Now there's nothing wrong with this
but wouldn't you also like to be able to do this
that's what we're going to be working on today my name's adam manus and these are the sugar cords
why do we call them the sugar cords cause they're so sweet so here's how we get that sweet sweet
sound we get it with three different chord voicing structures you probably have at least heard of
all of these but you might not know how you can use them together to create such a sweet sound
so there are three different voicing structures there's closed voicings
just regular closed four-way closed or maybe locked hand voicings depending on how we need
them and then there's two different open voicings drop two and drop three that'll be the first thing
that we talk about and we're gonna take the b section of the standard on green dolphin
street we're gonna take that b section what i just played here in the intro and we're gonna
take it through closed voicings drop two and drop three and then we're gonna mix them and match them
and we get that sweet sweet sugar sound it's really really smooth and delicious
and i'm exhausting my baking metaphors but you get the idea and why would we want to use this
well besides just sounding great in general it it serves some really cool practical purposes first
it gets us some different kinds of textures right we can just get away from one kind of voicing
sound mixing and matching these three different kinds of things second it really helps with some
voice leading especially in that inner voice movement if you just stick to closed voicings
you just stick to drop two everything's gonna be moving in the same direction but when you mix and
match you can have some contrary motion as well as parallel motion and you can use that to great
effect and then third is the range especially if you're playing solo piano it really helps if
you have your hands really close together you can use closed voicings the further out you go
drop two further out from there maybe some drop three maybe some drop two within a spread voicing
all of that is good to know and very very useful when we're playing in that style all
right let's get right to it before we do just so you know uh this video is sponsored by open studio
of course it is go to openstudio jazz.com to learn more and download the pdf because there's a really
great looking pdf here that's yours to keep it's for free it's right there in the description let's
get started all right before we get to on green dolphin street let's just have a look here at
what closed voicings are drop two and drop three in this context i'm going to use big five note
voicings in two hands as you see here just a c major nine to start it off so we have the root and
our left hand now notice the root of all of these chords it's really not connected to the structure
that you might call close drop two drop threes in other words we have our c major nine i've got my
closed voicing on top everything is as close as it can be except for the root which will give license
to be in whatever octave we need it in as we're kind of you know when we're playing solo piano
uh we're providing the base to the situation so we have to have some freedom there now if
you are rootless if you're playing with a bass player and you don't want to throw in a root which
by the way you can use a root when you're playing with a bass player but if you don't want to
simply let go of the root and just play the four note close uh in that case you might do something
like a locked hands uh we use it a little bit in the in the examples i'll give later but
for our purposes today this is the structure so here's our closed voicings right everything in
the chord the third fifth seventh and ninth is as close as possible
drop two we take the second note from the top no matter what it is in this case it's
the seventh the b we drop it down an octave and put it in the left hand and lo and behold
we've got this beautiful voice thing look at this now notice how uh everything's spread out
here there's a big spread between the root and the seventh and then there's a fourth a
third and a fifth a big spread at the top as well right that's important because it's a different
sound than the next structure which is drop three drop three is when we take that closed voicing the
third note from the top the g in this case we drop down to the left hand we take it out of the right
okay now we have a bigger spread in the middle here we've got this we got a sixth right in the
middle and then a fifth it's a whole different sound listen to the difference same notes
there's more of a crunch at the top pretty interesting right so those are the three
structures we're using pretty simple we know these in all inversions work on them in every key
you can take it through your favorite tunes uh kind of like what we're about to do let's check
out on green dolphin street so here are bars 9 through 12 of on green dolphin street right that
first b section we're in the key of e flat if you don't play on green dolphin street in the kv flat
i encourage you to try it it's a lot of fun um and it sounds like this just melody root right
now what we're going to be using today to build our chords are a couple of six diminished scales
the famous barry harris six diminished scale we work on it all the time over here on openstudio
you probably know what it is i'm not going to go into a detailed description of the six diminished
scale for this exercises this is more about the voicing structure than it is about what notes
we're choosing but just so you know here and i'll keep these up on each one uh on the melody here on
the f minor seven and the first half of the b flat seven we're using an a flat six diminished scale
right six diminished six diminished right you probably know all this it gives us a nice f
minor seven sound and the diminished give us a nice c7 flat nine sound right so uh when we
play this uh we'll be using play through that melody we'll be using the a flat six diminished
when we get to the uh to these altered notes here we're gonna be using the b minor six diminished
all right which is b minor six and it's diminished in inversions we're gonna be
borrowing notes if you wanna learn more we've got a ton of recent videos all about the six
diminished go check out the channel uh and and you can get a deeper understanding of
that but that's not really what this is about you might learn a little from osmosis today as
that's what we're dealing with and then the e flat major it's just the e flat six diminished
you know that old chestnut it's all the same stuff so that's where we're starting from now
let's go to our first structure closed voicing okay using our first structure of closed voicings
everything is close together as possible every note is in the right hand and we're gonna be using
our six diminished scales that i have here to determine what notes to play what chords to voice
already this is beautiful here
we're doing some borrowing from the diminished on some of the major chords
on some of the dominant chords uh just some notation notes i'm kind of notating it with
the six diminished chords in mind it's going to get confusing no matter what so i'm doing my best
here to make it clear and it might even change as we go depending on how i want to shape the lines
there might be some inharmonic problems you're going to have to deal with it
