach is to take the third and sixth voicings aka fourway close and drop the second from top tone down an octave. Twohand piano voicings are essential for jazz pianists when comping behind melodists and soloists. The easiest way to play two handed chords is through the use of upper structure triads. Drop 2 piano voicings are a sophisticated way of voicing chords and can be heard in the playing of virtually all of the jazz piano greats. In that module we learned that chords are built up in thirds. How to learn drop 2 jazz chords the right way leave a reply. In this article, i am using duke ellingtons prelude to a kiss to demonstrate drop 2 voicing techniques. For example, you could play a cmaj7 chord as c e g b with each note a third above the previous called tertian harmony and all the notes within the range of an octave called close harmony or block chords.