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At the Piano

Voice chords like a jazz pianist and arranger — from shells to block chords.

By the end You'll be able to voice chords with rootless and drop-2 shapes and harmonize a melody.

Begin with “Chord Voicings” →

1 Chord Voicings A chord symbol like Cmaj7 tells you almost nothing about how it should sound. A voicing is the concrete decision that fills in the rest: which notes you actually play, in what orde… voicings & arranging tier 2 →
2 Shell Voicings A shell voicing strips a chord down to the two notes that actually tell you what it is: the 3rd and the 7th. Everything else — the root, the 5th, any extensions — is optional color… voicings & arranging tier 2 →
3 Rootless Voicings Rootless voicings are four-note (sometimes three-note) Chord Voicings that leave out the root entirely, trusting the bassist to supply it. Once you accept that the bass will always… voicings & arranging tier 2 →
4 Drop 2 Voicings Stack a seventh chord in close position — all four notes crammed within an octave — and in the middle of the piano or on guitar it turns to mud: the notes are too close together to… voicings & arranging tier 2 →
5 Block Chords Block chords take a single melody line and dress every note in its own full chord, all moving together in strict rhythm. The effect is that one pianist's two hands suddenly sound l… voicings & arranging tier 3 →
6 Quartal Voicings Quartal voicings are what happens when you throw out thirds and build a chord by stacking fourths instead. Under the hands they feel open and unresolved — no clear major or minor f… voicings & arranging tier 3 →
7 Four-Way Close Four-way close is what happens when you take a single melody line and give each note its own four-note chord, all packed into one octave, all moving in lockstep with the tune. Play… voicings & arranging tier 3 →
8 Harmonizing a Melody Every melody note has to live inside a chord — the question is which chord, and what role the note plays once it's there. Harmonizing a melody means picking, note by note, a stack… voicings & arranging tier 3 →

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