![]() Constructing Rootless Voicings on the 3 Main Chord Types If you’re not familiar with all your chord extensions and the concept of guide tones, then check out Chord Shell and Guide Tone Exercises and Piano Chord Extensions. This is the secret to why rootless voicings give us that rich cocktail jazz sound: the colorful extensions “rubbing” against the 3rd and 7th (the chord’s guide tones). Notice how the notes are very close together and contain colorful extensions, like the 9th. In B voicings, we have the 7th as the lowest note in the voicing: Rootless B voicings contains the 7th bottom as shown on a C minor 7th chord for jazz piano In A voicings, we have the 3rd as the lowest note and then we build the voicing with certain colors above it (discussed in detail in the next section): Rootless A voicing contains the 3rd on the bottom as shown on a C minor 7th chord for jazz piano We generally have two constructions of rootless voicings: A voicings and B voicings. Check out the difference in look and sound between root position and a rootless voicing of a C minor 7th chord below: Root position versus rootless Voicing on a C minor 7th chord for jazz piano The sound of rootless voicings is closely associated with the playing of Bill Evans, known for his rich and introspective jazz ballad piano playing. This not only avoids a conflict with what they’re playing but also opens up ways to more easily add more rich color to our chord voicings. Why would we do that? While it isn’t always the case, many jazz pianists have a saying that the roots should be left to the bass player. ![]() What is a rootless voicing? In the most basic sense, it’s a voicing of any chord where we deliberately leave out the root. How do we do that? How Rootless Voicings Work Now that we’ve got our starting base, how do we take it to the next level and create more richness and depth to our cocktail jazz piano sound? We want to convert our left-hand root position 7th chords into rootless voicings on our jazz ballad. If you’re not familiar with all your root position chords or how to invert them, then check out the Intermediate Piano Foundations Learning Track. This is our starting base for practically any style we choose to then play the music in. ![]() The first step is getting down the melody in the right hand as well as the root position chords written above in the left hand. With the right tools, it will be we need to create a make our beautiful cocktail jazz ballad sound: Melody and chords to be used in our play rootless voicings on our jazz piano ballad lesson In this lesson, we will be using a melody and chord progression called “The Way You Look At Me.” It’s based on the beautiful jazz standard “The Way You Look Tonight,” written by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields.Ĭheck out the lead sheet below which consists of simply the melody and chords. Let’s dive in! Jazz Ballad Melody and Chord Progression If you’ve never used rootless voicings before, this will make a huge difference. Sheet music download and reference on jazz ballad melody and chords and rootless voicings.Ways to practice these different rootless voicings on any chord, in any key, and application on our jazz ballad.How to play rootless voicings on 3 types of chords: Major 7th, Minor 7th, and Dominant 7th.The melody and chords based on a real jazz song often played as a ballad.We will then break down each chord used in this chord progression and how to convert it to a rootless voicing for the jazz ballad. In order to do this, we’ll take a jazz ballad chord progression and melody from a lead sheet. They are critical to getting an authentic and rich jazz piano sound. Do you feel like you can’t quite get that sophisticated cocktail jazz piano sound you might hear at a classy lounge or bar? Or that your chords on a jazz ballad lack the same depth and color as a pro jazz pianist? A key factor to getting it right is using the right chord voicings! In today’s lesson, we’ll be discussing rootless voicings for a jazz piano ballad.
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