S,o Quartals. What are they? how do you play them? and why do you keep
hearing about them? and why should you start using them as soon as possible?
So, what exactly is it about this sound that makes it so colorful, open and yet vaguely familiar.
Well, it's those chordal voicings that we talked about. These are so crucial, to achieving that
modern sound, that you hear all the time, especially in jazz. A sound that's almost
impossible to replicate without quartals. "If you're new to mDecks Music, we create music books and apps,
piano arrangements and we discuss: improvisation, songwriting, and sometimes... we take music theory
to strange and uncharted places. So subscribe and hit the bell, and join us for exclusive access to
our ever expanding library of Music resources" In our last voicings video we talked about how
to build big jazz piano voicings, and how to use them in your solos or your comping. That technique
is great for standard Jazz voicings but today, I want to show you how to build quartal voicings.
These voicings offer a more modern sound, because they're based on quartal, and built using a modal
approach. You can see them as modal voicings, if you want. Be sure to stick around until the end
of the video, so you can find out how to access a PDF of today's exercise, and by the way, these are
quite different from the upper structure quartal that we talk about all the time on our Channel. Go
ahead and check out our course on that, if you want to learn more. So, how do we build these voicings?
Let's say I have a Cm7 chord. So what's a great scale to use on a minor 7 chord? Dorian, right?
Here's C Dorian: C D Eb F G A and Bb. Now, I want you to play the scale in fourths like this...
and also by playing three notes in fourths, starting on each scale degree like this...
The first voicings we're going to build, is a 2 + 3 5-note voicing. Two notes on the left hand,
and three notes on the right hand. But we only want the voicings in which the bottom four notes are
all perfect fourths. So let's look at the C Dorian example with four notes on each degree. On the
first degree we have: C F Bb and Eb these are all perfect fourths. Awesome! Now we're going
to add a note from the Dorian scale, that is also a third above the last note (G). And we play C and F on
the left hand, and Bb Eb and G on the right. This is a powerful voicing. We usually consider
these voicings as quartal voicings, because the main interval used to construct it is the
perfect fourth. The bottom notes are all a fourth apart, and only the top interval is not a fourth.
We also have two perfect quartals: C F B flat and F Bb Eb, and a major Triad
upper structure as well: the Eb major triad in second inversion. If we look at
the second degree in the Dorian scale we get D G C F. All perfect fourths again.
And we add the third, above the top note, from the C Dorian scale (that's an A.) And you can see,
this is the same exact voicing structure as the one that we built on the C. D G C is a perfect
quartal. G C F is also a perfect quartal, and C F A is a major triad in second inversion. Now you have
two voicings, that are constant structures, that you can use on a Cm7 chord...
Now, when we look at the fourth starting on Eb we get: Eb to A, which is an augmented
fourth. So this is not a good candidate. Starting on F, we have the same problem here: Eb to A
again. If we start on G we get: G F C and Bb, all perfect fourths. And when we add a
third ,on top of Bb (which is D), we get another voicing that works great on a Cm7 chord.
And on the other two notes (A and Bb), we always get this A-Eb tritone, that we're trying to avoid.
So, why are we avoiding this A-Eb tritone? As you probably know, there are no avoid notes
in a minor 7 Dorian chord, because in Dorian, every tension is a whole step above a guide-tone (or a
chord-tone). The 9th (D) is a whole step above the root (C). The 11th (F) is a whole step above the Eb.
And the 13th (A) is a whole step above the fifth (G). Remember, we always try to avoid tensions that are
a half-step above guide-tones, but in Dorian, we don't have any avoid tensions. So we can use any
of them in our voicings. But there are two problems with the tritone Eb-A. 1) the tritone draws
too much attention to the voicing, because it's very dissonant. So, when building quartal voicings,
you must consider this property. and 2) the tritone Eb-A is usually the target point of
resolution for Eb-Bb (on a Cm7 chord), because Cm7 wants to resolve to F7.
Of course, in a modal tune this rule is more flexible, and you might be able to
get away with a voicing like this. So here's the exercise: Step 1 is to play them as parallel
structures (by half-steps), not even thinking of the chord that you're on. Just get used to
playing these voicing, moving this constant structure up or down a half-step at a time...
Step 2, is to play the first two voicings of the mode (the voicings built on the first
two scale degrees) while also applying this rhythm to them. Notice that, when you play
this step, your voicings are always a whole step apart (regardless of what chord you're
playing on top of.) We'll use a half-step modulation pattern to cover all the keys...
Step 3: here we're going to combine the movements in steps one and two, while also adding the third
voicing of the mode (on the fifth degree). We're going to create a four measure pattern and then
sequence that pattern on top of the circle of fifths. This step will introduce a new leap with
our constant structure: a leap of a fourth. You might want to practice this leap before
attempting the entire sequence. check it out...
Thanks again for joining us today. I
hope that was helpful. All of our members are going to get a PDF with today's exercise. If
you'd like to become a member, go ahead and click on the JOIN button (or the link down
below). You'll have access to all sorts of awesome content: arrangements, exercises that are going to
make your playing amazing. YouTube seems to think you're gonna like one of these two videos here.
So, go ahead and stick around and check that out , it would help us out a lot. Thanks for watching