Jazz Piano Chord Voicings - Left Hand Rootless Voicing 

Thanks, mate :) Very nice of you to say.

@@WalkThatBass please y have you hidden u r subscribers

Thanks, 28yesman.

No worries. Cheers :)

I was about to ask the same question

+elmimba Thanks.

+David Reynolds No worries. Might take a bit of time as I'm working on a few other lessons at the moment, but I'll see what I can do.

Glad to hear it. Enjoy :)

Yep, no worries. Voicings playlist: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-5uoD6LfaDoE.html Comping: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-XOiWWuuNh-4.html

+J. Charles Hey, J Charles. So that's a really good question. I might cover it in a future more advanced video. So you have two questions: 1. It's generally more common to play a tritone substitution with a rootless voicing, and there's a really easy way to do it. Say you have a G7, and you want to tritone substitute in a Db7. Then you simply a G7#9b13 rootless voicing. Rootless voicing: G7#9b13: F A# B Eb Db7: F Bb Cb Eb So Type A G7#9b13 = Type B Db7 and vice versa 2. It's up to you. I generally stay in the same key (i.e. don't change to the tritone substitute key). Say you have a II-V-I in CMaj: Dm7-G7-CMaj7 - You play over this whole progression with the C Major scale. Then if you play: Dm7-Db7-CMaj7 - I would still play over the whole progression using the C Major scale. You can change to Gb Major for the one Db7 chord if you like, but I find this ruins the II-V-I feel of the progression because it sound like you've changed key for a bar rather than just substituted a chord. Hope that helped!

+Walk That Bass Thanks for taking the time and answer this question!! Helps me a lot!

+elmimba In a nutshell, yes. I just took 16 mins to explain that :|

Hi. You can use these voicings in any chord progression. They just work especially well in a 2-5-1 progression because you only have to move one note to get from the 2 to the 5 - so the voice leading is very smooth. But you can certainly use these voicings in any song.

The bass player would be playing the root

@@ryanfoley_ yeah but then the b9 clashes with the root. It is an unavailable tension over a m7 chord.

Hi Zeph. When I refer to dominant chords I'm talking about the full 7th Chord. So like a G7 (G B D F).

So you're right in saying all the available tensions are technically available. The simple answer is that it's really up to you. If you don't like the sound of the #11 over a particular melody line, don't use it. This is partially subjective. The longer answer is that you need to pay attention to the important melody notes that are being played over that chord and make sure the tension you use does not create a dissonant interval against the melody note. You'll find that 95% of the time the most important melody notes (longest, on the beat, loudest) are chord tones or available tensions of the harmony (especially guide tones). So you generally won't have a problem. But say we have the: Chord = C7 Melody note = Ab So the melody is a b13 against the C7. As such, I wouldn't play a C13 chord, because the nat13 would clash with the b13 (obviously, as they are a semitone apart, which is a dissonant interval). But again, this ultimately comes down to personal preference.

Okay! Thanks for the quick reply! So, is the goal essentially to add as many tensions as possible without creating unpleasant dissonance, or getting muddy? I really appreciate these tutorials, and your commitment to passing on your knowledge.

Not quite. Using rootless voicings can give you Maj9, min9 and Dominant13 chords. For a Major9 chord you play the 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th. So a rootless CMaj9 would be E, G, B, D (so you don't play the root note C) For a minor9 chord you play the b3rd, 5th, b7th, and 9th. So a rootless Cm9 would be Eb, G, Bb, D (so you don't play the root note C) For a Dominant13 chord you play the 3rd, 7th, 9th, and 13th. So a rootless C7 would be E, A, Bb, D (so you don't play the root note C or the 5th G or the 11th F) Incidentally, you would never play a natural 11 over a dominant 7 chord because it is not an 'available tension'. I've got a separate video on available tensions if you're interested. Does that make sense?

Not sure if this is still a relevant question for you, but usually a bassist will play the root of the chord to stabilize the chords being played. As a comping instrument you usually leave out the bass of the note for this reason, because it can be redundant to play the root if the bassist is already playing it. Additionally, see 10:13 in the video for further explanation. A CM7, C7, and CmM7 all share the root and 5th (The notes C and G, or scale degrees 1 and 5), therefore, it doesn't really add anything to the chord quality. This allows you to omit them without much difference in the sound of the chord being played.

3rd and 7th of a chord.

No worries, Zeph. This is how we all learn. By asking. What specifically is confusing you? Do you understand the difference between Major7, minor7 and Dominant7 chords? A Major7 chord has a major 3rd and major 7th. So CMaj7 would be C E G B A minor7 chord has a minor 3rd and minor 7th. So Cm7 would be C Eb G Bb A Dominant7 chord has a major 3rd and minor 7th. So C7 would be C E G Bb Now we can take the CMaj7 and Cm7 chords above and we can extend them by one note by adding a 9th to create a CMaj9 and a Cm9 respectively. This would give us: CMaj9 = C E G B D Cm9 = C Eb G Bb D Now because these are 'rootless' chord voicings, we get rid of the root. So we are left with: CMaj9 = E G B D Cm9 = Eb G Bb D Does that make sense? So we have the full chord and then remove a note. We are allowed to do this because the root isn't a harmonically important note. I have two videos on 'Shell Chords' and 'Guide Tones' which explain why we can do this, but just take my word for it here. Something similar happens with the dominant7 chord but we extend the chord up to it's 13th tension. So we have: G13 = (G) B (D) F A (C) E The notes in the brackets we do not play in this chord voicing.