-hey Peter -hey Adam -a lot of people could tell you what voicings to play but what
if I told you what voicings not to play -oh that's what I want to hear
-I'm Adam Maness -and I'm Peter Martin -and you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast
-daily music advice coming at you -I love it today is our first day in our
new pod suite on YouTube
-hi everybody
-shout out to Youtube -man there's so many cameras I don't know which one to look at
-we just moved
from our dank ass pod cave -yes -this beautiful pond suite -yes -we have our
hammer 88 so we have our light-up keyboard -that's right that'll be a good
little initial test for it -yeah I don't even know if we can go that fast but
we'll find out we'll find out -yeah -and today we're talking about something that
we had asked a lot about these are for common voicing mistakes these are for
mistakes that you might be making and we're going to tell you some things not to do to
make your voicing sound better -that's right so voicings we've talked about
before things to do and as is often the case with trying to develop as a
keyboard player you've got to take some stuff out that's not working - that's right
to get to that gold that's in there and voicings can become such a such they're
such a mystery to so many people and there's so many choices and you can have
so many notes happening at the same time that you really got to get in tune with
what not to do and stop making these same mistakes because you're going to find
you're not gonna have to just start from nothing there's some good stuff in there
so you gotta get it out -you probably know some great voicings
already but what you need to do is start subtracting the ones that don't sound
great from your repertoire and maybe some
subtracting some concepts that you're applying to your chords that will make
you sound a lot better and we'll get into the very first one -yeah which is
exactly this is going to work and that is you're doubling too many notes
you're doing too much doubling basically -right and you don't have to do this much like you
don't have to play as many notes as you think you do and I hear this kind of
voicing all the time right two C major 7s
stacked on top of each other -right -that sounds terrible -that's right -it just
doesn't sound as full as it could sound or as as rich as it could sound as if
you say played like a C-major 13 - there's some space - know if you usually I came up with this
system for having voicings with any kind of melody note on top and not repeating
any notes and for me to kind of create that really was a game changer and so
anytime that you can break down what you're playing and take away the double
notes the repeated notes -yes -it's gonna sound way better and if it sounds
thinner when you do that then you probably have some weird architecture to
your voice thing that you need to take a note down an octave or up an octave or
something like that -yeah and notice we're saying that you
know the mistake is that you're doubling too many notes it's not to say that you
cannot double at all and look all of this is about how does the voicing sound
and how does it work in the flow what you're doing -right -we're using our ears
to just to determine but but it's like try taking that doubling away and then
putting back in let your ears adjust to that find which one because
there's something like even this kind of voicing which often I'll play kind of
C-minor 11 and there's some doubling you got that in there but watch if I don't
double so I've shifted it and also this I'm just moving the notes around the
same notes here in there but without the doubling -that's clean -you know so you
can try those -it's clean -and then also like you go to that say like you're
doing a two five one yeah that I've got the third double watch when I take away the
third in the left hand -it just it pops it's just shinier -or take away the right hand even better -it's shinier somehow
-yeah -like what you don't want to get into it's just a lot of like you know what I
mean these are just like the overtones are just killing you
-yeah -what sound bet what sounds better is you know what I mean
-get out of your own way -get out of your own way you're doing too much
-let me just show one thing I always use this as a reference point
it's not even necessarily a voicing I use a lot but it's a great kind of woah that was loud
these are two Thelonious Monk voicings and they do include doubling -yeah -but just that
seven but then the way there was all I love the distance
yeah like doubling to bring out a note in the chord is totally cool but if
you're just doubling because you don't know any better take some time take some
intention with your voicings -yes -we're not saying never double in your voicings
because you can but be intentional with it -exactly -alright number two is only playing
rooted or only playing rootless voicings you got a play to the sound you can't
just put these hard rules where it's like okay there's a bass player so I'm
never gonna play roots or I'm playing solo piano so I'm always gonna play
roots don't be so dogmatic with that sometimes
a good rooted voicing when you're playing with a bass player just fills
out the chord in general like it sounds that sounds one way but with that root
on the bottom it sounds a completely different way another example would be
like this C7 sharp 11 without the root right so we have a bass player that
sounds totally cool but if I wanted a little punchier I'll throw in that C
it's not too low it's not gonna be in the bass players range it just fills out
the bottom end of that voicing on the flipside if I'm playing solo piano and
just everything is you know like has the root on and I'm going down its gonna get
too monotonous you can actually come up and play rootless voicings all the time
and learn your learn your inversions for your solo piano voicings don't just go
you know one seven three all the time like -yeah -you can play more than the root for sure
-yeah I love this the concept that you said so it's really worth repeating play
to the sound -that's right -so that means you need to be listening to see
especially when we're playing solo piano we have potentially more choices and
more well sort of total control over what's happening but even when we're
playing with a bass player we're listening so it's not about like oh this
is a rule I can't go down well is where's the bass player playing know
what the range of where the bass is you might want to go beneath there for a
minute also you know this rooted verses rootless is kind of a false
you know forced choice -yeah -in that articulation has so much to do with it