i'm going to have to deal with it we'll make it work anyway so here we are right we're voicing
with the diminished here on the first note because it's a b right b diminished a flat six
all closed voicings b diminished a flat six b diminished then we get to the b seven right b
minor six and then we're going to just borrow up these top two notes uh to the c sharp diminished
we're just borrowing those top two notes from the diminished of the b minor six diminished
and then our e flat six here we're borrowing this d and f from it's diminished and resolve
them to the sixth the sixth diminished but what we really want to talk about here is the structure
everything is closed
everything is as close together as possible it gets us that
that saxophone section sound that you might hear hear the most basic version of this
it sounds great there's nothing wrong with it this is one uh arm of what we're going to
be working with here uh and we need to know these closed voicings because like i said when the hands
get tight together these are super valuable when things get low you don't want big spread voicings
drop three down here you wanna keep things nice and tight and punchy so these are just
as important as anything else and it's how we're gonna be facing what we do
on every structure after this okay so that's the first structure the closed voicing let's check out
how this sounds with drop two okay the same passage bars nine through twelve uh with the same
six diminished scales that we're using we're still starting on the diminished here but we're gonna
use a drop two structure so instead of the closed voicings we're gonna take the second from the top
note of each one of those closed voicings and we're gonna put it in left hand an octave lower
again that sounds amazing it's a whole other sound though here's the closed
here's the drop too
i always say that the drop two it's a tenths delivery device right it's a it's a way to
deliver tents to your listener because look at the top note and look at what the
left hand is playing the drop two note right they're always or almost always a tenth away
which is just beautiful gets us that nice tenth sound
which is gorgeous so there's drop two let's try it one more time
just so beautiful right voicing each note of this melody using these just three different six
diminished chords we're borrowing from adjacent chords on the sixth diminished scale it's just
beautiful now let's check out the third structure drop three before we do if this is something that
you might be interested in go ahead and click the like button let us know that this is your jam uh
if this is your first time here why not subscribe we're having a good time nerding out on stuff like
this all the time so come join us here on the open studio youtube channel and get your nerd on all
right let's move on to the third structure of the sugar cords these are the drop threes i get asked
about these all the time what's the drop three what's the difference between drop two and drop
three and how do i use it so it's really the same concept you know we have our closed voicings here
we take our d-flat diminished shape that we were using we just instead of dropping the second note
from the top like drop two you drop the third note from the top in this case an e natural
and that's drop three and we can do the whole passage in drop three check it out
how great is that
isn't that beautiful let's hear that again
give the cellist some you know give that tenor some
so here's drop two just so you can hear the difference real real quick
and here's drop three
here's closed voicings
here's drop three
i love it i do i just picture the cellist down there you know really working hard or maybe the
violist in this case could get those and really getting you know bringing out the meat of that
tenor region drop three's so great for that so that's drop three that's the difference between
uh closed voicings drop to and drop three so here's where the sugar comes in here's where it
gets sweet let's combine everything together and let the magic happen so here again bars 9 through
12 of on green dolphin street right the first b section and we're going to combine everything
together there's going to be a couple things that you might notice that you can take to any other
passage where you're comping or playing through any melody or improvising whatever you want to
use these fours so same thing we're using the same six diminished scales but now we're going to start
here on drop three and check it out same melody closed i'm gonna do a little locked hand thing
i didn't do before just doubling the melody bringing just my left hand has something to do
and also to create some contrary motion here check it out drop three closed drop two drop three
closed drop two drop three drop two right so this is something that you will see a lot of
you see this in orchestration and arranging and composition to really really great pianists uh
it happens right there on the second chord there of the first bar closed drop two drop three this
why is that so effective well the outside notes are moving in a contrary motion
you still have all this great voice leading on the inside closed drop two drop three and
then we're gonna do it again close drop to drop three right so look at that tenor line
we just created a counter melody by using these three different voicing structures and you can
do it in an opposite way right so if you're going from like we just simply reverse this but
right drop three drop two when you're going in contrary motion inside
beautiful right isn't that so gorgeous let's try it let's try playing in time one two three and
again one two three and
one more time two three and
that's where the sugar comes in that's where life and music and voicings gets sweet
this is where it pays to be a nerd because that kind of stuff can really uh make your
your solo piano arrangements and even just your your playing in general so much sweeter so much
more interesting of course we can use the same style of voicing
and it sounds great just closed voicings nothing wrong with that we can use drop two
everything moving along the same path you even use drop three
sounds great right nothing wrong with it but combining them together
that's where some good stuff comes in and hey listen also you do not have to be all that rigid
with this either you do not have to be like i'm going to structure this and drop three drop two
and then closed voicings at all eventually you just start making up your own counter melodies and
own little inner voice movement but using these set structures can be a great way to dip your
toe into it right because it kind of gives you all of that uh ready-made you can really explore
some different voice leading options this is how everybody's been voicing harmony for like hundreds
of years and so it's fun to really put the time in and explore what you can do with a simple little
four bar passage this whole session uh was just exploring a little 251 on green dolphin street you
know what i'm saying so much to go through there's this is a great part about being a musician
isn't it it's like there's a lifetime of stuff to just keep poking around with and exploring
and learning and having fun with so uh check out the pdf like i said uh and enjoy that and yeah
let me know if you have any questions in the chat here thanks y'all until next time happy practicing