Rootless Voicings: EVERYTHING You Need To Know 

This has been highly requested! I will definitely be making a video explaining and teaching the intro chords in the future :)

You're welcome, glad to be able to help 🙂

Glad you enjoyed it :)

What a lovely comment! I'm so glad my videos have motivated you to get stuck in with the piano, that's the aim of the game :) And yes I agree, I combination of the two (with & without roots) tends to work the best!

I've actually had a few people ask me to some videos on Gospel stuff, it's on my to-do list :)

The following is a simple yet a little .complicated walkup In the overall chromatic bass line..then I switch to slash chords. In my.lifetime.Ive done this progression thousands of times but never wrote it out in such detail...Kinda of a Andre Crouch move. LH Will play F G Ab A Bb B C C# D.. In the bass two octaves down... Now some of this or.all of this can be rootless . .The chords will be AC F. Bb D F nest chord is called.a G7b9..it is (Ab B D F)..Play the .ACF again play the G7b9 again then the A C F. again am doing this with no piano.. so this will have C in the base here..I think. notice the A C F is just a 1st inversion F... or In slash chords. ACF/C. Next the left hand base keeps.coming up chromatically. I think I play a (C# Dim7) here with the afore mentioned. C# base..btw this can be done very fast or extremely slow. and can be repeated a few notes back.and forth. Any ways in slash chords you are on. C# dim/C# . or better called A7b9/ C#. Now here are some choices you have. The Cycle or 4ths or 5ths says you.can go to D or.Dmin etc.from a. A..so play the base A as mentioned in the the first paragraph.. So Go to D7 or Dmin.7..lets stick with Dmin 7. At thine you land on D.base play the A C F again. It is rootless Dmin 7...or you could go to D.base and play dominant D7....I. usually just play. an inversion of D7. ACD F#/D..Then an option would be play a Gmin7...

Do you have rootless voicing in left hand and licks in the right hand in all 12 keys exercise?

Yes! I am for that.

My pleasure Brian, glad you enjoyed the video :)

I'm glad you think so :)

Good job! Yes, they always produce such a great sound :)

No worries, John! Glad you enjoyed it 🙂

Thanks!

Awesome! Rootless voicings are great :)

Ohhh yes, Bill Evans was a master of rootless voicings! :)

Glad you enjoyed it :)

My pleasure bro

It sounds like you are referring to the modes. Modes are sometimes used to write entire songs but more commonly, it's just a major or minor scale which the chord progressions are built from and the modes can be used to 'improvise' over the top of the chords.

I have a similar question regarding chords and scales- I have noticed each chord in the progression fits into the Dminor scale apart from the A7 which includes a Dflat- what factors lead to choosing to incorporate this chord into the progression and break out of D minor? (if that is what is even happening at all) And is it a jump into D major? Thanks for your super helpful videos by the way it's appreciated :)

Ok I have just seen you already answered this question below, so never mind!!

the notes of a chord, such as a type of 7th, contain the notes of a "relative" chord, for example: [dm7] is D-F-A-C, but if the root is omitted, you have an [FMaj] triad. so to your question if the bass guitar plays the lowest note of the piano's rootless voicing, the harmony would then become [FMaj]. even if the chord player used the note "D" in their voicing, it would still be some type of F chord, like an FMaj6 or add13 (F in the bass, A-C-E-D in the upper voices) the bass determines the chord overall. so whatever the chord player think he or she is playing, the bassist is ultimately having the final say in what the chord really is. (ie; the chord player is jamming away thinking of an FMaj7 chord, but if the bassist says "i'm gonna play the note D" underneath all that, the chord becomes a dm9 chord.

I'd just leave the 9th out of the iii chord so it doesn't clash with the key

@@Piano_Pig ok thanks i thought rootless voicing had to have 4 notes atleast but that makes sense thank you.

@@fartenthusiast-zl2qv old comment, but hopefully someone sees this & it helps them. rootless chords often do have 4x notes, but they don't have to be "in order" according to the scale. you can throw in a 13 & forget the 11. you can also throw in "available" tensions such as b9, #9, #11, b13, etc. Pretty much any note works, as long as they don't clash against the guide-tone 3rd or 7ths.

Already done! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-x8J9CzSXrUE.html

I think that the point is to use them when you have a bass note, otherwise they will become other chords.

Trey B I’m still learning myself but I believe it’s in D minor. The Dm is a I9, Bbmaj7 the VI7, the Fmaj9 is a III9, and the A7b9 the V. My notation isn’t probably correct, but hopefully you get the gist.

Gotcha thank you!

Hello, I was just replying to your other comment and it disappeared haha! The answer to the other comment was: Yes, exactly that! A major 7 chord has a natural 7th, and a minor 7 has a flattened 7th. The reason for this is that the major 7 is built from the major scale (which has a natural 7). And a minor 7 is built from the natural minor scale (which has a flattened 7th).

As for this comment, A7(b9) chords are awesome when the chord is acting as a dominant 7, resolving back to the 1 chord as was the case with this A7 :)

And another one, what rootless voicing did you use at the end of the video?

I see now, thanks for giving me an idea about 7b9 chords 😁

No worries! And the one at the end is was a minor 6/9. It's called a 6/9 because it doesn't have the 7th, such a lovely voicing :)

Haha this comment made me laugh! Just keep listening to jazz and maybe spend some more time focusing on the harmonic side of things rather than just the production side of it? Just a suggestion but I hope you have fun developing your ears 😀

PianoPig Hey man, I am loving your videos! I'm moving house next week and will be setting up a mini setup away from my main studio so I can mess around and practice my piano. I miss it! I've had it in storage for almost a year. I'll be working my way through your entire catalogue. Seriously, best piano videos in the internet. So many are pointless waffle or metaphors or too slow.. you say what it does, how to do it and why and give examples of where it can be used. Perfection! I'm in Brighton, where abouts are you Mr Pig?

PianoPig PianoPig I have all my exams up to Grade 6, I'm looking to brush up this year and get the last few certificates. I've been playing a long time, but I only wanted to get really serious recently and now I work for myself and I have the time to practice. My ears aren't too bad, I can tell you what chords are and I can play melodies back Ive heard on TV/radio after a few seconds finding the root.

That's sounds perfect! Having a separate place just for your practice time is ideal. It's good to know you find the channel useful man! Brighton is a lovely place! I live in Fareham, down south near Portsmouth! But I'm moving to Spain for 4 months in about 6 weeks :)

Oh yeah! How did he get there?!