Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Piano voicings - 7th chords made easy

Ive been having to do a bit of a refresher these last weeks. I get by reasonably well on piano but since I don't play as much as Saxophone some things slip. Playing through the changes of "All of Me" for a recording I realised that the conventional 7th rootless voicings were not coming out as I would have liked. They were missing some of the fuller, darker quality I usually enjoy in other chords.

I gave it some time and this is what works for me. Here are two simple voicings that work very well. As with most of the things I study, I try to keep things as simple as possible to remember:

1. In the left hand all you need to play is the third and seventh in either inversion. 
2. In the right hand play a stack of three 4ths starting on either the 6th or the 9th.
3. Take a look at the score below to see how.
4. www.noteflight.com/scores/v...


The score was made with www.noteflight.com

Later on this week I'll post on how to make these voicings sound even richer by altering the notes in the left hand.

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