you so like if you know if you're you know if you're staccato and jumping in
and out boom boom boom moving around you can do a lot of rooted voicings
so-called that don't even sound like rooted voicing when the bass player is playing
-yeah and you can also conversely do rootless voicings that get way in
the way if you're just sustaining everything -exactly -and you're way down on the
low tenor range like it's all about knowing the timbre of the instruments
you're playing with -yeah yeah ok so the number 3 of the common voicing mistakes
we hear things that you don't want to do and that is not considering what came
before and after the voicing that you're playing
-context is king -context is king so what do we mean here there's a nice F 13 kind
of thing not a lot of doubling nice kind of sound and we're gonna go B flat on a
blues
where are we what neighborhood are we in -exactly we're all over the place -yeah
-none of those voicings are bad but they're not part of a logical
progression I mean you might be within the chord progression in the form
but there's not like the voice leading isn't there now not to say you can't
jump up but there has to be a musical reason to do it and you're still
considering there's a dramatic thing -are you saying you don't love this sound
-very good voice leading I would say -same shape just moving it around -I mean if you're starting out
-when you're starting out that's fine but we don't want that when we when we are developing our
voicing skills when we're learning how to really comp accompany other people
-yeah -we want to get great voice leading with the top voice with the bottom voice
with the inner voices that's like inner voice voice leading that's like pro
level stuff but when you're considering every note as its own voice but you can
start in the beginning with just simple voice leading on the top like you you
had that F 7 if I'm here my F 7 which is a rootless voice thing starting on E-flat
the C on the top yeah the best choice is they're probably not gonna be going to
the B flat -right -it doesn't sound terrible but it might
sound better if I did something like -exactly -you know I can keep that top note the same
and you start creating melodies -that's why having you know a variety and a
really good repertoire of voicings is so important because it's not about how
many times have we got this question "what's a good voicing for F 13 sharp 11"
-yeah -and I'm always like well it depends what's going on like what did you just
play what are you about to play -yeah yeah -there's no one right answer to that so
you've got to have quite a few in your arsenal so that when you come to this
situation and there's gonna be times when the drama requires or calls for you
to kind of go off the reservation but that you're still doing it for musical
reasons -I love it so number four of our common voicing mistakes is you're not
considering the dynamics when you're playing -wait are we supposed to be
think about dynamics -yes we are very much so so this can work with if you're
accompanying someone or if you're even accompanying yourself and I think both
are important to consider so when we're playing big thick voicings like if we're
playing in a jazz context like how hard I'm playing should be a consideration
with what's going on like I can be much more supportive and swinging exactly
with what you're doing -right -and that's much more effective and actually more
supportive and sounds better than if I'm just
constantly like we're at a mid-tempo little tipper here and I'm just always
like that sucks -it's a little sloppy -or conversely if I'm playing for myself
like I'm gonna cut down there
I'm gonna bring out the melody you don't you'll never hear me you know
just it forces you to it's like be this player that you don't want to be think
about then how you're forcing other players to be -yeah absolutely so yeah
and you know it's so easy to get caught up in this thing of like you know
intervals and alterations and doubling and all the things that are interesting
about voicings and then even if you're going next level like where you're
coming from where you're going but dynamics articulation rhythm like these
are all you know linked with successful voicings much more than we think they
just the the choice of notes once you've chosen the notes that you're gonna use
for your voicing be it two handed or one handed it's so important to think
about it in the context of music and how we're gonna play it -and then the pro
level of the dynamics or voicings is something that masters like Keith
Jarrett and Herbie Hancock are so good at and that's bringing out individual
voicings in your chord -voicing the voicing -like a great exercise for this
it's just to play a voicing you know again I'll go back to this five note F 7
voicing start from the top see if you can make the top come out pretty easy
because it's the top see if you can make the second come out the second note for the
top
third from the top
that's easy because the thumb will go forth right just trying to make that
stick out and then the bottom note but working on those kinds of dynamics even
though like if you're comping right like maybe you're not thinking that but you
start to be able to speak that way -yes well and then what you mentioned about
the thumb commonly what I'm hearing is that's sort of the default because
there's an in attention to the detail -you hear a heavy thumb yeah yeah -and then
like that's an okay voice it's actually not a great voicing but I'm purposely
making it bad but I mean even if it was like you know why is that so strong just
it's the thumb -it sucks I don't want to listen to that
once you start going through a progression that becomes even more important and
when you're playing ballads -that's where it's so key -yeah and we don't think
about that always is but that's where it can be really
manipulated and used to your advantage -I saw I saw Keith Jarrett live once in New
Jersey and he he pretty much brought down the entire audience to their knees
with one chord that he played on a ballad and it just the the note that he
brought out so subtly I mean it was -yeah yeah -anyway -great stuff -yeah -cool all
right so those are the four common voice mistakes we see I think if you can sort
of peel those away and see if you got something left you might be in pretty
good shape we're hoping -that's right go visit our sponsor that's open studio go
to openstudiojazz.com check out all of our courses including our piano
access pass that's every piano course we've ever made and if you sign up for
the yearly membership you'll get every new piano course that will make this
year which will be quite a few -that's right that's right and until tomorrow
-you'll hear it